About the seminar: This seminar will be based on Stéphane Lacroix's recent book which came out in August 2025, Twilight of the Saints: The History and Politics of Salafism in Contemporary Egypt (Columbia University Press, 2025).
In scarcely a century, Salafism has transformed Sunni Islam. Claiming to be a revival of the purest form of Islam, this movement promotes ultraconservative social and religious norms and rejects all non-Sunni religious groups. In Egypt, its influence has grown to the point of reshaping mainstream conceptions of the faith. How did such a deep religious transformation sweep through Egypt so rapidly? What is the significance of Salafism for the country’s political scene, both before and after Hosni Mubarak fell from power in 2011?
Stéphane Lacroix is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Sciences Po, a senior researcher at Sciences Po’s Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) and the co-director of Sciences Po's Chair for the study of religion.
His work deals with religion and politics, with a focus on the Gulf and Egypt. He is the author of Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia (Harvard University Press, 2011), Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change (Cambridge University Press, 2015, with B.Haykel and T. Hegghammer), Egypt's Revolutions: Politics, Religion, Social Movements (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, with B. Rougier), Revisiting the Arab Uprisings: The Politics of a Revolutionary Moment (Oxford University Press, 2018, with J.-P. Filiu) and Twilight of the Saints: The History and Politics of Salafism in Contemporary Egypt (Columbia University Press, 2025).
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