Ahmed Sahnoun
1907 - 2003
Islamic religious scholar and leader in Algeria.
Shaykh Ahmed Sahnoun, born in 1907 in Biskra, northeast of Algiers, was a highly respected religious figure and scholar viewed as the spiritual leader of the Islamists in Algeria. He was closely associated with the Islamic reformer Abdelhamid Ibn Badis (1889 - 1940) and the Association of Algerian Scholars, which was established in 1931 to resist the assimilationist policies of the French and reassert the Algerian Arabo-Islamic identity. During the struggle for Algerian independence, Sahnoun was imprisoned several times by the French for his anticolonial stance.
After independence, he refused to be associated with the state-controlled religious institutions, and continued preaching, promoting religious education, and establishing independent associations. In the 1960s he cofounded al-Qiyam (Values) Association to reassert Arab and Islamic identity in independent Algeria. Following violent clashes between Islamist and leftist students at the main campus at the University of Algiers in 1982, Sahnoun, along with Abbasi Madani and Shaykh Abdellatif Soltani, cosigned a fourteen-point statement that criticized the secular policies of the state and demanded the promotion of Islam in government and society. Due to his advanced age he was placed under house arrest rather than imprisoned, then released in 1984.
President Chadli Bendjedid met with Sahnoun, Ali Belhadj, and Mahfoud Nahnah following the massive riots of October 1988 and urged them to assist in restoring order. Sahnoun established the Association of the Islamic Call in 1989 to unite all the Islamic movements in the country, coordinate their activities, and prevent escalations of violence with the regime. Throughout the Algerian civil war, which began in 1992. Sahnoun refused to engage in dialogue with the military regime and demanded the release of the imprisoned leaders of the Front Islamique du Salut, Abbasi Madani and Ali Belhadj. Sahnoun suffered from health problems, and died in early 2003 at the age of 96.
Bibliography
Shahin, Emad Eldin. Political Ascent: Contemporary IslamicMovements in North Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998.
— EMAD ELDIN SHAHIN
