Salafism is regarded as an ultra-conservative or fundamentalist movement in modern Islam, which strives for a spiritual return and is characterised by exclusive forms of textual authority and devotional purity. Simeon Evstatiev sees Salafism as a complex transnational movement that did not emerge out of nowhere, but is based on predecessors in the provinces of the former Ottoman Empire. In his lecture, Dr Evstatiev outlines an ethnography of Salafism from the Balkans to the Middle East in order to answer the question: Why does a Muslim choose Salafism over other alternatives?
Simeon Evstatiev's research project "Taking Charge of Faith: Salafism and the Balkans" was funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation as part of the special programme Islam and documented in a L.I.S.A.Video series.