Empirical Research on Salafism

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“Herausforderungen der empirischen Forschung zu Salafismus. Bestandsaufnahme und kritische Kommentierung der Datenlage” (Empirical Research on Salafism. A critical Evaluation of the State of the Art) – a publication by Riem Spielhaus, Klaus Hummel and Melanie Kamp (2016).

Salafism in Germany is shifting into the public focus more and more. Claims for numbers and hard facts are getting louder: How many salafists live in Germany? How many salafist communities do exist? What kind of data is already available and where are the numbers coming from, which are frequently used by the press, in politics and in science?
The report addresses these questions as well as the political, ethnical and methodological challenges of data collection and data analysis in this area. It is concluded by recommendations for the media, science and politics.