Algeria's other Islamists: Abdallah Djaballah and the Ennahda movement

Abstract

The Ennahda Party of Algeria led by Sheikh Abdallah Djaballah is an example of an Islamist political party that has been permitted to participate in official political processes. From clandestine beginnings in eastern Algeria in the early 1970s the organisation grew and attracted to it many figures who were later to become senior figures in the Algerian Islamist movement. Independent of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) following the latter's creation in 1989, it remained legally active after the FIS was banned in 1992. From 1992 it participated in numerous efforts by both the Algerian government and the opposition to restart Algeria's political life and to bring an end to growing violence. As an Islamist party, Ennahda believes in the reintroduction of Islamic values into Algerian society. Although intolerant of secularism, the party has consistently denounced the use of violence and stresses the importance of political pluralism, popular political sovereignty and the rule of law.