How and when do Nigerian graduates of the Islamic University of Medina (IUM) refer to their studies in Saudi Arabia? In what contexts do these graduates invoke the authority of prominent contemporary Saudi and Middle Eastern religious thinkers? This chapter discusses a network of Salafi leaders in Kano, northern Nigeria, many of whom graduated from IUM. They are not the only graduates of IUM in Kano, and not all Nigerian graduates of IUM are Salafis. But this network is notable for its wide youth following, strong media presence, and its ability to provoke religious and political controversy. The members of this network refer to themselves as “Ahl al-Sunna wa-al-Jamaca” (Arabic: The People of the Prophetic Model and the Muslim Community, hereafter “Ahlussunnah”). Non-Salafi Sunni Muslims, including Sufis with whom Salafis have sometimes debated, also use this phrase to describe their religious affiliations. For many Salafis in Kano, however, the label “Ahlussunnah” carries a specific connotation. It stresses what they see as the universal applicability and necessity, across time and space, of the Salafi view of what it means to be Muslim.

The word “Salafism” derives from the Arabic salaf, or “pious ancestors”: the companions of the Prophet Muhammad and the next two generations of Muslims. Following Thomas Hegghammer, I treat Salafism as a “theological, not a political category”. Salafi theology, as elucidated by Bernard Haykel, includes a conviction that the Qur?an and sunna (the model of conduct established by the Prophet, as articulated through hadith reports) provide a universal model of orthopraxis and an emphasis on the notion of tawhīd, or the unicity of God. Salafis oppose Shicism and denounce certain esoteric beliefs and ritual practices, including some associated with Sufi orders.

As Hegghammer points out, there is an identifiable “Salafi intellectual posture” and “a set of Salafi intellectual traditions”. The Salafi intellectual posture includes a set of methodologies for distinguishing strong versus weak hadiths and for elevating strong hadiths above other sources of legal thought, even the established rulings of traditional Sunni legal schools.