Michael Schuster, University of Florida
The trajectory of Salafism in Tunisia since the 2011 Jasmine Revolution poses a central paradox for debates about Islamic movements and authoritarian resilience in North Africa.[i] Under President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Salafi activism was largely invisible, repressed into social marginality and deprived of public organizational capacity. Yet in the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Salafi movements rapidly emerged as visible and influential actors, occupying mosques, public spaces, and moral discursive spaces left unattended by both secular elites and Islamist parties. Within only a few years, however, Salafism was largely removed from overt public and institutional arenas. This rapid rise and collapse invites a critical question: how could the same socioreligious current move so quickly from marginality to prominence and back to near-erasure?
By tracing the rise and decline of Tunisian Salafism, this article argues that ideological rigidity or external manipulation alone cannot adequately account for the movement’s trajectory (for a related argument about the Islamist party Ennahda, see Mehrez in this collection). Instead, Salafi mobilization in Tunisia was deeply contingent upon shifting political opportunity structures. The post-revolutionary opening allowed Salafi actors to localize their discourse, integrate social grievances, and present themselves as authentic moral representatives of marginalized constituencies. As polarization intensified and episodes of violence unfolded, state repression dismantled these local networks and foreclosed nonviolent forms of Salafi engagement. The resulting vacuum helped facilitate the penetration of transnational jihadi actors, accelerating Salafism’s delegitimization. Under President Kaïs Saïed’s renewed authoritarianism, Salafism has been simultaneously repressed and discursively absorbed by the state, rendering overt mobilization highly unlikely under current conditions while preserving an environment that may privilege more clandestine or confrontational forms of reemergence by constraining locally embedded, nonviolent networks.
Drawing on the Tunisian case, this paper contributes to scholarship on Islamist movements, authoritarian resilience, and religion–state relations by reframing Salafism not as an inherently oppositional or inevitably violent current, but as a form of moral mobilization whose political expression is shaped by shifting opportunity structures. It also illustrates how Salafi actors localized their discourse and embedded themselves socially during moments of political openness. As securitization intensified and political space contracted, these networks were delegitimized and displaced. In doing so, this article challenges accounts that attribute Salafism’s decline primarily to ideological rigidity or counterterrorism success, and instead highlights the unintended consequences of repression, including transnationalization and the erosion of local nonviolent religious networks. Finally, by analyzing the Saïed regime’s appropriation of moral authority, this article advances a framework for understanding how contemporary authoritarian states neutralize Islamic mobilization not only through coercion but also through discursive absorption that preserves popular moral appeal while foreclosing organizational autonomy (see Abdou in this collection for a related argument about Mauritania). This analysis therefore approaches Salafism not primarily as an ideological category but as a form of moral mobilization whose visibility and political expression are conditioned by changes in state authority, institutional openness, and competing claims to religious legitimacy. Here moral mobilization refers to the translation of doctrinal claims into socially resonant narratives of justice, authenticity, and moral order.
Salafism and the Post-Revolutionary Opening
To understand Salafism’s rapid rise after 2011, it is necessary to situate the movement within the longer trajectory of religious governance under Tunisia’s post-independence regimes. The origins of Tunisian Salafism lie in the 1980s, when divisions within Islamist movements emerged in response to dissatisfaction with al-Ittijah al-Islami. Salafism, however, did not gain substantial traction until the 1990s. During this period the ascent of new media and global satellite systems enabled the circulation of Salafi ideas beyond state control.[ii] At the same time, Tunisians who had previously lived or studied abroad, such as Sheikh al-Khatib al-Idrisi, who would later become the unofficial spiritual guide for Ansar al-Shariah, returned to Tunisia. These returnees possessed an aura of credibility and authenticity to their teachings that attracted Tunisians who distrusted government-appointed religious scholars and institutions.
At the time, the growing autonomy of religious expression beyond control of the state prompted President Ben Ali to seek ways to bolster his regime’s religious credentials and counteract the growing Islamic opposition through the “management of Muslim souls” (gestion des âmes musulmanes). This strategy included, among other measures, opening new Islamic institutions and media outlets in an effort to cultivate “Islamists of the Prince” (islamists du Prince), who were “capable of rallying increasingly large sections of the population to the regime, particularly those seduced by the new Muslim revivalist currents circulating through satellite media.”[iii]
Despite these constraints, Salafi practices persisted within informal networks and private religious spaces, albeit without the institutional capacity required for sustained public mobilization. Accordingly, under Bourguiba’s secularizing reforms as well as Ben Ali’s security-driven governance, independent religious activism was consistently viewed with suspicion. Salafism in Tunisia remained a largely latent religious current, shaped and contained by an authoritarian regime determined to monopolize religious authority. This environment was dramatically altered with the collapse of authoritarian controls following the Jasmine Revolution. Mosques were reopened to non-state actors, censorship weakened, and security services temporarily withdrew from routine surveillance of religious life.[iv] Salafi groups rapidly filled this vacuum, establishing preaching networks and social initiatives that resonated with communities experiencing economic precarity and moral uncertainty while frightening more secular Tunisians who had difficulty understanding the sudden emergence of this new trend.
Contrary to portrayals of Salafism as ideologically inflexible, Tunisian Salafi actors demonstrated considerable adaptability during the post–Jasmine Revolution transition.[v] Salafi individuals and groups such as Ansar al-Shariah selectively integrated elements of social justice discourse, anti-corruption narratives, and nationalist religious references into their messaging. Some Salafis began explicitly challenging the claim that Salafism was incompatible with Tunisian identity, instead arguing that it constituted an authentic expression of Tunisianité. For example, Salafi Sheikh al-Bechir Ben Hassan made this argument in a 2012 speech at the presidential palace in Carthage, delivered at the invitation of President Moncef Marzouki.[vi]
This localization strategy allowed Salafi actors to position themselves as authentic representatives of popular grievances by translating doctrinal claims into locally resonant narratives of injustice, dignity, and moral order that spoke to injustices neglected by both secular parties and al-Nahda’s pragmatic leadership. Likewise, through daʿwah activities, charity distribution, and moral counseling, Salafism provided tangible forms of community support, reinforcing Salafi claims to authenticity and ethical coherence in a fragmented political landscape.[vii]
Polarization, Repression, and Transnationalization
Recognizing Salafism’s growing appeal among Tunisians, al-Nahda, the leading governing force in post-revolutionary Tunisia, initially sought to engage with Salafi actors.[viii] It did so by treating Salafis as legitimate social and political participants, communicating with them much as it would with other Tunisian citizens and socioreligious and political organizations, ultimately opening sociopolitical space. This strategy began to unravel, however, as Ansar al-Shariah’s influence expanded while its leadership increasingly criticized al-Nahda for ideological compromise. In 2013, amid mounting public anxiety and high-profile security incidents, the al-Nahda-led government, reflecting both popular pressure and a political survival strategy, designated Ansar al-Shariah a terrorist organization and shifted from dialogue to repression.[ix]
Al-Nahda’s relationship with Salafism began to resemble its own earlier experience under the Ben Ali regime. What the al-Nahda-led government did not fully anticipate was how the closure of sociopolitical space would reshape patterns of Salafi mobilization. Rather than eliminating the movement, this strategy weakened local nonviolent networks while empowering more confrontational and transnational actors. This dynamic further undermined al-Nahda’s already precarious position within Tunisian politics. As Tunisia’s fragile democratic transition began to unravel, high-profile assassinations and militant attacks intensified public fear and deepened political polarization. Although only a subset of Salafi actors engaged in violence, the state increasingly treated Salafism as a unified security threat.
As sociopolitical space began to close in 2013, Salafism increasingly lost its domestic political purchase. Under these new conditions, three primary trajectories were available for Salafi actors. First, they could endure the crackdown hoping a new opening would present itself that would allow for the reemergence of daʿwah and social activism in the future. Second, they could pursue hijra to Libya or the broader Mashreq, seek asylum, and work to rebuild the movement from afar as Abu Iyad, the former leader of Ansar al-Shariah, who fled to Libya, and Kamel Zarrouk, the second in command, who relocated to Syria. Or, finally, they could remain in Tunisia and pursue direct action against the state through a top-down approach, as bottom-up mobilization was no longer viable. Regardless of the path chosen, the increasing closure of sociopolitical space for local Salafi currents created opportunities for internationally influenced groups and movements who were more inclined towards violence to pursue their goals, such as al-Qaeda-linked Katibat Uqba bin Nafi and Islamic State affiliates in Tunisia.
Consequently, as domestic Salafi networks collapsed, transnational jihadi actors gained greater influence.[x] This transnationalization marked a shift from locally embedded religious activism to deterritorialized militancy. Unlike localized Salafism, these transnational networks prioritized armed struggle over social engagement and displayed limited sensitivity to local Tunisian social realities. Their growing prominence alienated local constituencies and reinforced the association of Salafism with extremism. This shift produced a decline in popular resonance in Tunisia as infatuation transformed into disillusionment and disengagement. Likewise, the gap between Salafi ideological claims and lived reality became increasingly apparent.
In 2015, the escalation of violence associated with transnational Salafi groups had reached such intensity that then-President Beji Caid Essebsi publicly declared Tunisia to be in a “true war situation” (halat harb haqiqiya). He subsequently imposed a renewable thirty-day state of emergency in Tunisia, the first to be officially declared since the Jasmine Revolution, marking a decisive turn towards securitization. Measures enacted under this framework, including the pledge to close approximately eighty mosques, foreshadowed the more comprehensive contraction of sociopolitical space that would later occur under his successor, Kaïs Saïed.[xi]
As a result, expanded state securitization dismantled local Salafi infrastructures, including the closure of mosques and charities that had previously functioned as sites of nonviolent engagement. This repression not only curtailed political participation but also eroded the legitimacy of pragmatic Salafi actors who had attempted to operate within Tunisia’s evolving legal and political framework. Ultimately, these unintended consequences contributed to the erosion of Tunisia’s democratic transition and helped facilitate the conditions for renewed authoritarian consolidation.
Authoritarian Consolidation under Kaïs Saïed
Following the 2011 Tunisian Revolution, religion became a central axis of political pluralism. Islamist movements such as al-Nahda advanced a model of democratic political Islam grounded in constitutional participation and ideological competition. Salafi currents articulated more exclusivist claims to doctrinal authenticity and moral authority. Secular actors, in turn, defended civic nationalism and neutrality of institutions from religious influence. Religion thus operated as an arena of visible contestation in which multiple actors advanced rival imaginaries of the nation’s future.
The political environment that emerged after the mid-2010s further transformed the relationship between religion and state authority in Tunisia. State responses to Salafi activism increasingly shifted from containment toward neutralization. Building on earlier patterns of securitization, this section analyzes how the Saïed regime neutralized Salafi mobilization through a combination of renewed repression and selective appropriation of its moral discourse. Saïed first entered the Tunisian political scene with the support of Harakat al-Mouassissoun, a grassroots movement formed in 2016 that viewed Saïed as a figure capable of realizing the unfilled promises of the revolution and providing what “the people want” (al-shaab ureed). Members of the movement were deeply disillusioned with established political parties, which they believed neither represented the popular will nor upheld the revolutionary ideals of dignity, equality, and justice.
For many Tunisians, socioeconomic conditions had deteriorated since 2011, driven by soaring inflation, persistently high unemployment, entrenched corruption, and legislative gridlock in Bardo. Separately, recurrent outbreaks of violence, often attributed to Salafism, came to dominate public and elite security discourse. As a result, in 2018, when the first local-level elections since the Jasmine Revolution were held, members of this broader coalition running as independents overwhelmingly won. Buoyed by these victories, attention soon shifted toward influencing national politics, particularly the Assembly of the People’s Representatives (Majlis Nuwwab al-Shab).
This trajectory was disrupted in July 2019, when President Essebsi died at the age of ninety-two, just months before scheduled parliamentary elections. His death altered the electoral sequence, placing presidential elections ahead of parliamentary contests and intensifying public focus on identifying a leader capable of steering the country out of crisis. At the same time, Tunisia was facing severe economic strain. Although security conditions had marginally improved compared to the immediate post-2015 period, owing in part to Essebsi’s earlier securitization measures, the overall situation remained exceptional when compared to the pre-Jasmine Revolution era.
On 13 October 2019, Saïed, a fiscal and social conservative outsider with no political affiliation, won a resounding 72.1% of the presidential vote. In ways that parallel the earlier rise of Salafism, Saïed’s populism created an opening for a third actor—himself—to claim direct representation of the popular will. As Margaret Canovan notes, a central element of populism is “an exaltation of and appeal to the people,” a dynamic captured by Saïed’s watchword and popular revolutionary slogan, “the people want.”[xii] Much media commentary has attributed Saïed’s popularity to his outsider status and lack of affiliation with Tunisia’s entrenched political class, a profile that resonated strongly with younger voters. Less frequently examined, however, is the extent to which his conservative moral orientation appealed to constituencies seeking a greater incorporation of Islamic values into public life, an appeal that differed in tone and form from that of al-Nahda. This dual resonance, combining anti-establishment credibility with moral conservatism, helps explain both the breadth and durability of Saïed’s support. Therefore, rather than signaling a Salafi resurgence, Saïed’s project can be understood as a statist appropriation of moral authority that neutralizes Salafi mobilization while preserving its underlying social appeal.
The current political moment in Tunisia illustrates how these earlier dynamics culminated in a strategy of authoritarian consolidation that both represses and discursively absorbs Islamic moral mobilization. Since July 2021, Tunisia has experienced a renewed concentration of power under President Kaïs Saïed following his declaration of extraordinary measures widely characterized as an autogolpe. Reintroducing institutional patterns associated with earlier periods of centralized rule, Saïed has extended the state of emergency and increasingly framed dissenting actors as threats to national sovereignty. Political parties, civil society organizations, and independent religious actors have faced heightened repression, while the expanded freedoms of expression that followed the 2011 revolution have been significantly curtailed. Journalists now confront intensified legal and coercive pressures limiting critical reporting, and social media activity is closely monitored, with citizens being prosecuted under expansive interpretations of public morality.[xiii]
Within this context of institutional consolidation, Saïed’s political discourse frequently invokes Islamic concepts such as justice, trust, divine accountability, and moral purification. Corruption is framed not only as administrative dysfunction but as ethical deviation from a divinely grounded moral order. Yet Saïed does not advocate a programmatic Islamization of legislation. Rather, he positions Islam as a civilizational and ethical reservoir underpinning national authenticity and sovereign renewal. In this framing, the people are imagined as morally coherent, historically rooted, and capable of direct political expression without partisan mediation.
This discursive strategy is inseparable from institutional transformation. Saïed’s suspension of parliament, restructuring of the judiciary, and introduction of a new constitutional framework in 2022 altered the architecture through which religious and political authority intersect. The revised constitution removed the earlier formulation naming Islam as the “religion of the state,” while simultaneously describing Tunisia as part of the Islamic ummah and assigning the state responsibility for realizing the “objectives of Islam.” This shift represents neither simple secularization nor overt Islamization. Instead, it embeds Islamic reference within a centralized executive project, repositioning religion as a moral duty of the state rather than an arena of partisan contestation.
Rather than emphasizing modernization, secularization, Westernization, or the explicit establishment of an Islamic order, Saïed invokes the return to specific Tunisian traditions and understandings of religion. In his public addresses, which frequently employ religiously infused language, Saïed presents his mission as one “sent down to him by God,” thereby redrawing the boundaries between the religious and the secular in ways that consolidate state authority over moral discourse.[xiv] His conservative social rhetoric echoes themes long articulated by Salafi movements, enabling the regime to appropriate elements of Salafi moral vocabulary while denying Salafi actors organizational space. For example, regulatory pressures have made alcohol increasingly difficult to obtain, and many restaurants and nightclubs that flourished after the Jasmine Revolution have since closed. The expansion of rights for homosexuals, an idea briefly flirted with by al-Nahda, is now removed from the policy agenda and many associated advocacy associations have since been banned or shuttered. Through this combination of moral conservatism and institutional repression, the state has effectively neutralized overt Salafi mobilization while preserving its underlying social appeal.
Through Saïed’s reforms, intermediary institutions, particularly political parties, have been weakened, narrowing the channels through which religious identity can be politically mobilized. Access to religious legitimacy becomes increasingly mediated by executive authority. In this sense, inequality manifests not only in socioeconomic terms but also in the narrowing of opportunities to define and institutionalize Islamic reference in public life. Moral sovereignty thus emerges both as an imaginative project and a structural reordering of interpretive power.
Islamist and Salafi actors have responded differently within this altered environment. Al-Nahda’s earlier claim that Islamic reference can coexist with parliamentary pluralism loses institutional footing in a system where parliamentary authority itself is diminished. The movement has increasingly emphasized constitutional procedure and democratic norms, shifting from ideological mobilization toward strategic legalism as its primary mode of political contestation. This repositioning underscores the tension between party-based Islamism and a populist-nationalist appropriation of Islamic legitimacy that bypasses partisan and parliamentary mediation.
Salafi actors face a different dilemma. Saïed’s emphasis on moral rectitude and anti-corruption resonates with longstanding Salafi critiques of political decadence. Yet his consolidation of interpretive and institutional authority contradicts Salafi skepticism toward centralized political power and alternative claims to religious authenticity. The result is a pattern of selective convergence alongside latent contestation. Competing visions of Islamic authority persist, even as the institutional field constrains their articulation.
Overall, political party activity and institutionalized opposition in Tunisia have been systematically constrained through legal frameworks and coercive state mechanisms. Meanwhile, discourses anticipating renewed popular unrest or even a new revolution have gained traction across segments of Tunisian society. Economic hardships, social inequality, and regional disparities—key factors that fueled the Jasmine Revolution and the subsequent rise of Salafism—are deepening once more. Likewise, growing disillusionment among youth with the current regime, coupled with frustration over the country’s future direction, may be creating conditions conducive to new ideological shifts. As Terje Østebø observes, such moments of dislocation can produce ideological openings in which “new alternatives can lead to the discharging of former representatives for social identity and to the production of new orientations.”[xv] Ultimately, it remains an open question whether the renewed closure of sociopolitical space in Tunisia will generate a new phase of Islamic oppositional ideology adapted to authoritarian constraint or increase the likelihood of renewed violent mobilization by groups rooted in Salafi traditions that first emerged in the 1980s seeking to undermine the state’s legitimacy.
Conclusion
The Tunisian case after the Jasmine Revolution illustrates how Salafi mobilization is neither inherently violent nor inevitably political. Rather, its trajectory is shaped by the interaction between ideological adaptation and political opportunity structures. In Tunisia, Salafi actors reconfigured their identity, practices, and strategies to align with local specificities, significantly expanding their influence. Yet as sociopolitical space tightened, segments of the Salafi movement responded by adopting a more rigid and exclusionary posture, a shift that coincided with increased violence. These findings therefore challenge reductionist portrayals of religious movements as monolithic, highlighting their capacity for transformation in response to shifting political constraints and the pressures of modernity.
These transformations unfolded alongside a broader shift in Tunisia’s political order, from competitive religious pluralism that emerged after the Jasmine Revolution toward a centralized moral nationalism that seeks to define the ethical boundaries of the state. Yet this process remains incomplete and contested. Islamists, Salafists, and other actors continue to articulate alternative futures grounded in competing understandings of sovereignty, community, and moral order. The struggle over Islamic language is therefore also a struggle over who has the authority to define the moral boundaries of the nation.
Although repression has temporarily pushed Salafism out of public life, the structural conditions and underlying drivers that facilitated its rise remain unresolved. Therefore, as long as peaceful avenues for participation remain closed, any future reemergence of Salafi activism in Tunisia may increase the risk of renewed social conflict and violence. This dynamic underscores the long-term risks of political exclusion and authoritarian consolidation, while pointing to the necessity of inclusive engagement as a means of mitigating radicalization.
More broadly, the Tunisian case demonstrates that the trajectory of Islamic movements cannot be understood apart from the institutional environments that structure participation. Contemporary authoritarian regimes may neutralize religious opposition not only through repression, but through the selective appropriation of its moral claims. By incorporating elements of religious discourse while restricting organizational autonomy, such regimes transform religion from a field of political contestation into a state-managed source of moral legitimacy. While this strategy may produce short-term stability, it also preserves the structural conditions that can generate future cycles of religious mobilization and conflict.
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Muhadarat al-Bechir Ben Hassan. Presidential Palace, 2012.
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[i] Salafism refers to a Sunni Islamic reform movement that advocates a return to the practices and beliefs of al-salaf al-salih (the pious ancestors), generally understood as the first three generations of Muslims who lived closest to the Prophet Muhammad. The term itself is a modern scholarly neologism derived from the Arabic salaf (ancestors). Salafis regard these early generations as the most authentic interpreters of Islam and therefore seek to emulate their understanding of doctrine and practice.
[ii] Zelin, Your Sons Are at Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, 39.
[iii] Geisser and Gobe, “Un si long règne… Le régime de Ben Ali vingt ans après.”
[iv] Wolf, “The Radicalization of Tunisia’s Mosques.”
[v] See, e.g., Cavatorta and Merone (2016); Blanc and Roy (2021), which emphasize the adaptability and localization of Salafi movements.
[vi] Muhadarat al-Bechir Ben Hassan.
[vii] Zelin, Your Sons Are at Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, 128–29.
[viii] Zelin, Your Sons Are at Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, 99; Reuters, “Tunisian Islamist Leader Says Salafis Must Not Be Demonized.”
[ix] Zelin, Your Sons Are at Your Service: Tunisia’s Missionaries of Jihad, 176.
[x] Merone, “Between Social Contention and Takfirism,” 83.
[xi] Markey and Amara, “Tunisia’s President Declares State of Emergency after Hotel Attack.”
[xii] Marzouki and McDonnell, “Populism and Religion,” 3.
[xiii] “Tunisia”; Ben Hamadi, “For Influencers in Tunisia, Respect for ‘public Decency’ or Prison.”
[xiv] Desrues and Gobe, “Kais Saied’s Governance.”
[xv] Østebø, Localising Salafism, 42.