Until 2011, Salafimovement held itself aloof from politics. However, Arab Spring resulted in an opportunity to create their own political parties. Egyptian Salafists were the first to follow this path after the fall of the Hosni Mubarak regime. The emergence of these parties proved to be beneficial for the development of Arab democracy. By their convictions, the Salafists are extremely conservative and more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite its conservatism, the political force used peaceful means to fight for change, attracted a significant part of Arab society to participate in legal politics, and also added diversity to the spectrum of Islamist parties, preventing any one force from claiming that it represented the entire Muslim community. But soon the rise in popularity of jihadist organizations, which call to fight for the implementation of Islamist ideas not by legal political, but by violent methods, undermined the influence of Salafiparties. In addition, discrediting of the Salafimovement was largely influenced by Saudi policy, the main purpose of which was to counter the Muslim Brotherhood inside Egypt. As a result, most of the ultra-conservative forces became Wahhabi, which led to discord within the Egyptian Salafists. The one part of the movement, which continued to support the Brothers, suffered a political defeat with them after the 2013 military coup. The other part, which sided with the military elite, as a result of these actions completely lost support among the population. This article analyzes the process of the Salafimovement entering the political arena in Egypt, the dynamics of its relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and the ideological differences between them. The article also examines the influence of Saudi Arabia on Egyptian Salafism and explains the main differences between Salafism and Wahhabism in the context of this influence.

Al-Mawardi’s theory of the caliphate and its connection to the contemporary Islamism

The article presents the concept of the caliphate of theologian and jurist at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries, Al-Mawardi, based on his work Al-Ahkam as-sultaniyya and the socio-political nature of the period of the Abbasid dynasty, which was the context of its creation. Based on a detailed analysis of Al-Mawardi’s views on political power in Islam (traditional caliphate), the author’s aim was to show the connection of this theory with selected elements of the contemporary ideology of Islamism, and thus attempt to answer the question about the continuity of Muslim political thought. Considering the changes of the caliphate in times of Al-Mawardi, but also in later periods, including the ones that occurred in the Islamic world after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the author argues that views on power in Islam were conditioned by a complex socio-political context, which was influenced by factors internal and external to the world of Islam. Discussed theory of Al-Mawardi’s caliphate constitutes the basis for the search for analogies in the political doctrine of contemporary Islamic reformers and the ideology of Islamism, which in turn allows Al-Mawardi’s views to be considered appropriate also for the contemporary concept of power in Islam.