The Islamic Movement in Algeria: A Socio-Historical Approach

Algeria is a state where Islamism has been culturally dominant for several decades. It began as a feature of the nationalist movement that grew up to resist French colonialism. (It is not, as is sometimes claimed, due to foreign influences.) From 1989 onwards Islamism has been politically dominant too, and this has resulted in both legal and extra-legal attempts to stymie research into the sociological aspects of religion in the country since the government sees such work as 'un-Islamic'. Such a climate does, of course, make academic study in this area very difficult.