Masculinities, Money, and Mosques in Algeria’s Civil War

Abstract

To what extent did economic marginalization and political crisis activate prejudice, violence, and religious faith in Algeria’s civil war during the 1990s? The Algerian novel Les Agneaux du Seigneur (In the Name of God), by Yasmina Khadra offers a glimpse. The novel shows how political and economic disparities intertwined with an increasingly strict interpretation of Islam. In turn, Islam’s political applications and its militarized enforcement soon drew the country into a veritable civil war. The resulting breakdown of the cultural order simultaneously increased the pressure on men to fulfill a socially prescribed gender role and made the fulfillment of that role more difficult.