Algeria

Algeria, centrally located in North Africa and at the cultural crossroads of the Mediterranean, has been affected by Christianity and Islam over the course of the past 1,500 years. The area that now constitutes Algeria had been converted to Christianity during the second century CE. One of the most important and influential thinkers in the early Christian church, St. Augustine of Hippo, was born near modern-day Annaba (Hippo Regius) in 354 CE, and the ancient city of Carthage played an important role in the development of early Christianity. Over the course of the seventh to ninth centuries, the Berber population of Algeria converted/reverted to Islam. While Ibadi and Shi'a Islam were prevalent at various points during this early period of Islamization, eventually the population became largely Sunnī Mālikī Muslims.

While religion had a long history of significance in the identity and politics of the region that came to be known as Algeria, it played a particularly important role after the French colonization (1830) and in the emergence of an independent Algerian state (1962). The (re)birth of Algerian nationalism during World War I and in the interwar period [Page 30]was in part due to the efforts of the Union of the Ulema, which, along with other strands of nationalist agitation, emphasized religion as a key difference between European Colons settlers and the indigenous population. During the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962), the line between socialist nationalism and religion was blurred, and members of the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN; “National Liberation Army”) became known as mujahideen. The power of this moral basis of struggle against French colonial oppression was apparent even for secular Marxist Algerian nationalists. During this period, nationalists regularly referred to broader conceptions of jihad and historiographies of the Crusades, all of which created a combustible context for radicalization among Algerians.

More recently, Algeria suffered from a particularly brutal civil war, ostensibly fought between a largely secular state and Islamists who challenged the political status quo. The Algerian state had been subjected to Islamist challenges almost from the time of its establishment, in the form of Al Qiyam (1964, lit. “values”), which demanded a greater role for Islam in politics. During the 1980s, a militant Islamist challenge to the secular regime, in the shape of the Algerian Islamic Armed movement (led by a former ALN fighter), though small and not very popular, was a precursor to subsequent larger and popular challenges to the one party rule of the Partie de Front de Libération Nationale (PFLN; “Party of the National Liberation Front”). Political liberalization in the late 1980s to early 1990s saw a proliferation of Algerian political parties, with one of the most popular opposition groups coming from the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS; “Islamic Front for Salvation”). In the wake of the election success of FIS in 1991, the government, after army intervention, banned the party, and this led to the Algerian civil war, during which 200,000 Algerians were killed. The civil war mostly concluded in 1999 with a declaration of amnesty by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The role of Islam in politics remains a highly charged issue in contemporary Algeria.

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