Algeria to Impose more Control on Imam Training
Algeria will impose more government control on training for the country's imams in a bid to fight Islamic extremism, its religious affairs minister said in comments published in local media on Wednesday.
The former French colony in North Africa has a difficult history with religious fundamentalism, having fought hardline Islamists during a bloody civil war in the 1990s that left some 200,000 people dead.
His comments came as the international community prepares to tackle militants from the extremist Islamic State (IS) group who have seized swathes of Iraq and Syria and implemented a brutal interpretation of Islamic law.
"An institute jointly supervised by the higher education and religious affairs ministries will be created at the beginning of the next university year to train imams," Religious Affairs Minister Mohamed Aissa told Algerian daily Al-Watan
"Anyone holding a higher diploma in Islamic studies can't preach in our mosques before they take the training, which lasts one month, followed by an exam," he said.
Algeria currently has 23,000 clerical staff working in 17,000 mosques, he said.
Aissa also said that religious practices "specific to Gulf countries" had given rise to the extremist Sunni IS organization in Iraq and Syria.
Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb, the head of Egypt's Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam's highest seat of learning, has sharply criticized IS militants, saying they gave a "tarnished and alarming image of Muslims".
After his appointment in April, Aissa launched a civic campaign to "reach a society of religious tolerance" in Algeria.
He said the country's depleted Jewish community "had the right to exist," and indicated its synagogues would eventually be reopened, sparking hostile reactions from Algerian Islamists.
Source: Agence France Presse
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