Notwithstanding the political boundaries that were successfully concocted by internal clannish and private interests as well as by external hegemonies, the phenomenon of the Social Contract (Ummah), regardless of its constituents or size, still plays a most significant role in propelling hopes for better economic, political and social justice among the disbursed subjects. Such nostalgic hopes turn into apathy and frustration, depending on the prevailing events of the times. If however, the post Arab-Spring experience in Egypt or Libya or Iraq, Yemen or Syria, just to name a few, puts down firm roots over the region, then it goes without saying that a New Middle East, politically and culturally very different from the one we know today, will arise.

A series of French and foreign scholars and researchers have embarked on an effort to approach a phenomenon that has increased in ìpopularityî since 9/11 in western media, academic communities and thinkñtanks; however, it still remains widely ambiguous. Analyses which focus on extremist movements in the Muslim world quite often use the term ìSalafismî along with ìJihadismî, ìWahhabismî and ìextremist Islamî. This kind of mixing of theological, militant and political terms obscures more than it reveals while confusing the reader and intensifying his or hers already troubled perception of the phenomenon under discussion. This work - the first one to approach the Salafist phenomenon under a global prism - sheds light on the course of salafism from its cradle in the Arabian Peninsula to its apparition in the Parisian suburbs, passing by the Middle Eastern world and particularly Morocco.