Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T11:33:50.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

TENSIONS OF NATIONALISM: THE MZABI STUDENT MISSIONS IN TUNIS AND THE POLITICS OF ANTICOLONIALISM

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2015

Amal N. Ghazal
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the significant yet largely overlooked role of the Mzabis, a community from the northern edges of the Algerian desert, in Algerian and Tunisian anticolonialism and nationalism. In so doing, it pursues two aims: first, to shed light on the importance of Tunis to the politicization of the Mzabis in the 1920s and to their induction into local and regional anticolonial and national movements; and second, to highlight the tensions of subsuming regional identities into overarching national identities by focusing on Mzabi political activists’ negotiation of the relationship between the Mzab and Algeria as a national project. The article also explores the spectrum of political possibilities and alternatives envisioned by Mzabis as they participated in religious reform, anticolonial, and nationalist movements. This spectrum, I argue, conveys the fluid relationship between local, national, and regional identities, thus undermining teleological readings of national identity formation.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2015, pp. 47 - 63
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Mufdi Zakariyya, the “poet of the Algerian revolution,” once eulogized his teacher—Muhammad al-Thamini—as an Arab and a Muslim who sought to unify the Maghrib, who made Algeria proud, and who instilled dignity in generations of students in Tunis.Footnote 1 Zakariyya was one of those students in the 1920s. He wrote his teacher's eulogy almost half a century later in 1970, by which time Algeria had already gained independence as an “Arab” and a “Muslim” nation-state. However, when Zakariyya and al-Thamini, both Berbers from the Mzab Valley in Algeria, first met in the early 1920s as members of the Mzabi student missions to Tunis, neither identified as Algerian let alone Arab. As Ibadi Muslims—a group with delineated communal boundaries and a regional Mzabi identity that distinguished it from Maliki Muslims in Algeria and the rest of North Africa—their Islam was also distinct.Footnote 2

Since the late 19th century and in response to European colonialism, Ibadis in North Africa, as well as in Oman and East Africa, had been building bridges with non-Ibadi Muslims toward Muslim solidarity. By the 1920s, many Ibadi scholars and political activists had joined anticolonial movements and were contributing to religious reform networks stretching from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.Footnote 3 These Ibadi reformers included Mzabis living permanently or temporarily in Tunis. Their heavy involvement in anticolonial activities led them to identify and join forces with reformers from Algeria who defined Algeria as an Arab and a Muslim nation. Mzabi reformers unanimously adopted this definition. Their so doing was not, however, indicative of Mzabi consensus over the nature of the relationship between the Mzab and Algeria. Nor did it signal agreement about the primacy of the Algerian nationalist project over other projects that vied to shape the political identity of the Mzab and Mzabis. While some Mzabis began to identify themselves as “Algerians” and the Mzab as part of the “Algerian nation,” others were ambivalent about or rejected these associations.

This analysis of Mzabi political activism and the Mzabi relationship to Algerian nationalism serves three purposes. First, whereas literature on anticolonialism and nationalism in Algeria has focused on the Tell region, which stretches from north of the Sahara to the Mediterranean coast, this article examines the significant but overlooked role of the Mzabis in anticolonial and national movements not only in Algeria but also in Tunisia. Second, the article sheds light on the importance of Tunis to the politicization of Mzabis in the 1920s and to their induction into local and regional anticolonial and national movements. As both Julia Clancy-Smith and James McDougall have shown, networks of anticolonialism and nationalism in North Africa had Tunis at their center and stretched horizontally across the region rather than vertically toward France.Footnote 4 The case of Mzabi political activism in Tunis further illustrates the prominence of these horizontal networks. Third, in line with Frederick Cooper's call to not assume the inevitability of the nation-state but instead to examine the “alternative forms of political action which opened up at certain moments in African history,”Footnote 5 this article explores the spectrum of political possibilities and alternatives that Mzabis envisioned while situating themselves within religious reform, anticolonial, and national movements. This spectrum, I argue, points to the fluid relationship between local, national, and regional identities, thus undermining teleological readings of national identity formation.

My findings show the contested nature of the Algerian national project and Algerian independence and therefore align with Malika Rahal's and Todd Shepard's work questioning the inevitability of the Algerian nationalist project and national independence. Rahal's analysis of the life and career of ʿAli Boumendjel (1919–57) exposes visions of the future of Algeria within the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN; National Liberation Front) that diverged from the nationalist narrative adopted by the postindependence Algerian state. Shepard's investigation of France's legal and political maneuvers during the Algerian Revolution (1954–62) highlights a shift in France from conceiving Algeria as French to conceiving it as Islamic and non-European, which justified the notion that independence was inevitable.Footnote 6 I argue that such contestations over national identity and independence began in the 1920s with the rise of Algeria's nationalist movement rather than with its maturity.

RELIGIOUS REFORM AND THE MZABI STUDENT MISSIONS IN TUNIS

Algerian anticolonialism was tied to the activism of Algerian émigrés.Footnote 7 Whether in Damascus, Cairo, Istanbul, Paris, or Tunis, these émigrés, who had chosen or been forced into exile, led efforts against the French. Activists in Tunis were particularly crucial to the formation and development of Algeria's anticolonial movements.Footnote 8 Among these activists were Mzabis who had come to Tunis in the 1920s as part of the student missions.

Algeria and Tunisia have long been tied together in complex ways, with merchants, students, ʿulamaʾ, and others circulating between them via the oases dotting Algeria's and Tunisia's deserts.Footnote 9 The onset of France's colonization of Algeria in the 1830s added a new element to this relationship. It caused many to flee Algeria in search of safety, stability, and economic opportunity in different corners of the Ottoman Empire, though particularly Tunisia, which was accessible due to its geographical proximity and attractive to those with familial, tribal, and/or economic networks there.Footnote 10 Arriving in Tunisia individually or in groups, temporarily or permanently, these migrants identified themselves and were identified by others not as members of an Algerian nation but rather according to their place of origin, whether Algiers, Oran, Constantine, Souf, Kabylie, Ouargla, or the Mzab.Footnote 11 Of all the Algerian groups in Tunisia, Mzabis were the best organized collectively and the most self-sufficient, despite internal rivalries and divisions.Footnote 12

Inhabitants of the Mzab Valley in the Algerian Sahara, Mzabis have long retained a particular identity as Ibadis. The roots of Ibadism stretch back to the battle of Siffin in 657 and the ensuing arbitration between ʿAli and Muʿawiya. Some of ʿAli's supporters believed that his acceptance of the arbitration was a concession to his enemies and rendered him unfit for leadership, causing them to rebel against him while maintaining opposition to the Umayyads. This group came to be known as the Kharijites. Violence carried out against the Kharijites by both ʿAli and the Umayyad regime, and later by the Abbasid regime, caused divisions within the group. Some advocated meeting violence with violence and considered all other Muslims to be infidels; others rejected what they saw as an exclusivist theology that legitimated Muslim infighting. The latter group became known as the Ibadis. In the 8th century, the Ibadis rebelled against the Abbasids to establish the Rustamid dynasty in North Africa, which was eventually conquered by the Fatimids in 909. Following the Fatimid takeover, Ibadis in North Africa, most of them Berbers from the Zanata tribes, were dispersed. In the 11th century, a group of them established a safe haven in the Mzab Valley in Algeria,Footnote 13 where they preserved their beliefs and communal solidarity through a governing body of clerical elites called the council of the ʿAzzaba. In addition to the Mzab, Ibadis are found in Oman, in Zanzibar and the East African coast, in the Nafusa Mountains of what is today Libya, and on Djerba Island in Tunisia. Ibadi communities are tight knit and have maintained close connections with each other.

In the 16th century, the Mzabi leadership signed a treaty with the Ottomans that brought the Mzab under Ottoman dominion while recognizing the distinctiveness of the region and its inhabitants. The Mzab remained within the Ottoman realm with a significant amount of autonomy until April 1853, when the French, who had already conquered the Tell and parts of the Sahara, presented an ultimatum to the Mzabis: submit to French rule or face a commercial blockade that would devastate trade networks with the Tell.Footnote 14 Fearing economic strangulation, the council of the ʿAzzaba chose what its members perceived to be the lesser of two evils by signing a treaty with the French—the Randon Agreement.Footnote 15 This treaty stipulated that the Mzabis would recognize French rule and agree to pay an annual tribute in exchange for autonomy over communal affairs and access to and free movement in the Tell region.Footnote 16 In other words, the Mzab became a protectorate, creating grounds on which Mzabis could argue that the Mzab was separate from “French Algeria.”

In 1882, the French annexed the Mzab and put it under direct military rule, two actions that gave rise to Mzabi resentment, opposition, and alarm. The Mzab's change of status altered Mzabis’ attitude toward not only the French but also other Muslims. Mzabis grew increasingly concerned with colonial realities and sought ways to resist them, including through direct and close engagement with pan-Islamist movements.

Harakat al-Islah (a.k.a. the Salafiyya movement), the modernist reform movement led by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad ʿAbduh, and Rashid Rida, had particular political and ideological appeal among Mzabis. Promoting a modernist interpretation of Islam, its supporters believed that only through reform and unity would Muslims liberate themselves from colonialism. Many Ibadi ʿulamaʾ and activists from Oman, Zanzibar, and North Africa responded enthusiastically to this message of reform and especially to the idea of unity.Footnote 17 They gradually forged links with reformers located throughout the Arabic-speaking world, leading to their integration into Arabist-Salafi networks spanning North Africa, Egypt, the Levant, and East Africa.Footnote 18

Ibadi reformers concurred with their non-Ibadi counterparts on other fundamental points as well, such as the need to eliminate innovations (bidaʿ) and to promote modern education that integrates empirical sciences while preserving Muslim identity. The push for modern education created a new layer to the Algeria–Tunisia connection, with students from across Algeria, including the Mzab, beginning to travel to Tunisia in groups to receive an education. Older students attended al-Zaytuna and al-Khalduniyya, while younger ones attended preparatory school.

Al-Zaytuna had long been known for its prestigious religious education. In 1896, al-Khalduniyya was introduced to complement it by offering students a modern curriculum. Algerians were attracted to these schools because the combination of religious and modern education was not available in Algeria at the turn of the 20th century. Initially, students traveled to Tunisia individually. ʿAbd al-Hamid bin Badis (1889–1940), himself a graduate of al-Zaytuna who returned to Algeria from Tunisia in 1912 to eventually become a leader in the reform movement, encouraged Mazbis to make the trip to attend al-Zaytuna.Footnote 19

Mzabis first responded to the need for modern education by sending students to the al-Siddiqiyya primary school in Tebessa. Founded in 1913 by a local leader named ʿAbbas bin Hamana and with the support of local Mzabi merchants, the school was the first in Algeria to offer a modern curriculum in Arabic. ʿAbbas bin Hamana's supporters included Muhammad al-Tajar, Bakir bin Ibrahim al-ʿUnq, and the Marmuri brothers, the latter of whom donated the land on which the school was built.Footnote 20 The school operated for only six months before Bin Hamana was assassinated and it was closed down. In 1914, amidst a fierce debate between Ibadi conservatives and reformers over the merits of modern education, Mzabis responded to the closure of al-Siddiqiyya by forming the first student mission to Tunis.Footnote 21

Mzabi students who participated in the missions were sponsored not only by their families, but also by Mzabi merchants in Tunisia, who subsidized their stay. These merchants also donated money for a student residence (known as Dar al-Baʿtha) and a Qurʾanic school, which was founded by al-Shadhli al-Murali in 1915 and called al-Salam. Mzabi students between nine and fourteen years old attended the school until October 1922, when the Mzabis, dissatisfied with the quality of the curriculum and with al-Murali's politics, cut off their subsidies and moved their students to another Qurʾanic school. Older students enrolled in al-Zaytuna and al-Khalduniyya were accompanied by supervisors from the Mzab. The supervisors were all advocates of religious reform and knew or came to know each other well, forming a tight-knit group defined primarily by its dedication to the students’ learning experience in Tunis.

THE FREE TUNISIAN CONSTITUTIONAL PARTY AND THE POLITICAL RADICALIZATION OF MZABIS

Mzabi students and supervisors gained more than an educational experience in Tunis; they also became highly politicized, which in turn caused the French to grow increasingly suspicious and fearful of Mzabi connections to and financial support for anticolonial movements in Algeria and elsewhere, particularly Tunisia and Tripolitania. Political developments in both the Mzab and Tunisia galvanized Mzabi activism and forged Mzabi ties to Tunisian, Algerian, and pan-Maghribi anticolonial movements.

Whereas Mzabis were embittered by the annexation of the Mzab in 1882, they viewed France's 1912 expansion of the draft system to include les indigenes as a matter of life and death. The draft did not apply to communities within military territories such as the Mzab; however, it did apply to civil territories such as the Tell, where many Mzabis lived and worked. Mzabis protested this change fiercely. They argued that conscription would limit or halt financial assistance that Mzabis with businesses in the Tell sent to their families in the Mzab, having devastating effects on dependents. Moreover, service in the French army, they claimed, contradicted their faith and traditions.Footnote 22 The French expanded the draft system in 1918 to include military territories, causing new levels of outrage. The debate among Mzabis over the economic, political, and religious implications of the draft pulled them gradually into the heart of anticolonial activism,Footnote 23 a trend that was mirrored by increased French concern over Mzabi agitation.

Mzabi involvement in anticolonial activism was particularly pronounced in Tunisia. Occupied by the French in 1881, Tunisia was formally declared a protectorate in 1883. By the early 20th century, an educated elite influenced by the modernist reform movement was heading the anticolonial movement and challenging the zawāyā (the then still dominant Sufi orders). Known as the Jeunes Tunisiens (Young Tunisians), this group of activists transformed their movement into a formal political party in 1907. One of its leaders was the Tunisian of Algerian origin ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Thaʿalibi (1876–1944), the central figure around whom Mzabis in Tunisia united and a driving engine in Tunisian politics until his self-exile in 1923. Al-Thaʿalibi moved between Egypt, India, Iraq, Palestine, and Yemen, among other places, before returning to Tunisia in 1937.Footnote 24

In Tunisia, like in Algeria, the year 1912 proved to be a turning point. Perceiving independence to be out of reach, the Jeunes Tunisiens attempted to negotiate with the French for the introduction of political, educational, and economic reforms within the frame of the politics of association.Footnote 25 As disappointment mounted among Tunisians over lack of progress with these negotiations, a series of events heightened tensions between them and the French authorities. Two of these events were particularly prominent: in November 1911, protests and clashes broke out in response to the French colonial authorities’ confiscation of the Zallaj land, including a Muslim cemetery; in 1912, Tunisians boycotted the tramway service after an Italian driver ran over and killed a Tunisian boy. Tunisians clearly felt deep-seated resentment toward French colonial policy, which discriminated against the indigenous population while privileging French and other European communities. The Italian invasion of Libya, which began in September 1911, also contributed to this resentment and became a rallying point for North African and pan-Islamic solidarity against European colonialism. As a result of the protests, the French cracked down on the Jeunes Tunisiens and censored the press.

Woodrow Wilson's principle of self-determination and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 raised hopes for independence across colonies and protectorates. Amidst this optimism, al-Thaʿalibi and his colleague Ahmad al-Saqqa sent a petition to the conference demanding Tunisia's right to self-determination. Dismissed and disappointed when the petition was rejected, the two published from Paris what became the manifesto of the Tunisian nationalist movement—La Tunisie martyre: ses revendications (Tunisia the Martyr: Its Demands).Footnote 26 Addressed to a French audience, the text outlined France's unjust policies vis-à-vis Tunisians.

After a series of deliberations, Tunisian nationalists decided not to push for independence, which still seemed unattainable, and instead to call for constitutional rule within the framework of the protectorate. In 1920, they created al-Hizb al-Dusturi al-Hurr (Free Constitutional Party, a.k.a. the Dustur Party) to advocate that very cause. Al-Thaʿalibi was among the party's founders and served as its leader between 1921, when he returned to Tunisia from France, and 1923, when he departed Tunisia again. Enjoying the support of the Tunisian bourgeoisie, the Dustur Party became the focal point of Tunisian politics.

Yet the Dustur Party also defined its struggle as a North African one, functioning as a pan-Maghribi vehicle of political activism, integrating Algerians into its ranks, and providing them with the platform and tools to carry out anti-French propaganda and activities. Mzabis accounted for approximately 32 percent of all Algerian members of the partyFootnote 27 and were among its primary donors, leading the French to conclude that without Mzabi moral and financial support, the al-Thaʿalibi-led Tunisian nationalist movement could not sustain itself.Footnote 28 Several factors account for this high representation. As mentioned above, the Dustur Party projected itself as a Tunisian party for North African causes, which allowed it to become a platform for Mzabi political activism in Tunisia. Moreover, the party's leadership, all of whom were elite religious reformers, derived from the Tunisian bourgeoisie and thus interacted regularly with Mzabi merchants.

Another factor behind Mzabi support for the Dustur Party was the sense among Mzabis that their cause had more in common with that of Tunisians than with that of the Tell's Algerians.Footnote 29 Mzabis maintained that, similar to Tunisia but unlike Algeria, the Mzab was a protectorate. Although the French annexed the Mzab in 1882, this did not, Mzabis claimed, annul the protectorate treaty of 1853, a point about which they constantly argued with French officials. One of their main arguments was that the French parliament had not passed any law validating the annexation, rendering it illegal.Footnote 30 Although Mzabis sought independence from France, they did not believe this goal to be possible in the immediate future. As a result, they attempted to force the French to reverse decisions made since 1882 that undermined the Mzab's protectorate status as laid out in the 1853 treaty. Mzabi politics therefore aligned with the agenda of the Dustur Party since both were focused on getting the French to extend full rights associated with the protectorate.

Mzabis were not merely influenced by the Tunisian political landscape and its anticolonialism; they were important actors in Tunisian politics of the 1920s. Their political role did not go unnoticed by the French, who were concerned about the relationship between Mzabi activists and Tunisian nationalists. The French monitored the writings, activities, and movements of Mzabis in Tunisia and continuously assessed the possible repercussions of their political radicalization for Algeria. The latter concern propelled the French to increase surveillance of Mzabis in the Mzab Valley and in the Tell as well. A Mzabi of particular interest to the French was Salih bin Yahya, a long-time resident of Tunisia, the only non-Tunisian member of the Dustur Party's executive committee and its major fundraiser, and a close friend of al-Thaʿalibi. In October 1920, Bin Yahya was arrested with al-Thaʿalibi and Muhammad al-Riyahi and charged with “conspiracy against the security of the State.”Footnote 31 Although released soon after, Bin Yahya remained under surveillance.

Based on this collaboration between Mzabis and Tunisians, the French believed that a committee existed to propagate the independence of Algeria and Tunisia, and that this committee collected large sums of money from Mzabis to help fund al-Thaʿalibi's 1920 mission in France.Footnote 32 The French sometimes saw the goals of Mzabi activism in more precise terms as being to oppose the draft law and to secure the Mzab's independence.Footnote 33 French reports from the period detail the sums of money that Mzabis collected and sent to Tunisia in support of the Dustur Party's activities and propaganda. These reports, as well as Mzabi sources, point to the existence of a large network of Mzabi donors from Tunis, different towns of the Mzab, and the Tell, particularly Guelma and Souk Ahras. In March 1921, for example, Mzabis donated 35,000 francs to the defense of al-Thaʿalibi after his incarceration.Footnote 34 On al-Thaʿalibi's release, he presided over a meeting at Bin Yahya's residence to discuss ways to increase Dustur Party funding. Al-Thaʿalibi asked Bin Yahya to appeal to Mzabis, and particularly well-off Mzabis, to help finance the Tunisian nationalist cause.Footnote 35 The Mzabis whom Bin Yahya contacted were all put under surveillanceFootnote 36 and some had their land confiscated.Footnote 37 Despite these kinds of restrictive measures on the part of the French authorities, Mzabis still managed to collect and send an additional 30,000 francs to the Dustur Party in August 1922.Footnote 38

Another French report indicated that Mzabis were betting on a Muslim–Bolshevik–German accord that would defeat France and deliver independence to both Mzabis and Tunisians.Footnote 39 In fact, the French often misinterpreted anti-French Mzabi activity and propaganda as part of a Bolshevik plot led by Bin Yahya.Footnote 40 They also associated al-Thaʿalibi and his party with Bolshevism, indicating their inability to understand Mzabi political activism or the Dustur Party more broadly. Although Algerians were active in Tunisia's communist party, Mzabis did not number among them.Footnote 41 The French continued to associate the Dustur Party and Mzabi political activism with Bolshevism until 1926, when the theory was reassessed and judged to be unfounded.Footnote 42

On other occasions, the French believed that Algerian-Tunisian collaboration was part of a scheme to unite all North Africans against the French under the banner of an Ottoman revival led by Enver Pasha and Mustafa Kemal. They also connected al-Thaʿalibi to this scheme, pointing to his role in a propaganda campaign for North African unity that had targeted Tunisians in Algeria and Morocco as well as Mzabis sympathetic to the nationalist cause.Footnote 43

The Mzabi relationship to the Ottomans was of ongoing concern to the French, particularly after they witnessed Mzabis’ jubilation upon receiving news in the spring of 1921 of the “Turkish victory over the Greeks.”Footnote 44 The French interpreted this joy as an expression of hope that a Turkish victory would lead to Mzabi independence. The French found what they perceived as further evidence of a Mzabi-Ottoman relationship when they intercepted a letter addressed to Bin Yahya and signed by sixteen Mzabis. In it, the signatories demanded French recognition of Mzabi independence. They instructed Bin Yahya to hand over the letter to Sulayman al-Baruni who would then give it to Ismet Onönö, the chief negotiator of the Turkish delegation at the Conference of Lausanne.Footnote 45 The Mzabis perhaps expected al-Baruni, who was in attendance at the conference and strongly associated with the Turkish leadership in Ankara, to ask the Turkish delegates to negotiate for Mzab's independence. This only confirmed French suspicions about the existence of a pan-Ibadi anticolonial movement connected to the activities of al-Baruni.Footnote 46

Al-Baruni was born in the Nafusa Mountains in Tripolitania and completed his studies between 1887 and 1900 in Tunis, Cairo, and the Mzab. Influenced by the reform movement, he would eventually become a major figure in the circle of Ibadi reformers. Following the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, he joined the Ottoman parliament, and in 1911 he was dispatched by the Ottoman government to defend his homeland against the Italian invasion.Footnote 47 Due to widespread Mzabi support for al-Baruni and for the Ottoman defense of Tripolitania, the French remained concerned about the connections between the Mzabis and al-Baruni until his exile in 1923. For example, assessing the impact on Algeria of the formation of the League of the Oppressed People—an organization in which al-Baruni was involved—the French concluded in 1921 that it would have political ramifications for Ibadis in the Mzab.Footnote 48 French concerns about a pan-Ibadi movement in North Africa persisted in the years ahead. In June 1925, they believed that ʿUmar al-ʿUnq, a student supervisor, was en route to Tripolitania with a sum of 15,000 francs to meet al-Baruni.Footnote 49

In July 1922, the French counted more than sixty Mzabi students aged twelve to sixteen in Tunis who they believed to be under the influence of two supposedly pro-Young Turk Mzabi teachers, identified as Ibrahim Atfayyish and Salah bin Baʿali.Footnote 50 The students’ names were compiled “to help identify the future political personalities in the Mzab.”Footnote 51 Commenting on Mzabi involvement in anti-French activities, a French official noted that “not only do they provide money for this [anti-French] propaganda, but they also prepare the new generation with new ideas by sending the children of prominent families to study and be indoctrinated in Tunis.”Footnote 52

Another source of French concern was the Tunisian press, which regained its vibrancy after 1920. Fearing the impact of Tunisian periodicals on Algerian politics, the French investigated connections between the editors of these periodicals and Mzabi activists and even banned several of the periodicals in Algeria. However, the French were well aware that copies were still making their way across the border. They circulated among Mzabis not only in the Mzab but also in the Tell, where Mzabis picked them up from railway workers or traders traveling by train.Footnote 53 The Mzabi Zakri bin Saʿid was one of many to cross the border under the pretext of pursuing commerce but in reality to smuggle volumes of illegal periodicals.Footnote 54

In the 1920s, a large group of Tunisians, Mzabis, and other Algerians united against the French under the banner of Islamic reform. While the group had a formal core of figures such as Bin Yahya and al-Thaʿalibi (not to mention towering personalities such as Bin Badis and Tawfiq al-Madani) as well as devoted supporters, it also had an informal membership made up of regular or occasional donors, emissaries, and smugglers of newspapers and printed material. This informal membership was integral to the success of the group's activities.

BETWEEN MZABI INDEPENDENCE, PAN-MAGHRIBISM, AND ALGERIAN NATIONALISM

Tunisia was an experimental ground not only for Algerian–Tunisian collaboration but also for Algerian–Algerian encounters. In Tunisia, Algerians from different regions were meeting and, under the auspices of the Dustur Party and other political entities, collaborating with each other within the framework of anti-French activism. The Algerian journalist ʿUmar Qaddur, for example, arrived in Tunisia in 1920 seeking donations to finance a publishing house for his periodical al-Siddiq (Truth Teller). While there, he met with a number of major Mzabi fundraisers who supported his project, including Bin Yahya, Salah bin Hajj, and Ibrahim Atfiyyash.Footnote 55 These fundraisers facilitated the collection of 50,000 francs for Qaddur from Beni-Isguen residents alone. The latter believed his periodical would defend their cause against the draft and annexation.Footnote 56 Al-Madani and Bin Badis also met and collaborated with Mzabis in Tunisia and later in the Tell in the context of anticolonial activism. These types of encounters, which occurred frequently, compelled Mzabis to define how they identified with other activists from Algeria.

While on a visit to Tunisia in 1921, for example, Bin Badis was invited by a group of Mzabis staying at Dar al-Baʿtha to attend an artistic performance. Impressed by the Mzabi students’ linguistic skills, well-rounded education, and organization, he praised them in the periodical al-Najah upon his return to Algeria. Bin Badis described what he witnessed as “an Algerian awakening,” contrasting this “enlightened youth in our nation to other neglected sons.”Footnote 57 For Bin Badis, Mzabis were Algerians. While many Mzabis may have shared Bin Badis’ definition of Algeria as Arab and Muslim as well as his vision of Islamic reform, they differed with him (and with each other) regarding the boundaries of that Algeria and the Mzab's relationship to it. To discern their opinions on these two issues, I focus on three members of the student missions: Ibrahim Atfiyyash, Ibrahim Abu al-Yaqzan, and Mufdi Zakariyya.Footnote 58 The former two served as mission supervisors; the latter was a student. Their writings during and following their stay in Tunis reveal tensions and a lack of consensus among Mzabis over the question of the Mzab's relationship to Algeria.

Ibrahim Atfiyyash, also known as Abu Ishaq, was among the first to present a radical reinterpretation of Ibadi history and identity to validate a stronger rapprochement between Ibadis and Sunnis. Atfiyyash traveled to Tunisia in 1917 to study at al-Zaytuna and to serve as a Mzabi student mission supervisor. Due to his involvement in the Dustur Party and more particularly his role as the link between Tunisian nationalists and Mzabis, the French exiled him from Tunisia in 1923, believing they had thereby ridded the party of one of its best agents.Footnote 59 Atfiyyash chose to reside in Cairo. His connection to Tunisian reformers there facilitated his stay and secured him the moral and material assistance of a leading member of the reform movement in Egypt, Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib. The latter provided him a platform from which he could propagate his ideas and communicate with a wider audience. Al-Khatib's printing press, al-Matbaʿa al-Salafiyya,Footnote 60 published Atfiyyash's rebuff of Mzabi conservatives who rejected modern education and denounced the Mzabi missions to Tunisia. More significantly, in 1924 Atfiyyash published a piece in the pages of al-Zahraʾ (The Bright One), a journal owned and edited by al-Khatib, denying the existence of any relationship between Ibadism and Kharijism and portraying Ibadis as similar to Sunnis.Footnote 61 During the same year and again with the assistance of al-Khatib, Atfiyyash began editing his own newspaper, al-Minhaj (The Way), through which he advocated religious reform, modern science, and, more importantly for our purposes, Muslim solidarity and unity. Al-Minhaj connected Mzabi reformers with their Sunni counterparts and allowed Egyptian and other audiences to engage with North African affairs. The newspaper's core mission, however, was to propagate the Mzabi question, to defend Mzabi positions, and to expose unjust French policies in the Mzab, a region that was, as al-Minhaj continuously reminded its readers, once independent.

Atfiyyash usually used the term waṭan to refer to the Mzab and umma to refer to Mzabis. The Mzab was therefore the waṭan that he missed, and Mzabis the umma affected by and objecting to annexation and the draft. In addition, he often distinguished between the Mzab and Algeria by emphasizing their separation throughout history, including under what he referred to as the Arab, Turkish and French conquests. In regard to the French conquest, he argued that “the submission of Algeria in 1830 does not concern the Mzab since the latter is not Algerian land.”Footnote 62 As for Mzabis, he viewed them as an independent people due to their unique Ibadi identity. Based on this distinction between the Mzab and Algeria and between Mzabis and Algerians, Atfiyyash concluded that Mzabis were not French subjects and should not be conscripted into the military. If the Mzab was “Algerian,” it would by extension be “French,” a categorization that Mzabis refused. If it was neither Algerian nor French, it qualified for independence. And yet when Atfiyyash promoted his friend Abu al-Yaqzan's newspaper Wadi Mizab, he praised it for being “a link between the nation [of Mzabis] and the government and between Algeria and the Eastern countries.”Footnote 63 For Atfiyyash, there seems to have been two Algerias: a French Algeria to which the Mzab did not belong; and another Algeria connected to the East to which the Mzab did belong. Regardless of the level of connection between Algeria and the Mzab, Atfiyyash felt that Mzabis should have solidarity with Algeria, both because they were North African and because they were part of the sharq, the East, which was struggling against colonialism and other social and political ailments.Footnote 64

In contrast to Atfiyyash, Abu al-Yaqzan was an Algerian nationalist with a strong conviction that the Mzab was and should be part of Algeria. He was among the first Mzabis—and perhaps even Algerians—to attempt to systematically articulate Algerian nationalism based on the Salafi fundamentals of Muslim unity. As Sliman Chikh, son of Mufdi Zakariyya, put it, “Abu al-Yaqzan actively participated in the Algerian national awakening, and his [political] awareness was raised in Tunis under the influence of al-Thaʿalibi and Bin Yahya.”Footnote 65 A founder and editor of eight newspapers between 1926 and 1938, he had the platform, the passion, and the determination to articulate and communicate widely his ideas about the Algerian nation.

Abu al-Yaqzan's political radicalization began in 1911 with the Italian invasion of Tripolitania. The invasion also sparked his passion for reading the Arabic press available in the Mzab at the time.Footnote 66 In 1912, he traveled to Tunis on a Mzabi student mission and by 1914 he had become a supervisor. His passion for politics was further enflamed by the founding of the Dustur Party, in whose activities he immersed himself “from head to toe.”Footnote 67

Abu al-Yaqzan also contributed eighteen articles to the Tunisian newspaper al-Munir (The Shining) between July 1920 and November 1921, and others to al-Ittihad (Union), Lisan al-Shaʿb (The Mouthpiece of the People), and Murshid al-Umma (Guide of the Nation).Footnote 68 For some of his articles in al-Munir, he used titles such as “Algeria and Islam,” “Algeria and Unity,” “Algeria and Knowledge,” and “Algeria's Grievance,” through which he, as a Mzabi, was clearly advocating the cause of an Algeria to which he saw himself belonging.Footnote 69 Abu al-Yaqzan also wrote in criticism of Mzabi conservatives whose campaign against student missions convinced some Mzabi parents to bring their sons home.Footnote 70 In order to better challenge this campaign and propagate reform, Abu al-Yaqzan decided to establish his own periodical. In explaining his reasons for so doing, Abu al-Yaqzan also cited his disappointment in the Arabic press in Algeria, particularly al-Shihab (The Shooting Star) and al-Muntaqid (The Critic), for not publishing a letter he had sent them, and the need to unite Mzabi efforts to rebuke France's 1925 decision to reinstate conscription of Mzabis into the army.Footnote 71 After much shuttling between Tunisia and Algeria and after consulting Mzabis on both sides of the border, Abu al-Yaqzan launched a weekly periodical, Wadi Mizab, which was printed in Tunisia between 1926 and 1929. Partly thanks to the assistance of al-Khatib in Cairo, in 1931 Abu al-Yaqzan also established his own printing press in Algiers, al-Matbaʿa al-ʿArabiyya, through which he published seven additional newspapers over the next seven years. The French continuously censored his newspapers due to their “inflammatory content.”Footnote 72

However, by no means did Wadi Mizab focus exclusively on the Mzab, and it certainly did not advocate the region's separation from Algeria. By highlighting the Mzabi cause in its pages, Abu al-Yaqzan sought to link this cause to the plight of Algeria, a link made possible largely by Islamic reform. The core mission of his periodical was captured in his opening piece of the first issue in which he stated that while Wadi Mizab was the mouthpiece of the Mzabi umma, it remained first and foremost the mouthpiece of Islamic thought in general and Algerian thought more specifically.Footnote 73 From the outset, therefore, Abu al-Yaqzan articulated a clear relationship between the Mzab and Algeria and between these two and reformist Islam.

In another article on the same page, Abu al-Yaqzan addressed “Muslim Algerians who were brothers in religion, language, nation, happiness, and pain.”Footnote 74 Their father was Islam and their mother was Algeria, he added, describing Algeria as “one historical city”—a reference to Algeria's geographical unity throughout history. On that same page he also printed the article he had unsuccessfully tried to publish in al-Shihab and al-Muntaqid. The article was a rebuff to an author in al-Shihab who had written about the expansion of Islam in Algeria at the exclusion of Ibadis, for in his view they considered their country to be the Mzab rather than Algeria. Abu al-Yaqzan countered that while the Mzab had not been part of Algeria politically since 1853, it was part of Algeria geographically and historically.Footnote 75

While Atfiyyash and Abu al-Yaqzan were serving as mentors for the student missions, Mufdi Zakariyya (this is his pen name; his real name is Zakariyya bin al-Shaykh Sulayman bin al-Hajj ʿIsa) was a student in Tunisia. He later became a leading member of the Etoile Nord Africaine (ENA) (North African Star), which was founded by Messali Hajj, and its later incarnation, Le Parti du Peuple Algérien (PPA) (Algerian People's Party).Footnote 76 Known as the poet of the Algerian revolution, Mufdi Zakariyya composed inflammatory anticolonial poetry that fueled resistance to French colonialism and glorified an Arab and Muslim Algeria for whose independence he fought. Composed in 1936, his poem “Fidaʿ al-Jazaʾir” (Sacrifice for Algeria) became the ENA's anthem, while another of his poems, “Qassaman” (We Pledge), which he wrote on the walls of his prison cell in 1956, remains the national anthem of Algeria. Although Zakariyya was still young in the 1920s, his writings from that period are significant for two reasons. First, they reflect the broader intellectual and political currents that were prevalent among Mzabis in Tunis during this period and that were important to his thinking. Second, they are a window onto the political imaginations and possibilities of that time, captured in the poetry of one of Algeria's most iconic nationalist figures. Zakariyya's stature makes it all the more crucial to understand how he identified himself and his causes early on.

Zakariyya was born in the Mzab Valley in 1908. At the age of nine, he moved to Annaba with his father, a merchant, and the two ran the family business. From there, he proceeded to Tunis in 1922 to join a student mission. While in Tunis, Zakariyya lived with his uncle, none other than Salih bin Yahya, the influential Mzabi who served on the executive committee of the Dustur Party. Bin Yahya introduced his nephew to the activities of the Dustur Party and to al-Thaʿalibi, whom Zakariyya came to greatly admire. As a member of the missions, Zakariyya also met the activists and scholars who visited Dar al-Baʿtha, such as al-Baruni, Bin Badis, and others. Zakariyya first published his poetry in al-Wifaq (The Accord), the placard journal of the students at Dar al-Baʿtha. One particular poem from 6 May 1925 expressed solidarity with the resistance movement in the Rif Mountains in Morocco, which Zakariyya saw as part of a larger anticolonial movement of the sharq. His early poetry reveals him to be a young student who was proud of his Ibadi heritage and history but energized by the activities of the Dustur Party and committed to the anticolonial struggle of North Africa.Footnote 77 More than anything else, North African independence was the point of reference for Zakariyya throughout the 1920s.Footnote 78 In 1926, he moved back to Algeria and contributed to Abu al-Yaqzan's periodicals among others. Zakariyya maintained strong ties with Tunisia and the Algerian communities there, visiting often, corresponding with friends, and writing for Tunisian newspapers under several pseudonyms.

With the exception of Muhammad al-Thamini, no prominent Mzabi remained associated with the Dustur Party after its split in 1934. A new party called al-Hizb al-Hurr al-Dusturi al-Jadid (The New Free Constitutional Party), or the Neo-Dustur Party, emerged out of the original Dustur Party, which was now called the Old Dustur. While Mzabis retained strong relationships with their associates within the Old Dustur, they oscillated toward the Student Association of North Africa, which had been founded in 1927, rather than toward the Neo-Dustur Party.Footnote 79 The former had a pan-Maghribi base and maintained links with the ENA and later with the PPA, whose main representative was Zakariyya. Abu al-Yaqzan joined the Association des Oulémas Musulmans Algériens (Association of Muslim Algerian ʿUlamaʾ) in 1931, a body representing ʿulamaʾ influenced by the modernist reform movement.

Thus, by the 1930s, Mzabis were fully integrated into the different Algerian nationalist movements, particularly those asserting the Arab-Muslim identity of Algeria. Despite the differences between these groups—by the 1930s, the Association des Oulémas was considered more “accommodationist” and less militant than the other two—they attracted Mzabi reformers and provided a platform for Mzabi political activism. Their emphasis on and promotion of an Algeria defined by Arabism and Islam won Mzabi approval. Moreover, their different strategies for dealing with French colonialism did not divide Mzabis as they divided others. After all, each strategy, whether the promotion of Islamic reform or calls for independence, served Mzabi political interests in its own way. Mzabis were instead divided mainly between supporters and opponents of reform, that is, between those who sought to empower Mzabis and Ibadism by connecting to broader intellectual and religious movements and those who thought that such connections undermined Ibadi traditions by making them vulnerable to outside influences. A new dividing line emerged in 1947 when the faction led by Ibrahim Bayyud, a religious reformer from the town of Guerrara, decided to run for elections and represent the Mzab within the newly created Algerian Assembly. This implicit recognition of the Mzab as “Algerian” was met with both support and opposition among Mzabis. Bayyud was elected to the assembly in April 1948 and became the Mzabi community's “porte-parole,” demanding a civil rather than a military status for the Mzab.Footnote 80

CONCLUSION

Making up no more than 1 to 1.5 percent of Algeria's population, the Mzabis are a minority whose significance to the study of Algeria's anticolonial and nationalist movements far outweighs their numbers. This significance derives in part from the challenge their Ibadism could pose to the idea that Islam was one of the two main pillars of Algerian national identity. How could Islam, an element of national unity, accommodate a minority sect long shunned as “unorthodox” by Sunni religious establishments? Ibadism's association with and recognition by the reform movement pointed to Islamic reform's success in promoting cross-sectarian unity as a prelude to national unity. This framework of unity undoubtedly facilitated the integration of Ibadis into anticolonial and national movements and allowed for their participation in national and pan-national politics.

The case of Mzabis also complicates nationalist historiography on Algeria by shedding light on the tensions that accompanied the integration of a regional identity into an Algerian identity. The particular identity of the Mzab as an Ibadi stronghold allowed Mzabis to claim a status for it that was separate from that of Algeria. However, the annexation of the Mzab in 1882 and the ensuing recruitment of Mzabis into the French army undermined this distinction. Mzabi resentment toward the annexation and toward conscription compelled them to connect with Algerian and North African anticolonial movements seeking to confront European colonialism. Mzabis forged such connections through various channels: religious reform, pan-Islamism, pan-Ibadism, pan-Maghribism, and Algerian nationalism. The latter, however, posed a serious dilemma to them. They understood that the construction of an Algerian national identity defined by reformed Islam and later Arabism necessitated aligning the history and identity of the Mzab and Mzabis to it. However, they did not believe that this alignment meant integrating Mzab within Algeria's borders. The Mzab was a protectorate, Algeria a colony. By joining Algeria, therefore, the Mzab would move further from the goal of independence.

Mzabis saw in the Islamic and Arab make-up of Algerian nationalism a bridge between themselves and other communities and a common cause worth fighting for. However, participating in the Algerian nation was neither their best nor their only option. Their remarkable assistance to the Tunisian Dustur Party in the 1920s attests to the primacy of the pan-Maghribi rather than the “Algerian” framework in their politics vis-à-vis the French. Moreover, their focus on the Mzab's own special status during that decade outmatched any concern they had for the rest of Algeria.

Whatever the case may have been, it was in Tunisia that many Mzabi activists polished their political skills and sharpened their pencils. As Clancy-Smith has noted, “that Tunisia welcomed the emigrants from next door, affording a refuge for dissidents, had an enormous influence upon the evolution of politics in Algeria and the political behaviour of Algerian dissidents.”Footnote 81 Clancy-Smith's observations apply to the 20th century as much as to the preceding century. The collaborative relationship between activists in both countries sustained anticolonialism. Without Mzabi support, the Dustur Party would not have had the finances to survive its early years. And without the involvement of al-Thaʿalibi and others in the Dustur Party, Mzabis would not have had the chance to participate in politics “from head to toe,” as Abu al-Yaqzan put it. Similarly, without the Tunisian press, Mzabis would not have had a medium through which to express their ideas or even been able to observe the power of the press to make and unmake politics, knowledge that they brought back with them to Algeria.

Footnotes

Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.

References

NOTES

Author's note: Research for this article was made possible by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Canada and the Gerda Henkel Foundation in Germany. I delivered versions of this paper at Georgetown University and the Middle East Studies Association annual meeting in 2011, and at New York University in 2012. I thank all who were in attendance, and especially Usama Abi Mershed, Zvi Ben-Dor Benite, Frederick Cooper, Zachary Lockman, and Patricia Lorcin for their valuable comments. My thanks also go to Jens Hanssen, Paul Kingston, Jim Reilly, and Philip Zachernuk for listening to my ideas and sharing many of their own. I am grateful to the four anonymous IJMES reviewers and the IJMES editorial team for helping me to improve this piece and for steering me in the right direction. If not for the generosity of several members of the Mzabi community who are keen on preserving their heritage and sharing material, this article would not have been possible.

1 Hammuda, Mustafa bin al-Hajj Bakir, ed., Mufdi Zakariyya: Amjaduna Tatakallam wa-Qasaʾid Ukhra (Algiers: Muʾassasat Mufdi Zakariyya, 2003), 221Google Scholar.

2 On the history of the Mzab during the colonial period, see Holsinger, Donald, “Migration, Commerce and Community: The Mzābīs in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Algeria,” Journal of African History 21 (1980): 61–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Holsinger, “Muslim Responses to French Imperialism: An Algerian Saharan Case Study,” International Journal of African Historical Studies 19 (1986): 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bendrissou, Salah, Implantation des Mozabites dans l’Algérois entre les deux-guerres, 2 vols. (Thèse de doctorat nouveau régime, Université de Paris VIII, Vincennes Saint-Denis, 1999)Google Scholar; Salhi, Mohamed Brahim, “Société et religion en Algérie au XX Siècle: Le réformisme Ibadhite, entre modernization et conservation,” Insaniyat 31 (2006): 33–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brower, Benjamin C., A Desert Named Peace: The Violence of France's Empire in the Algerian Sahara, 1844–1902 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Ghazal, Amal N., “The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism: Ibadis, Berbers, and the Arabist-Salafi Press in the Interwar Period,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42 (2010): 105–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jomier, Augustin, “Islah Ibadite et integration nationale: Vers une communauté Mozabite?” Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditerranée 132 (2012): 175–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See Ghazal, Amal N., Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism: Expanding the Crescent from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, 1880s-1930s (New York: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar; and Ghazal, “The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism.”

4 Clancy-Smith, Julia A., Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800–1904) (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1997)Google Scholar; McDougall, James, History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

5 Cooper, Frederick, “Possibility and Constraint: African Independence in Historical Perspective,” Journal of African History 49 (2008): 178CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Rahal, Malika, Ali Boumendjel: Une affaire française, une histoire algérienne (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2010)Google Scholar; Shepard, Todd, The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

7 Émigré anti-colonialism was not exclusive to Algeria or North Africa. See, for instance, Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860–1914 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Clancy-Smith, Rebel and Saint; McDougall, History and the Culture of Nationalism.

9 Christelow, Allan, Algerians without Borders: The Making of a Global Frontier Society (Gainesville, Fl.: University Press of Florida, 2012), 54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 On reasons for and patterns of Algerian immigration, see Bardin, Pierre, Algériens et Tunisiens dans l’Empire Ottoman de 1848 à 1914 (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1979)Google Scholar.

11 See Haggui Jamel, Les Algériens en Tunisie de 1871 à 1962: du communautarisme au nationalisme (Thèse du Doctorat, Université de Tunis et Université de Toulouse le Mirail, 2010), 14–25.

12 al-Majiri, ʿAbd al-Karim, Hijrat al-Jazaʾiriyyin wa-l-Tarabulsiyya wa-l-Maghariba al-Jawawina ila Tunis (1831–1937): Dirasa Tarikhiyya li-Ishkaliyyat al-Istiʿmar wa-l-Hijra wa-Tashakkul al-Jaliyat al-Magharibiyya bi-Tunis wa-Khususiyyatiha al-Ijtimaʿiyya wa-l-Qanuniyya (Tunis: al-Sharika al-Tunisiyya li-l-Nashr wa-Tanmiyat Funun al-Rasm, 2010), 546–49Google Scholar.

13 On the history of Ibadism, see, for instance, Gaiser, Adam, Muslims, Scholars, Soldiers: The Origin and Elaboration of the Ibadi Imamate Traditions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wilkinson, John C., Ibadism: Origins and Early Development in Oman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Roughly one-fourth of Mzabis were established in the urban areas of the Tell as merchants, traders, or shop-owners. Bendrissou, Implantation des Mozabites, 1:126–28.

15 See Holsinger, “Migration, Commerce and Community,” 61–74; and Holsinger, “Muslim Responses to French Imperialism,” 1–15.

16 Holsinger, “Muslim Responses to French Imperialism,” 1–15.

17 See Ghazal, Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism; and Merad, Ali, Le Réformisme Musulman en Algérie de 1925 a 1940 (Paris: Mouton & Co., 1967)Google Scholar, esp. pp. 222–24 on the Mzabis.

18 Ghazal, “The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism.”

19 al-Jabiri, Muhammad Salih, al-Tawasul al-Thaqafi bayn al-Jazaʾir wa-Tunis (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1990), A-LGoogle Scholar.

20 ʿAmmi, Muhammad bin Musa Baba et al., Muʿjam Aʿlam al-Ibadiyya min al-Qarn al-Awwal Hijri ila al-ʿAsr al-Hadir: Qism al-Maghrib al-Islami, vol. 2 (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1999), 19, 91, 372Google Scholar. See also Christelow, Algerians without Borders, 84–85. Christelow identifies Ibn Hamana as an Ibadi but there is no evidence for this in Ibadi sources.

21 Atfiyyash, Abi Ishaq Ibrahim, al-Diʿaya ila Sabil al-Muʾminin (Cairo: al-Matbaʿa al-Salafiyya, 1923)Google Scholar; al-Qarari, Ibrahim bin al-Hajj ʿIssa, Irshad al-Haʾirin (Tunis: Matbaʿat al-ʿArab, 1923)Google Scholar.

22 These arguments can be found in dossier no. 29H 17, Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (hereafter ANOM), Aix-en-Provence, France.

23 Despite its analytical flaws, Dabbuz, Muhammad ʿAli's Nahdat al-Jazaʾir al-Haditha wa-Thawratuha al-Mubaraka (Algeria: al-Matbaʿa al-ʿArabiyya, 1965)Google Scholar remains the only work in Arabic commemorating the role of Mzabis in 20th-century Algerian history.

24 See Green, Arnold, The Tunisian Ulama, 1973–1915: Social Structure and Response to Ideological Currents (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978)Google Scholar; and Perkins, Kenneth J., “‘The Masses Look Ardently to Istanbul’: Tunisia, Islam, and the Ottoman Empire, 1837–1931,” in Islamism and Secularism in North Africa, ed. Ruedy, John (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994), 23–36Google Scholar. See also al-Khirfi, Salih, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Thaʿalibi: Min Atharihi wa-Akhbarihi fi al-Mashriq wa-l-Maghrib (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1995)Google Scholar.

25 See Julien, Charles-André, “Colons Français et Jeunes-Tunisiens,” Revue Française d’Histoire d’Outre-Mer 54 (1967): 87–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mahjoubi, Ali, Les Origines du mouvement national en Tunisie (1904–1934) (Tunis: Université de Tunis, 1982)Google Scholar.

26 Thaʿalbi, ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, La Tunisie martyre: ses revendications (Paris: Jouve, 1920)Google Scholar.

27 Haggui, Les Algériens en Tunisie, 152.

28 2Mi 241, Bobine no. 1236, 536–37, 29 January 1923, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (hereafter CADN).

29 This is corroborated by al-Madani, Ahmad Tawfiq, Hayat Kifah: Mudhakkarat, vol. 1 (al-Jazaʾir: al-Muʾassasa al-Wataniyya li-l-Kitab), 157Google Scholar.

30 See Shinar, Pessah, Modern Islam in the Maghrib (Jerusalem: Priniv Press, 2004), 110–11Google Scholar; and Stein, Sarah Abrevaya, Saharan Jews and the Fate of French Algeria (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 41–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mzabi arguments are also summarized in an undated manuscript, “Darurat Ihtiram Faransa Muʿahadat 1853 maʿ Mizab,” TMs (Digital Copy), Jamʿiyyat al-Shaykh Abi Ishaq Atfiyyash li-Khidmat al-Turath, the Mzab, Algeria.

31 “Article du Temps Signalé à l’Attention de monsieur le Directeur,” 25 H 33(1), 8 December 1920, ANOM.

32 “Le Délégé à la Résidence Générale de la République Française de l’Algérie,” *9 H 82, no. 5876, 15 November 1920, ANOM. The French were perhaps making a connection between the activities of Mzabis and Tunisian Dusturis in the 1920's and those of North African exiles during World War I who had considered the establishment of a North African republic. On the idea of that republic, see Seddon, David, “Dreams and Disappointments: Postcolonial Constructions of ‘The Maghrib,’” in Beyond Colonialism and Nationalism in the Maghrib: History, Culture, and Politics, ed. Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 198Google Scholar.

33 “A. S. des Relations Entretenues par certains indigènes d’Algérie avec les extrémistes du parti nationaliste ‘Jeune tunisien,’” 27 March 1922, 25 H 33(1), no. 5793, ANOM.

34 2Mi 241, Bobine no. 1236, 537, 29 January 1923, CADN.

35 “Relations des Ibadites d’Algérie avec les Nationalistes Tunisiens,” *9 H 82, no. 40 C/P, 14 June 1921, ANOM.

36 “A. S. des Agissements de Certains Ibadites et de Leurs Relations avec les Nationalistes Tunisiens,” 25 H 33(1), no. 20111, 26 July 1921, ANOM.

37 “A Monsieur le Gouverneur Général de l’Algérie,” *9 H 82, no. 67, 24 December 1925, ANOM.

38 2Mi 241, Bobine no. 1236, no. 537, 29 January 1923, CADN.

39 “Nouvelles en circulation,” *9 H 82, no. 111, 14 April 1921, ANOM.

40 “Propagande Bolsheviste au Mzab,” no. 5924, 24 November 1920, ANOM.

41 According to a French list of communist Algerians in Tunisia, there were none from the Mzab. Haggui, Les Algériens en Tunisie, 154.

42 “Le Maire de la Ville de Guelma, a Monsieur le Sous-Préfet de l’Arrondissement de Guelma,” *9 H 82, no. 630, 18 February 1926, ANOM.

43 “Relations entre Nationalistes Algériens et Tunisiens, » 25 H 33(1), no. 143, 18 November 1921, ANOM.

44 “Rapport Mensuel,” April 1921, no. 2384, *9 H 82, ANOM.

45 “Surveillance politique des Mozabites,” *9 H 82, no. 242, 27 December 1922, ANOM.

46 “A.S. des Relations Entretenues par Certains Indigènes d’Algérie avec les Extrémistes du Parti Nationaliste ‘Jeune Tunisien,’” 27 March 1922, 25 H 33(1), no. 5793 B, ANOM.

47 See Abi al-Yaqzan Ibrahim, Sulayman al-Baruni fi Atwar Hayatih, 2 vols. (n.p.: n.p., 1956); Peterson, J. E., “Arab Nationalism and the Idealist Politician: The Career of Sulayman al-Baruni (1870–1940),” in Law, Personalities and Politics in the Middle East: Essays in Honor of Majid Khadduri, ed. Piscatori, James and Harris, George S. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987), 124–39Google Scholar; and Ghazal, Amal, “An Ottoman Pasha and the End of Empire: Sulayman al-Baruni and the Networks of Islamic Reform,” in Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print, ed. Gelvin, James and Green, Nile (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 2013), 40–58Google Scholar.

48 “Surveillance des Indigènes. A/S. d’une Association Islamique Dite ‘Ligue des Peuples Opprimés,’” *9 H 82, no. 2510, 2 May 1921, ANOM.

49 “Renseignements,” *9 H 82, no. 54/C, 25 June 1925, ANOM.

50 “A.S. Mzab,” *9 H 82, no. 136/C, 10 July 1922, ANOM.

51 “École Mozabite à Tunis,” *9 H 82, no. 141, 19 July 1922, ANOM.

52 “Rapport de Monsieur le Commissaire de Police de Laghouat en Date du 8 Novembre 1920,” *9 H 82, no. 2771, ANOM.

53 “Renseignements: ‘Souk-Ahras,’” *9 H 82, no. 5749, 27 March 1921, ANOM.

54 “Renseignements: Guelma,” *9 H 82, no. 5749, 27 March 1921, ANOM.

55 “Relations entre les Nationalistes Algériens et Tunisiens,” *9 H 82, no. 25, 11 April 1921, ANOM.

56 “Renseignements Concernant le Mzab,” *9 H 82, no. 2344, 12 May 1921, ANOM.

57 Al-Najah, vol. 44, 19 September 1921, as quoted in Muhammad Nasser, Mufdi Zakariyya: Shaʿir al-Nidal wa-l-Thawra (n.p.: n.p., 1980), 8.

58 Studies on the reform movement in the Mzab have focused mostly on Ibrahim Bayyud (1899–1981) from the town of Guerrara. A towering figure in the Mzabi reform movement and later in the Algerian nationalist movement, he is excluded from this study because he was not a member of the student missions to Tunisia.

59 2Mi 241, Bobine # 1236, no. 548, 12 February 1923, CADN.

60 For more on the importance of al-Khatib's al-Matbaʿa al-Salafiyya, see Lauzière, Henri, “The Construction of Salafiyya: Reconsidering Salafism from the Perspective of Conceptual History,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42 (2010): 369–89Google Scholar.

61 Al-Zahraʾ, 14 October 1924, 186–89.

62 Al-Minhaj, October/November 1925, 200–201.

63 Al-Minhaj, July/August 1926, 103–4.

64 Ibid., 94–99; al-Minhaj, July/August 1927, 22–28.

65 Chikh, Slimane, “Hommage à Abu al-Yaqzan,” Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; Centre de Recherches et d’Etudes sur les Méditerrannéenes (CRESM) 18 (1980): 1035Google Scholar.

66 Muhammad Salih Nasir, ed., Tarikh Suhuf Abi al-Yaqzan: Bi-Qalam Abi al-Yaqzan Ibrahim ʿIsa (1888–1973) (n.p.: n.p., 2003), 11–12.

67 Ibid., 12. See also Allah, Abu al-Qasim Saʿd, Tarikh al-Jazaʾir al-Thaqafi, vol. 5 (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1998), 263–64, 288–94Google Scholar.

68 Murshid al-Umma was founded by Sulayman al-Jadawi, an Ibadi from Djerba Island in Tunisia. See al-Lawati, Hammadi, Abnaʾ Jazirat Jirba fi al-Haraka al-Wataniyya, 1881–1961 (Tunis: al-Sharika al-Tunisiyya li-Funun al-Rasm, 2004), 214–18Google Scholar.

69 A list of the titles is included as an appendix in Nasser, Muhammad, Abu al-Yaqzan wa-Jihad al-Kalima (Algiers: al-Sharika al-Wataniyya li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawziʿ, 1980), 465Google Scholar.

70 Nasir, Tarikh Suhuf Abu al-Yaqzan, 13.

71 Ibid., 21–23.

72 See, for instance, “Politique Indigène/ Presse Subvérsive,” 9 H 57, 3 April 1935, ANOM.

73 Wadi Mizab, vol. 1, no. 1, 1 October 1926, 1.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid.

76 On the roles of the ENA and the PPA, see, for instance, Stora, Benjamin, Messali Hadj, 1898–1974: Pionnier du nationalisme algérien (Paris: Harmattan, 1986)Google Scholar; Simon, Jacques, L’Etoile Nord-Africaine (1926–1937) (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2003)Google Scholar; and Aissaoui, Rabah, Immigration and National Identity: North African Political Movements in Colonial and Postcolonial France (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009)Google Scholar. On their place in the earlier Algerian historiography, see Carlier, Omar, “Scholars and Politicians: An Examination of the Algerian View of Algerian Nationalism,” in The Maghrib in Question: Essays in History and Historiography, ed. le Gall, Michel and Perkins, Kenneth (Austin, Tex.: University of Texas Press, 1997), 136–69Google Scholar.

77 Similar to Abu al-Yaqzan, Zakariyya started to use Arabism and Arab nationalism as points of reference in the 1930s.

78 al-Jabiri, al-Tawasul al-Thaqafi, 121–35.

79 Haggui, Les Algériens en Tunisie, 230.

80 Augustin Jomier, “Islah Ibadite et Intégration Nationale,” 186.

81 Clancy-Smith, Rebel and Saint, xii.