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:
“Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.”
—Will Rogers (1879–1935)
“Alas for the cripple Practice when it seeks to come up with the bird Theory, which flies before it. Try your design on the best school. The scholars are of all ages and temperaments and capacities. It is difficult to class them, some are too young, some are slow, some perverse. Each requires so much consideration, that the morning hope of the teacher, of a day of love and progress, is often closed at evening by despair.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Nonwhite and working-class women, if they are ever to identify with the organized women’s movement, must see their own diverse experiences reflected in the practice and policy statements of these predominantly white middle-class groups.”
—Kimberly Crenshaw (b. 1959)