French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur briefly highlighted the deceptive manner in which France dealt with Islam in Algeria after becoming the second religion in France, due to its occupation of the Muslim country and as part of it following the signing of the surrender document in July 1830.
This issue was part of the magazine's coverage of Algeria during the French colonial era.
Although the document, signed by then Algerian ruler Dai Hussein under pressure from French Marshal de Burmont, pledged that "the practice of Mohammedan religion would remain free," the new authorities' fear that Islam would become a weapon of resistance against the occupation had made it do everything to restrict it.
Early on, according to the magazine, the French authorities have seized control of Al-Ahbas, which is an inalienable property whose revenues are used in the maintenance of mosques, and have been integrated into the public sphere, and then gradually placed under its supervision and training various personalities serving the Islamic religion, such as imams and Islamic judges. , And turned them into employees who get paid from its treasury, as are other religions in France.
Although the surrender document gave Muslims the so-called "personal status law" - the right to marry, inherit, and so on - according to their own religious customs, this "privilege" was double-edged, because it was the basis for refusing to grant citizenship and full citizenship to Algerian Muslims. On the pretext that they want their own law and therefore can not be considered French.
The Rise of the Catholic Church
In the historical context, the arrival of European settlers in the 1840s, mostly Christians, coincided with the rise of the Catholic Church, but the military authorities at the beginning of the invasion and fear of provoking a violent reaction by the population, prevented the preaching of Christianity This did not prevent some Christian leaders from building big dreams there.
In 1867, the archbishop of Algeria, Charles Lavigieri, had an obsession with the memory of St. Augustine, bishop of Hippon (present-day Annaba), and Saint Cyprian of Carthage, and his ambition was to bring North Africa back to Christianity, which it owed at the end of the Roman Empire.
In particular, the bishop focused his attention on the tribes he saw as the descendants of these ancient Christians, and embarked on a slow missionary campaign, in which he opened schools and foundations for two orphan villages, forming fully homegrown men and women who were completely cut off from the rest of the population.
The law of separation of church and state
The summit of deception in France's arduous relationship with Algerian Islam was demonstrated in 1905, when the Republican majority in Paris voted on the law of separation of churches and the state, and passed the law of secularism, but this same majority could not cross the Mediterranean with this law.
The solution was then to apply the law of separation to Algeria under the decrees of 1907, which makes the administration free to organize Islamic worship as it sees fit, such as paying rewards to imams to keep them under control.