"This paper examines Azerbaijani Salafis’ engagement with the new media technologies. Our main research questions are: how do Salafis use digital or Internet media, what are the outcomes of this interaction, and what styles of communication do Salafis employ in their cyber engagements? Salafis in Azerbaijan are deprived of state support and do not possess institutional power. Salafi leaders have lost their access to mosques, and therefore their channels of communication with society and the scope of their preaching became severely limited. Under such conditions of structural restrictions and exclusion from public space, the Internet ofers many invaluable opportunities for Salafism. Since 2008 (with the closure of the Abu Bakr mosque, the main center of Salafi preaching), the Internet has become an important sphere for the transmission of Salafi knowledge, multi-level communication with society and authorities, disputes with rival religious groups, and the construction of religious authority." (Introduction)