Practice
The majority of Algerians are traditionally Muslim; resident Christians, numbering less than 1% of the population, are mainly foreigners. It is difficult to determine the number of atheists, agnostics and deists but they are concentrated in the larger cities and in Kabylie (Matoub Lounes or Ferhat Mehenni to name few are popular singers among Kabyle youth). Sunni Islam is universal apart from the small Mozabite community, concentrated in five Saharan oases, which instead follows Ibadhism.
The dominant madhhab is Maliki, although, at least until the last century, some families of Turkish descent followed the Hanafi madhhab. Sufi brotherhoods have retreated considerably, but remain in some areas. Saint cults are widely disapproved of as un-Islamic, but continue, as a visit to the shrine of Sidi Abderrahmane in Algiers quickly demonstrates.
The popularity of Islamism fluctuates according to circumstance; in the 2002 elections, legal Islamist parties received some 20% of the seats in the National Assembly, way down from the FIS's 50% in 1991. Conversely, strong anti-Islamist sentiment (typified politically by the RCD, which received 8%) is not unknown. Support for Islamist parties is especially low in the Kabylie region, where the FIS obtained no seats in 1991, the majority being taken by the Front of Socialist Forces, a secular party.
Read more about this topic: Islam In Algeria
Famous quotes containing the word practice:
“My paternal grandmother would not light a fire on the Sabbath and piled all Sunday’s washing-up in a bucket, to be dealt with on Monday morning, because the Sabbath was a day of rest—a practice that made my paternal grandfather, the village atheist, as mad as fire. Nevertheless, he willed five quid to the minister, just to be on the safe side.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)
“Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools that have not wit enough to be honest.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome. It is not a fit system for the mid- twentieth century.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)