The Past is Our Future: Islam, Nation-State, and the Post-9/11 Order in Algeria

The Middle East North African Studies Program Presents:

 

 

In the two decades following Algeria’s civil war (1992-1999), also known as 'the Black Decade', state authorities have undertaken one of the most systematic projects of religious governance in the contemporary Muslim world. Far from suppressing religion in public space in the name of secularism, Algerian authorities have actively produced an official religious orthodoxy—known as the Marji‘iyya (the reference)—to promote a project of national religion that defines what officially counts as “true and authentic” Islam. This talk examines how the Marji‘iyya reforms mark a historical rupture in postcolonial secular governance: rather than merely regulating religion, state authorities have subordinated religious authority to secular governance by transforming localness—centered on a Maghrebi exclusivism—into both a criterion of religious truth and a technology of political loyalty. 

 

Brahim Afrit is a visiting scholar in the Middle East and North Africa Studies program at Tulane University. Combining political sociology, anthropology, theology, history, and literature, his research engages with the interplay of religion, the state, and society in postcolonial Muslim-majority societies, with a focus on North and West Africa.

 

April 20, 2026 

5:30 PM

Hebert 201

 

For more information please contact Faycal Falaky ffalaky@tulane.edu,