Rabi’ al-Madkhali, one of the major figures of international Salafism, died on 9 July 2025 in Saudi Arabia at the age of 93. His death was announced on X by his son Omar. His funeral, held the next day in Medina, brought together thousands of sympathisers in the al-Baqi cemetery next to the mosque of the Prophet, Islam’s second most sacred site.
Born in 1932 in the far south-west of Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen, Rabi’ al-Madkhali gave his name to an influential current of modern Sunni Islam: the Salafism known as “madkhalism”. It is known for its doctrinal rigidity and unflagging loyalty to the State, based on a religiously-justified apolitical stance. Opposing those in power, he argued in substance, could only produce chaos and division, making the environment unsuitable for religious practice as prescribed by the Qoran and the prophetic tradition, the hadith.
In this context, the priority for a Muslim, in this world, was to respect the principles of veneration of a single God. Goals such as social justice or freedom were, in his view, secondary - if not self-defeating. From the suburbs of France to the palaces of Riyadh, Madkhalism became, from the 1980s onward, the very embodiment of Salafism.
An ideology of purity
Aside from that desire to steer clear of opposition politics, the movement founded by Rabi’ al-Madkhali is marked by its habit of directing outright criticism at its religious adversaries. In his many writings, al-Madkhali denounces what he sees as the compromises which the Sufis, Shia, and Jihadists have made with a godless society or their conspicuous departures from the Qoranic message. Without actually pronouncing their excommunication (takfir) - a key initiative in the Jihadists’ doctrine, in particular with Sayyid Qutb, a radical figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, despised by the Salafis - al-Madkhali nevertheless had the habit of fuelling controversies. This activity, founded on a perfect mastery of the hadiths, had made him somewhat popular among the younger generation of Salafis. They appreciated his strong opinions and his uncompromising repartee, distributed originally in pamphlet form, then in audio tapes and now available on the Internet. Madkhalism, meant to emulate the earliest generations of Muslims, rested on a logic of purity, based in turn upon an inter-peer emulation. Dress-code, beards, formalism of prayer and worship, segregation of the sexes, rejection of music and photography still constitute valued markers. Thus, photos of al-Madkhali are rare, there are only a few stolen snapshots which keep alive a special aura, an other-wordly charisma.
Relaying the Ambitions of Saudi Arabia
Rabi’ al-Madkhali was able to work along behind the Saudi ambition of spreading Salafism to the rest of the world. He also profited from various forms of generosity and a certain benevolence on the part of the monarchy - for which he showed proper gratitude. Schooled first in the traditional institutions, then at the prestigious Islamic University in Medina - founded by the Saudi authorities in 1961 - he later taught there as a professor of hadith studies.
Though overshadowed by the official Saudi Ulema, among them Abdelaziz Ibn Baz (died 1999) and Mohamed al-Uthyamin (died 2001), but also the more independent Albanian-born Muhammad al-Albani (died 1999), he had nonetheless transmitted his teachings to a number of students, notably some from abroad. Returning to their countries of origin, these had played an important role in the structuring of Salafism on a transnational level. His treatise The necessity of conforming to the understanding of the Salaf, but also Protection against the dangers found in the books of Sayyid Qutb are still being translated and widely distributed.
Al-Madkhali’s tough stand against certain efforts to politicise Salafism in the 1990s - promoted for example by the Kuwait-based Syrian Mohammed Sourour - made him very popular. However, contrary to Ibn Baz, for example, he was not directly associated with the Saudi religious institution. Thus he did not sit on the official high committee of the Ulema. His utterances preserved an illusion of independence, assuring him a certain influence.
In contrast to al-Albani, who in the nineties had expressed a very qualified attachment to the Palestinian cause, al-Madkhali remained openly supportive of the Palestinian struggle, despite certain criticisms aimed in particular at Hamas. At times he also made anti-Semitic allusions, as in a pamphlet published in the year 2000, Warning cry to an angry people. Nonetheless, he had warned against the counterproductive effects of resorting to the use of violence, which his Islamist adversaries interpreted as a form of defeatism in the face of the Israeli occupation.
Sidelined
Gradually, however, his ideological intransigence and dogmatism begun to pall. Such was the case within the Saudi power structure, where there was a growing preference for a particular form of authoritarian pragmatism, divested of any religious ideology qualified as Salafi or Wahhabi. After 2015, Saudi Arabia’s new ambitions, promoted in particular by Mohammed Bin Salman, gradually sidelined the Salafis, disciples of Madkhali or not, as well as the Sunni Islamists in general. As for Rabi’ al-Madkhali himself, he was no longer active except within the context of the controversies inside Salafism, distributing blame or certificates of purity to his fellow believers.
The Islamists most critical of the powers that be were subject to physical repression, like Salman al-Auda, gaoled in the context of the crisis with Qatar that began in 2017. As for the Salafis who were followers of Madkhali, they were simply marginalised, seemingly protected by their constant insistence on obedience to the power structure. At the same time they were losing ground in society, as they no longer benefitted from the professional opportunities formerly open to al-Madkhali’s ex-students via the religious police, which no longer exists.
In a transnational perspective, the Salafis - disciples of al-Madkhali and all those directly involved with state institutions - were also deprived of the leverage represented by the innumerable humanitarian and religious associations financed by the state as well as the various televisual media. All these structures had served for decades to relay the Kingdom’s foreign policy in its effort to export a “Saudi-style” Islam, an effort that was more or less successful. Rabi’ al-Madkhali’s fate is thus emblematic of the transformations in the Muslim religious world over the last decade. Today the Salafis haven’t given up the struggle, but they have had to reinvent themselves, as have the Muslim Brotherhood.
New ally for Abu Dhabi
In this context, over the last decade the Madkhalis have found a new regional ally: the United Arab Emirates. In Libya, in Sudan and in Yemen, figures associated with Madkhalism have emerged in the past ten years. They have made their mark both as major military allies of Abu Dhabi and as rivals of the power structures generated - to a greater or lesser extent - by the “Arab Spring”, often identified with the Muslim Brotherhood.
In Eastern Libya, Marshall Khalifa Haftar has depended on fighters with ties to Madkhalism, forming militias led by Ashraf Maiar and Abderaouf Kara. In Sudan, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, aka Hemetti, who began the war against the Khartoum government in 2023, enrolled Salafi troops with the approval of the UAE and in coordination with Khalifa Haftar. Among the leaders of the Southern Movement in Yemen, Hani Ben Brik is a former pupil of Rabi’ al-Madkhali and an active proponent of Emirati foreign policy. He played a major role in the struggle against the Houthis in Aden in 2015, then against the Saudi-backed internationally-recognised government.
The military involvement of the Salafis in these different wars is all the more interesting for the Emirates because their fighters do not engage in politics and simply preach loyalty to the powers that be. Disregarding the religious aspect of the Madkhalist rhetoric and adopting the adage “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, the Emirati strategy passes largely unnoticed. It seems all the less criticized by the UAE’s Western allies, obsessed as they are by the Muslim Brotherhood, because they have only a vague understanding of Salafism and its internal divisions.
The French government’s recent offensive against the Muslim Brotherhood following the publication in May 2025 of a report on “Brotherhood penetration” is a telling example. However, experts on the French Muslim arena such as Frank Fregosi or Margot Dazey, both research fellows with the CNRS, tend rather to emphasise the gradual marginalisation of the actors close to the Brotherhood and, quite the reverse, the increasing weight of Salafism and its norms.
Madkhalism has no doubt lost ground in Arab political circles, but it remains a genuine source of real influence, including in Europe and among the younger generations. Its devotees among athletes or certain singers are not negligible either, and are often badly understood. The logic of purity inherent in Madkhali Salafism is well-suited to a period obsessed everywhere with the logic of identity.
Orphaned Sunnism
Finally, the death of Rabi’ al-Madkhali at a venerable age highlights a crisis of leadership. The demise of transnational Sunni figures – be they controversial or polarizing – seems to signify the end of a cycle during which certain clerics still managed to transcend national contexts. Youssef al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher, died in Qatar in 2022 at the age of 96. In Gaza, the assassination of Hamas leaders since 2022 has magnified the tendency.
Other Saudi preachers are kept out of the limelight and lack credibility. Such is the case for example with Abdul Rahman al-Sudais (born in 1960), the imam of Mecca, or Abdelaziz Bin Abdallah al-Sheikh (born in 1943), Grand Mufti of the Kingdom. The same is true of the Turkish clerics, rendered invisible, just like the Egyptians and the Tunisians, gaoled or discredited.
The crisis of the Islamist movements is also due to the paucity of figures whose popularity could make them untouchable even by authoritarian states. The so-called jihadist scene has also become opaque and scarcely comprehensible.
The role of the internet to the contrary, the repression, the physical eliminations, the passing of time and the fragmentation - furthered by the internal controversies among Salafis - and the state control of the media, have robbed Sunnism of any genuine political expression or any prominent media figures. The absence of these mentors stands in sharp contrast to the continued presence of influential figures among the Shi’a, the Ibadis and some Sufi movements. Prominent among these are the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamene’i (born in 1939), the Mufti of Oman, Ahmed al-Khalili (born in 1942), as well as Ali al-Jifri (born in 1971), a leading figure of the Ba Alawiyya brotherhood, followers of a version of Islam centred on spirituality and personal development. The fact remains that these figures are often themselves quite elderly and represent minority currents of Islam.
This leadership crisis, contrary to the belief of rulers who often restrict religious circles in Muslim societies, is no guarantee of stability or peace. In any case, it does away neither with discontent nor with the capacity of Islam to act as a channel for expression and mobilisation.
Translated from French by Noël Burch
