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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 March 2016
The field of colonial Algerian history, once a sparring ground for colonialists and nationalists, is now experiencing a new sort of division, one derived from the contrasting intellectual traditions, Arabic and French, which meet in Algeria. Scholars of both these traditions have sought to “decolonize” Algerian history, to understand it from the point of view of the Algerian Muslim. Both approaches have made significant contributions to our understanding of colonial Algeria. Yet they have a shortcoming: both were originally developed in dealing with historical environments quite different from colonial Algeria. Thus, they face serious problems of adaptation.
1 Most studies based on Arabic material concentrate:
1) on the early period (pre-1850)—for example, Bilqasim Saсad-allah, Muḥammad al-Shadhlī al-Qsuntinī (Algiers, 1974) and his new book on Ibn al-сAnnabi, published by the S.N.E.D. in Algiers in December 1977;
2) on the exiled сAbd al-Qadir, or figures who lived on the margins of French-controlled territory, see, for example, Boubakeur, Si-Hamza, “Origines de la guerre du Sud-Oranais contre la France,” Révue d’Histoire Maghrébine, 6:133–149, July 1976Google Scholar; or
3) on Ben Badis and the “ulamist” movement of the 1920s and ‘30s. We know very little of the intellectual and political leaders of mainstream Algeria—the heavily populated, French-controlled areas of the North.
2 In this vein are Nouschi, A., Enquête sur le niveau de vie des populations rurales constantinoises (Tunis, 1961)Google Scholar; Turin, Y., Affrontements culturelles dans l’Algérie coloniale (Paris, 1971)Google Scholar; and Annie Rey-Goldzigueur’s work on the “Royaume Arabe” period, recently published by the S.N.E.D.
3 For details on this and other areas discussed below, see my unpublished doctoral dissertation, Baraka and Bureaucracy: Algerian Muslim Judges and the Colonial State, University of Michigan, 1977.Google Scholar
