The Imams in Algeria and the Process of Institutionalizing Religious Authority

Here is the academic translation into English, maintaining the sociological and administrative terminology:

The Imams in Algeria and the Process of Institutionalizing Religious Authority

The late 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s were marked by a tendency of the political power in Algeria, through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, toward the institutionalization of the religious field. This was manifested through a number of decrees, legislative laws, and executive instructions issued during this period for what some local officials called, in our interviews, the "organization of the religious affairs sector in Algeria" and "attention to the status and position of the imam" through his integration into the civil service.

Executive Decree No. 08-411 of December 24, 2008—stating the special status of employees belonging to the specific bodies of the administration in charge of religious affairs and endowments—constituted a clear change in the symbolic status of the imam and the nature of his mission. Imamate in mosques was transformed into a public office governed by the rules and laws of the civil service regarding entry conditions, tasks assigned to each category of imams, as well as rights and obligations.

It is worth noting that this shift in the imam's position within the "mosque institution" is a continuation of the aforementioned series of decrees, whether regarding the construction of mosques, Quranic schools, zaouïas, and places of worship for non-Islamic rites, or the definition of the powers and roles of the departments and directorates of religious affairs at central and local levels. This extends to defining the missions of actors in various religious services: imams, inspectors, endowment agents, mourchidates (female religious guides), Quran teachers, and mosque assistants.

This 2008 decree indicates the existence of an official discourse on the role and tasks of the mosque institution intended for implementation, in addition to a prior focus on the limits of the imam's authority and the submission of his religious discourse to oversight by senior imams, inspectors, or the provincial religious affairs administration. Based on this new division of tasks—which takes the classification and hierarchy found in higher education institutions as a model—the depth of the change brought by the law to the function and meaning of the imamate becomes clear. It shifted it from a traditional logic based on the tasks of what was called the "Cheikh al-Jame" (where memorization of the Quran was the center of the imam's status) to a logic of public office in its modern sense, where a university degree is the primary criterion for defining the conditions of the Imam-Khatib.

In the absence of a certified religious institution in Algeria (at least to date), as is the case in some Arab or Islamic countries, imams—according to their roles and status within their mosques and neighborhoods—constitute one of the forms of religious authority at the local level. Consequently, the imam's religious authority becomes a field of power relations contested by many actors who target it for various reasons to influence the religious and public spheres. Each draws their religious discourses and practices from different references, schools, and sometimes legal rites (madhahib). In addition to these actors, there is a local directorate of religious affairs that practically supervises the management of the religious field, relying on legal texts and decrees framing the imamate function.

In this context, we will attempt to answer the following starting questions in this project:

What are the discourses and practices of imams in Algeria today regarding the process of institutionalizing religious authority?What are their positions regarding those laws and decrees aimed at "organizing" religious practices and mosque discourses?What are the new phenomena resulting from the institutionalization process?How do imams practice unionism? Does the union movement represent a trend toward establishing an "independent" religious authority among today's "civil servant imams"?

If we assume that the discourse and curriculum for training trainee imams are part of the institutionalization path, how are imams trained in the official training schools today? What are the contents of those curricula?

Since the position of "mourchidate" (female religious guide) is new in the Algerian religious field (introduced in 2002), how do these guides view their function? What are their social origins and training paths? How do they establish their authority in mosques, and what are the aspects of the struggle over religious authority in the female religious space?

Finally, what are the positions of imams and mourchidates regarding religious discourses that establish competing religious authorities, such as "satellite-channel muftis" (فقيه الفضائيات)?

To answer these questions, we will first analyze official documents issued since 1998 on the "organization of the religious affairs sector," as well as official statements by former and current ministers.

If we tentatively accept that there is a general trend toward the "salarization of imams" linked to the demand for salary increases[1], the case of imams in Ibadite mosques in Ghardaïa (which we will examine in the first axis) requires us to push the problem of institutionalization to another level. In Ibadite mosques, religious authority does not fall directly under the religious affairs administration but under customary bodies such as the Azzaba and the Council of Ammi Saïd. Furthermore, the Ibadite imam "is not a salaried imam" (ratib); this rite does not recognize the "salarization of the imamate," as one of the religious conditions for the imam is to have a secular job and not be paid for leading the people in prayer. Are we not, in this case, facing another path and different forms of building and institutionalizing religious authority through this local communal data?

We can also assume that one of the results of "civil-servant imamate" and the trend toward salarization is the formation of an imams' union in Algeria—a very recent phenomenon that only began to be discussed in 1999 and was realized in 2013. We will attempt, through the second axis (Unionism among Imams in Algeria), to monitor the union practices of these religious actors and their reactions to the institutionalization process.

In the third axis, we will examine the training of imams in schools supervised by the Ministry. We aim to understand the contents of this training and how the institutionalization of the religious field begins in official training institutions.

Finally, the fourth axis, "Mourchidates and Authority Conflicts in Mosques: The Case of Oran and Tlemcen," will analyze the paths and practices of these guides as a manifestation of institutionalization and how they work to consolidate their authority against various religious and political currents.

[1] In June 2014, the Ministry of Religious Affairs announced a 60% increase in imams' allowances based on ranks and classifications.