ABSTRACT
The drive of the Istiqlal party to promote a single interpretation of Islam carried it into a witch-hunt against the brotherhoods and marabouts. The victory of Ahmed Ben Bella and his followers at the time of Algerian independence brought to light the hidden structures and Islamic conception of state power. For an understanding of Islam, the Maghrib of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia is a natural unit, not just as a geographic entity but also in the similarity of its countries’ historical itineraries after independence. Political urgency has forced the authorities to reconcile the need to institutionalize the function of the alim by changing it into a strictly delimited profession and to organize a body credible enough to serve as a counterweight to Islamicism. Tunisia went further than any other Maghribi state toward marginalizing religion, although less as a system of beliefs than as a principle of social organization.
