MIDDLE EAST ONLINE: Algerian authorities give all-clear for union of imams to protect country's moderate form of Islam from teachings of hardline Salafists.
Algerian authorities have given the all-clear for a union of imams to protect the country's traditionally moderate form of Islam from the teachings of hardline Salafists whose influence is on the rise in North Africa.
The move comes two months after an Al-Qaeda-linked attack on a desert gas plant, where 37 foreign hostages were killed during a siege and army rescue operation, and amid fears of jihadist groups gaining ground in neighbouring Tunisia.
The union's "mission will be to defend the material and moral rights of the imams and to act as a bulwark against imported religious ideas, Salafist or other," its secretary general Sheikh Djelloul Hadjimi said.
The preacher of El Ouarthilani mosque, in the Telemly district of the capital Algiers, welcomes his followers over tea and dates, some of them seeking a fatwa, or religious edict, others asking for advice or material assistance.
He says he is used to receiving people suffering from psychological afflictions, including young people who have tried to commit suicide.
But since the union was officially announced in mid-March, he has struggled to cope with his daily agenda and the phone hasn't stopped ringing.
Sheikh Hadjimi has said that the bulk of the union's work must be focused on Algiers, "where a large majority of the mosques are hostage to Salafist imams." » | Abdelhafid Daamache | ALGIERS | Sunday, March 31, 2013
