Islamic Salvation Front - Goals

Goals

FIS's founders disagreed (and disagree) on a variety of points, but agreed on the core objective of establishing an Islamic State ruled by sharia law. FIS hurriedly assembled a platform in 1989, the Projet de Programme du Front Islamique du Salut, which was widely criticized as vague. Following the first National Assembly ballot, it issued a second pamphlet. Economically, it strongly criticized Algeria's planned economy, urging the need to protect the private sector and encourage competition - earning it support from traders and small businessmen - and urged the establishment of Islamic banking (i.e. interest-free banking.)

Socially, it suggested that women should be given a financial incentive to stay at home rather than working outside, thus protecting sexual segregation (Ali Belhadj called it immoral for men and women to work in the same office) and increasing the number of jobs available to men in a time of chronic unemployment. Educationally, the party was committed to continue the Arabization of the educational system by shifting the language of instruction in more institutions, such as medical and technological schools, from French to Arabic; this measure struck a particular chord with the large numbers of recent graduates, the first post-independence generation educated mainly in Arabic, who found the continued use of French in higher education and public life jarring and disadvantageous to themselves.

Politically, the contradiction between Madani and Belhadj's words was noteworthy: Madani condemned violence "from wherever it came" (El Moudjahid, 26 December 1989), and expressed his commitment to democracy and resolve to "respect the minority, even if it is composed of one vote" (Jeune Afrique, 12 February 1990), while Belhadj said simply that "There is no democracy in Islam" (El-Bayane, Dec. 1989) and "If people vote against the Law of God... this is nothing other than blasphemy. The ulama will order the death of the offenders who have substituted their authority for that of God" (Horizons 23 February 1989). In an interview with Daniel Pipes and Patrick Clawson, Anwar Haddam rejected this view of Belhadj, saying, "He has been misquoted. He has been accused of things out of bitterness. He wrote a book in which he expressed himself clearly in favor of democracy. In it, he writes on page 91 that "the West progressed by defeating tyranny and preserving freedoms; this is the secret of the Western world's remarkable progress." Belhadj refers many times to the Western world and to those very values that people are trying to deny us within our own borders."

The ideas, methods and beliefs of FIS have been critically assessed by a contemporary Algerian Islamic scholar, Shaykh Abdul-Malik ar-Ramadani al-Jaza'iri in his book Madarik un-Nadhr fi's-Siyasah: Bayna't-Tatbiqat ash-Shar'iyyah wa'l-Infia'lat al-Hamasiyyah ,(KSA: Dar Sabeel il-Mumineen, 1418 AH/1997 CE, 2nd Edn). The book contained prefaces by Shaykh Muhammad Naasiruddeen al-Albaanee and Shaykh Abdul-Muhsin al-'Abbaad.