International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 41

Know What You Are Fighting
Algeria, its Own Brand of Salafism
Compared with other extremist movements, Algerian extremism is quite
unique. At first neo-Salafist, in reference to Sayyd Qotb, Hassan El Banna, and
Wahhabism, this movement later moved away from these trends and beliefs and, in the
early 1990s, proclaimed itself the sole standard bearer of Salafism in the world. The
victorious sect, as the Islamic Armed Group (GIA) presented itself, did not hesitate to
criticize the fathers of the Salafism it once defended.
The Egyptian “reformists,” Sayyd Qotb, Hassan El Banna, and even the
Algerian philosopher Malek Bennabi, were thus excommunicated and condemned for
apostasy. 21 The GIA considered the leaders of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) to be
Djazarists, 22 “dialoguers,” or simply traitors. Fayçal B., a GIA activist and assassin
of Abdelkader Hachani (head of the executive office of the ex-FIS) justified his act
by saying that the Djazarists were all traitors, people to cut down. The GIA, like the
dissidents it created, recruited its own clergy and exegetes and mobilized those among
their followers who knew how to write, whether they had theological knowledge or
not.
The other singularity of Algerian extremism is that all the trends that the FIS
attempted to unify aligned with Salafism. Yet with what Salafism? Doctrinal divisions
punctuate the history of this movement. Sometimes, several groups cite the same
source while interpreting it differently. They all refer to Ibn Taymyya but tear each
other apart on the main points of his doctrine. These facts have been well noted by
Séverine Labat, who writes: “From Ibn Taymyya to Ali Belhadj, the filiation claimed
by the (Algerian) neo-Salafists seems at the very least to be hard to trace. They borrow
from every tradition (…). The Salafists will cut off ties with those reformists that they
deem to have compromised with Western thought.”
When an Era of Violence Began
Taking inspiration from the teachings of the Algerian Ulemas before
independence, influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement in
Algeria received accreditation from the authorities starting with the liberation in 1962
and created the organization El Qiam (values). A graduate from the University of
Bordeaux with a degree in the humanities, its founder, Tidjani El Hachemi, wanted
to rehabilitate the Islamic values degraded by colonialism but claimed to have no
political intentions. Yet he took inspiration from the thought of Sayyd Qotb and
Hassan El Banna and situated himself as a successor to Djamel Eddine El Afghani
23
In an interview given to the magazine Confluent in 1964, cited by François Burgat, L’Islamisme au
Maghreb (Paris: Payot, 2008), 150.
24
A school of Islamic theology located in Tunisia, similar to Al-Azhar in Egypt.
25
A sect that was active in the fifth century of the common era in Persia that promoted libertinage and
was the source of constant revolts.
40