Dr. Daniel Lav

Hebrew University

Bio

I am a senior lecturer in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. My primary area of research is Islamic theology with a particular emphasis on the salafī tradition of Sunnī Islam, from Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328 C.E.) to present-day salafī movements. To date my principal contributions to the research literature are two books: Radical Islam and the Revival of Medieval Theology (Cambridge, 2012) and Salafī Political Theology (Cambridge, 2025).

Anti-Colonial Precedents in the Salafī Condemnation of Man-Made Law

Abstract

In the paper “Anti-Colonial Precedents in the Salafī Condemnation of Man-Made Law“ I discuss how a fatwa by the Egyptian anti-salafī scholar Yūsuf al-Dijwī (d. 1946 C.E.) is cited and repurposed by later salafī authors. Al-Dijwī’s original ruling forbade Tunisians from applying for French citizenship on grounds relating to theonomy and ‘allegiance and disavowal‘ – precisely the themes that radical salafīs regularly sound in condemnation of the allegedly infidel governments of the Muslim world.