International Journal on Criminology Volume 4, Number 2, Winter 2016 | Page 42

International Journal on Criminology
and Mohammed Abdou. 23 El Qiam was dissolved in late 1966, due to its virulent
anti-Egyptian attacks, following the execution of Sayyd Qotb. Angered, its members
strongly condemned the Egyptian government, particularly in a message to President
Nasser. Rebuilt by some of its co-founders, the disbanded organization then called for
violence.
At the same time, other Islamic currents emerged under different names,
including those of the international “Brotherhood.” Identified with communism,
Algerian-style socialism became the target of Islamist critiques that quickly became
condemnation of the government. Abdelatif Soltani, one of the founders of El Qiam
and a graduate of Zaïtouna, 24 was very vehement toward the authorities. In writings
published clandestinely, he accused them of Mazdaquism, 25 notably in the title of his
text “Mazdaquism at the Origins of Socialism.” In his pamphlet “Siham El Islam”
(Arrows of Islam), he accused the government leaders of usurping the historical
legitimacy of a war of liberation that was fought in the name of Islam. Despite his
excesses and his taste for violence, he occupied important functions, as imam, official
preacher, and high school teacher. Instigator of the first Islamist gathering at the
Central Faculty of Algiers and cosigner of the platform calling for an Islamic state, he
was finally placed under house arrest until his death in 1983.
His other “companions in arms” and co-founders of El Qiam took up the
relay and founded the FIS. Leader of Wahhabism in Algeria and spiritual master of
Ali Belhadj, Omar El Arbaoui died in 1984, but remained the posthumous religious
guide of the first terrorist group of Mustapha Bouyali. Abdel Baki Sahraoui is also
an influential founder of Algerian Islamism. A member of the association of Ouléma,
co-founder of El Qiam, this teacher went to French school and served in the (French)
seventh regiment of Algerian infantrymen. He was arrested in 1981 for activism and
incitement to violence and held until 1983. This FIS militant was then an imam in
Evry and in the mosque of the rue Myrha (in Paris) where he was killed in 1995.
From the Central Faculty of Algiers to the “Jihad” of Mustapha Bouyali
In the 1960s, the mosque of the Central Faculty of Algiers harbored the tenants
of Islamism and “reformism”; they argued, usually without violence, between factions
that accused each other of being Djazarists (French speakers who sold out to the
“regime”) or Arab-speakers won over by ideas from Egypt or Arabia.
In the early 1980s, clashes—including the death of the student Kamel
Amzal on November 2, 1982—caused the closing of the mosque. That same month,
Islamists organized a protest during which Abbassi Madani fustigated the authorities.
Appreciated by the Islamists, this event outraged the Brotherhood. An Arabic speaker
with a diploma in literature, Mohammed Saïd, freed from prison in 1984, balanced
French and Arabic speakers at the head of a growing movement.
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Including Ali Belhadj, Abdelkader Chebouti, Mansouri Méliani, and Azzedine Baa.
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