Podcast Series: Rethinking Contemporary Islamic Movements in and across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa

In this first episode of the series, Iman Dawood and Guy Eyre speak to Saida Ounissi about her personal experience as a prominent political figure within, and as a researcher of, Tunisia’s post-2011 political scene and the Islam-oriented Ennahda party in particular. In particular, Saida discusses how Ennahda navigated the opportunities and challenges of post-2011 Tunisia. She also explores the causes of the 2021 coup, enacted by the populist outsider, Kais Saied, and its consequences for Tunisia and the Ennahda party.

Born in Tunisia, Saida Ounissi and her family fled the Ben Ali dictatorship in Tunisia for France in 1993. In France, she gained a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Paris 1 and a Master’s degree from the Institute for the Study of Economic and Social Development. She also began a doctoral thesis on social policies in Tunisia in 2011. She subsequently became an executive member of, and international spokesperson for, the Ennahda Party following the its national congress in May 2016. Later that year, she was recruited by the then-Tunisian Prime Minister, Youssef Chahed, to the new Cabinet as Secretary of State in the Ministry of Employment and Vocational Training. In 2018, she became the Tunisian Minister for Employment and Vocational Training, becoming the youngest minister in Tunisia. Since the dissolution of the parliament in July 2021, Saida is committed to the restoration of democracy in Tunisia through her involvement in the anti-coup movement. She is professionally an independent consultant in public affairs and political economy.

In this episode of the series, Guy Eyre speaks to Dr. Bilal Talidi about the Party of Justice and Development (ḥizb al-‘Adāla wa-l-Tanmīyya, or PJD), a prominent Islam-oriented political party in Morocco. He discusses the PJD’s unprecedented electoral successes in 2011 and 2016 that catapulted it to the head of government. Bilal also examines the reasons behind the PJD’s remarkable electoral loss in 2021 and the consequences of capitulation on the party and its internal politics. Finally, he considers the politics of a second, Islam-oriented, trend in the country, known as “Salafism”. Historically opposed to institutional and oppositional politics, some Salafi figures in the country, however, have politicised since 2011 in the face of new political openings and subsequent political closures. 

Dr. Bilal Talidi holds a PhD in Islamic studies. His doctoral thesis focused on Islamist movements in the Arab world and Pakistan. Today, he lectures on Islamist politics at a number of Moroccan universities and writes weekly for Al-Quds al-‘Araby and Araby 21. He has also published several studies of Islamic movements, including Islamist parties, since the 2010-12 “Arab Uprisings”. Further, he has published two books on Islamists and USA-based think tanks, including the RAND. Between 2008-2010, he also published four volumes on the history of Islamic movements in Morocco. Whilst Bilal is a member of the national council of the PJD, he has more recently taken a distance from the party to focus on his research career.

In this episode of the series, Iman Dawood and Guy Eyre speak to Théo Blanc about his research on Salafi groups in Tunisia. Théo reflects on his experiences studying Salafism in North Africa, and in Tunisia in particular. He also discusses the main Salafi currents that emerged in Tunisia following the 2011 “Arab Uprisings” and the formation of “post-Salafi” currents in the country. Further, he considers the extent to which these shifts within Tunisian Salafism are part of broader transformations unfolding elsewhere in the region.

Théo Blanc is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the ERC-funded project MENA-PERC (Political Elites and Regime Change in the Middle East and North Africa) based at Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa). He is also a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute. He received a Ph.D in social and political sciences from the European University Institute (EUI, Florence)in June 2023. This thesis addressed the genealogy of Salafi currents in Tunisia and their political trajectories before and after the 2010/11 revolution.

In this episode of the series, Iman Dawood and Guy Eyre speak to Arndt Emmerich about his experiences researching Salafism in Germany. Arndt reflects on new changes occurring within Salafi communities in Germany and comments on how these changes relate to broader developments within Salafism in other Western, Muslim-minority contexts, and globally. 

Arndt Emmerich is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Hertfordshire and a Guest Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. His research interest is in the governance of religious diversity, the sociology of religion and interreligious encounters.

On 6 March 2024, the Centre for Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge hosted a one day symposium bringing together scholars, activists and community leaders to discuss transnational Islamic movements within & across the Middle East & Europe. In this short concluding session, Masooda Bano (Univeristy of Oxford), Joas Wagemakers (Utrecht University), Mark Sedgwick (Aarhus University) and Théo Blanc (European University Institute) reflect on the day's discussions and offer thoughts on next steps for research.