4 QUIETIST ‘SCHOLASTIC’ SALAFISM IN MOROCCO SINCE THE ARAB SPRING Guy Robert Eyre T he popular uprisings that swept through Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya in 2011 and 2012 also swept through Morocco, leading to the unprecedented nationwide ‘20 February’ protests. ese protests also marked the beginning of new evolutions within Morocco’s Sala community 1 – Salas, who had essentially been banned from the public sphere by the Moroccan regime since the 2003 Casablanca bombings (orchestrated by jihadi-Salas), quickly resurfaced as signicant players. Many former Sala-jihadi leaders, whom the Moroccan regime released from prison between 2011 and 2013, 2 took advantage of the new (albeit limited) political openings. Some began to ocially support the palace and the new ‘democratic process’ after years of rejecting the monarchy’s legitimacy and espousing violent insurrection. Several prominent Sala shuyūkh publicly endorsed the main Islamist party in the country, the ‘Justice and Development Party’ (Hizb al-Adala wa-l- Tanmiya – henceforth, PJD). Others (including Shaykhs Abou Hafs and Abdelkarim al-Chadli) joined the smaller Islamist ‘Renaissance and Virtue Party’ (Hizb al-Nahda wa-l-Fadila) and called on Salas to join existing legal political parties 3 in order to engage in party politics. Several other more ‘activ- ist’ Sala leaders (most notably Mohammed Fizazi) continued to campaign for the establishment of a rst Moroccan Sala political party, modelled on the Egyptian al-Nour Party. 4 is chapter contributes to the growing scholarship that demonstrates