HISTORY OF ALGERIA

The Association of the Algerian Muslim Ulemas

The Association of the Algerian Muslim Ulemas was created in May 5, 1931 in Constantine and included all the Ulemas (Scholars and men of religion) of Algeria under the leadership of Sheikh Abdelhamis Ibn Badis.

Ibn Badis was accompanied by other sheikhs, Sheikh Tayeb El-Okbi, Sheikh Mohamed Bachir El Ibrahimi, Sheikh Moubarak El Mili, Sheikh Larbi Tebessi as well as poet Mohamed Laid Al Khalifa and others.

Their reformist program was focused on religious and cultural aspects aimed at protecting the cultural and religious identity of the Algerian people from the colonial attempts to deculturation and disguise of Algerian Islam. The Muslim Algerian Eulemas have fought against religious obscurantism, superstition and fetishism.

They have also succeeded in restoring the Algerian Islamic community by facing and removing the risks of confessional cleavages between the different rites of Islam to create a single bloc of Algerian Muslims united around a moderate Sunni Malekite Islam imbued with an Arabic-speaking and Berber-speaking culture.

The Association of Oulemas has consolidated the political character of its activities through its demands and commitments in public life, particularly with regard to the defense of the Algerian identity and heritage represented by the social, cultural and worship history of Algeria.

Within the national movement, the Association‘s actions have „rapidly gained momentum through its offices, schools and sympathizers which have multiplied throughout the national territory, important slots in the program of the Association to liberate the spirits of Westernization led by the French Administration and the ignorance maintained and propagated by heretical Marabouts“.