A Brief History of Lebanon's Salafites (Backgrounder: Lebanon-Salafites‪)‬

Salafism in Lebanon was founded in the early 1950s by Sheikh Salem Shahhal, father of current leader Da'ai al-Islam and father-in-law of breakaway leader Hassan Shahhal. The first Salafite movement was called Shabab Mohammad (Youth of Mohammad, after Islam's founder, the Prophet Mohammad) and was based in the elder Shahhal's hometown, the northern port city of Tripoli. Salafism (from Arabic salaf or ancestors) is a Sunni school of thought that takes the pious ancestors of early Islam as exemplary models. Salafites view the practices of the first three generations of Muslims, who were the Prophet Mohammad's companions and the two succeeding generations, as examples of how Islam should be practiced.