Much of the explanation as to how the militant Salafist identity arose lies with changing social structures, with a particularly strong role played by media and movement. However, everyone in the West faces those very same forces, and yet the numbers who proceed to militancy are very small indeed. What accounts for the majority being entirely unpersuaded by militancy, whilst a small number are willing to live and die in its name?

It is, I suspect, in trying to answer this question that many people claim that alienation plays a significant role. Instead, the answer is that the militant Salafist ideology is constructed on beliefs held by non-militant Muslims. Whilst requiring innovation on the part of militants, and extolling a violence rejected by the majority, the beliefs and identifications that lie at the heart of militant Salafism are not grasped from the ether, but morph from existing Muslim communities. For understandable reasons (usually the prospect of the castigation of Muslim communities by those who know least about them), this is a view that is not always welcomed, but it is appropriate. An emergence from a broader society is common to all political actors and necessitates an examination of those broader narratives. The argument as it relates to militant Salafism is that there is an Islamic cultural milieu, one that is accepting of particular narratives. The militant Salafist adapts and innovates these narratives to produce a plan of political and religious action.