Ennahda Movement - Early Years

Early Years

Succeeding a group known as Islamic Action, the party was founded under the name of "Movement of the Islamic Tendency" (Arabic: حركة الاتجاه الإسلامي‎ Ḥarakat al-Ittijāh al-Islāmī) in 1981. In 1989, it changed its name to Ḥarakat an-Nahḍah. The party has been described as one of many parties/movements in Muslim states "that grew up alongside the Iranian revolution", and it was originally inspired by the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The group supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, claiming that "It was not an embassy, but a spy centre". Their influence in 1984 was such that, according to Robin Wright, an unnamed British journalist living in Tunisia stated that the Islamic Tendency was "the single most threatening opposition force in Tunis. One word from the fundamentalists will close down the campus or start a demonstration." The group, or members of it, were also responsible for the bombing of some tourist hotels in the 1980s.

Although traditionally shaped by the thinking of Sayyid Qutb and Maududi, the party began to be described as "moderate Islamist" in the 1980s when it advocated democracy and a "Tunisian" form of Islamism recognizing political pluralism and a "dialogue" with the West. Critics charge that one of their main leaders, named Rashid Al-Ghannushi, had a history of violence yet in courts he was accused by the ruling party of organizing a non-authorized political party. Others say he supports any form of multi-party democracy that offers a minimum of freedom for his party and followers.

In the 1989 elections, the party was banned from participating. However some members ran as independents, and received between 10% and 17% of the vote nationally according to official figures of the Ben Ali regime. Two years later President Ben Ali turned against Ennahda, jailing 25,000 activists. Ennahda militants attacked the ruling party headquarters, killing one person and splashing acid in the faces of several others.

Ennahda's newspaper Al-Fajr was banned in Tunisia and its editor, Hamadi Jebali, was sentenced to sixteen years imprisonment in 1992 for membership in the un-authorized organisation and for "aggression with the intention of changing the nature of the state". The Arabic language television station El Zeitouna is believed to be connected with Ennahda. The party was strongly repressed in the late 1980s and early 1990s and almost completely absent from Tunisia from 1992 until the post-revolutionary period. "Tens of thousands" of Islamists were imprisoned or exiled during this time.