Bashir Ibrahimi

1889 - 1965

Islamic religious leader in Algeria.

Born in Béjaïa in northeastern Algeria, Bashir Ibrahimi became a leading companion to Shaykh Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis. Ibrahimi was renowned as an orator for the Association of Algerian Muslim Ulama (Reformist Ulama) and served as its vice president and then its president after the death of Ben Badis. Through his studies in Damascus, he also achieved a great reputation as a scholar of Arabic and Islam while contributing numerous articles to the association's various journals. Ibrahimi was an opponent of French colonialism, as symbolized by the association's support of the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN; National Liberation Front). After the Algerian War of Independence, 1954 - 1962, he questioned the political leadership's use of foreign ideologies and called for the new nation to identify instead with its Arab Islamic traditions. His son Ahmed Taleb Ibrahimi became a government official under presidents Houari Boumédienne and Chadli Bendjedid.

Bibliography

Gordon, David C. The Passing of French Algeria. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.

— PHILLIP C. NAYLOR