This paper deals the history the Sufi -Salafi conflict in the context of South Wollo of Ethiopia from 1991 to 2017, with an emphasis on the post 2011 development of the Muslim community. The research dominantly depends on empirical data collected in the summer of 2017, and few secondary and internet sources are also consulted. The survival and ascendancy of the Salafi preaching in Sufi dominated South Wollo could be realized due to the steady and systematic preaching of the former targeting on active sections of the Muslim community such as the youth, the merchant class and educated urban Muslims at least for about two decades. The post 2011 South Wollo witnessed the decline of the Salafi predominance due to structural measures of the government under the guise of combating religious extremism.

Keywords: Sufi, Salafi, conflict, religious tolerance and religious purification