A New Synthesis: Muhammad Surūr and Salafī Islam in Saudi Arabia

Abstract Muḥammad Surūr Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn founded the Islamist trend that later came to be known as al-Surūriyya . Surūr’s influential ideology dominated the intellectual and religious spectrum of Saudi Arabia during the 1980s and 1990s and is still prevalent in the Muslim world. The popularity of Surūr’s ideas is rooted in his particularly creative approach to combining elements of two of the most influential forces in twentieth-century Islamic life: the Salafī creed and the political views of the Muslim Brotherhood. Drawing on Surūr’s corpus of political and religious writings, journalistic work, and a series of seven recorded television interviews with Surūr as well as writings of other Salafīs, especially his opponent, this article demonstrates that Surūr infused the political activism of the Muslim Brotherhood into Wahhābī traditions, staking out a popular, yet perilous, Salafī synthesis that placed his movement at odds with the Muslim Brotherhood, quietist Salafīs and the Saudi state alike.