ABSTRACT
The political development of the country after independence illustrates how religion may collide with a major secular force in many Muslim countries, namely the military. The Islamic movement in Algeria before the confrontations with the army began in the 1970s and was mainly reform-oriented. The Islamists tried to form a broad-based Islamic party, but differences among the key personnel resulted in the formation of a smaller group, the Islamic Salvation Front. The fundamentalists aim at an Islamic state, although participation in democratic elections may be a means to that goal. The tradition of Islamic teaching emerged in Algeria with the Association of the Ulemas in the 1930s. The domination of Arab-Islamic groups within the National Liberation Front led to an emphasis upon the Arabisation of culture and the integration of religion into all forms of education. The exact information about Saudi financial support to Islamists in Algeria is perhaps only known by the regimes’ secret police.
