Ibrahim Abu l-Yaqzan

Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqzān also dialectically Ibrahim Abou El Yakdan ( Arabic إبراهيم أبو اليقظان, DMG Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān ; born November 5, 1888 in El Guerrara , Ghardaia Province ; died March 30, 1973 ibid) was an Algerian Ibadite religious scholar, publicist and anti-colonialist .

Abū l-Yaqzān is considered one of the pioneers of the independent Arab press in Algeria.

Life

Childhood and youth

Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqzān was born on November 5, 1888 in El Guerrara in the M'zab Valley into a religious-conservative family.

His father ʿĪsā ibn Yahyā from the al-Balat clan was imam and preacher in the mosque of his birthplace for over 40 years and died shortly after Abū l-Yaqzān's birth, in 1889 or 1890. His mother ʿĀʾischa bint al-Hādj Muhammad BūʿArwa died out the clan of Hammū ibn Ibrāhīm remarried after the death of his father. His stepfather also died a few years later, leaving the family in great poverty.

Already at a very young age he was instructed in the locally prevailing Ibaditic religious doctrine by Sheikh ʿUmar ibn Yahyā and learned the Koran by heart at the age of five. Abū l-Yaqzān, who chose his Kunya because of his admiration for the fifth Rustamid Imam Abū l-Yaqzān Muhammad al-Aflah (r. 874-894), had to interrupt his school days in order to work in agriculture to support his family. Only after his teacher ʿUmar ibn Yahyā provided the family with sufficient support for a year could he continue to go to school.

Committed to caring for the family, Abū l-Yaqzān moved to Batna in 1904 to take a job as a trader's assistant. Just four months after starting his new job, however, an incident occurred after which he was accused of neglecting the business and sentenced to a flogging sentence by the local council of elders . He then returned to the Mzab Valley to study Islamic theology with Muhammad ibn Yūsuf Atfaiyasch in Beni Isguen .

Pilgrimage and study in Tunisia

In 1909 he traveled to the Hijaz to the Hajj to complete and develop there. On his return trip in the same year, he visited Damascus , Beirut , Izmir and Tripoli . However, since he made the pilgrimage to Mecca without the permission of the French colonial authorities, he had to enter his native Algeria with a forged Moroccan passport to avoid a one-year prison sentence.

The Italian invasion in Tripoli in 1911 and the subsequent resistance of ibaditischen politician Sulaymān al-Baruni described Abu l-Yaqzan as shocking key event for his growing political interest and his subsequent anti-colonial attitude.

In 1912 he went to Tunisia to study at the University of Ez-Zitouna . He also visited the Madrasa Khaldounia , where he mainly learned how to write journalistic texts. Between 1913 and 1914 he wrote the first article in the monthly magazine al-Farūq of the Algerian scholar ʿUmar ibn Qadūr (1886–1932), who lived in Tunis.

In 1914 he also headed a scientific delegation of Algerians to Tunisia.

Return to the Mzab Valley and another stay in Tunisia

In the following year he returned to his homeland and was entrusted with the management of a newly built madrasa in El Guerrara, which he oriented similar to the reformist style of the Khaldounia and relied on the application of new teaching methods. For example, the students took their places on chairs and for the first time textbooks were used alongside blackboards. In terms of content, Abū l-Yaqzān also added mathematics and history to the offerings of his madrasa.

Just two years later, in 1917, he returned to Tunisia, where he was responsible for looking after the Mozabite students on site and mainly working as a journalist on religious topics for magazines from Tunisia and the Arabic-speaking world.

In the founding year 1920 Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqzān became a member of the Tunisian Destur party , with whose founder ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ath-Thaʿālbī he was friends. He also stayed in the milieu of the Mozabite-Ibadite businessman Sālih ibn Yahyā , a patron and co-founder of the Destur party, and later made contact with his nephew Moufdi Zakaria .

During this time he was also in intensive contact with Sulaymān al-Bārūnī, who stayed in the French colony of Tunisia between 1921 and 1922. After al-Baruni was banned from leaving France in 1922 , he acted as its mediator and mouthpiece in the Arab world.

Activity as a newspaper publisher and involvement in the islah movement

After Abū l-Yaqzān returned to Algeria in 1925, he devoted himself mainly to the nationalist movement there and was one of the first Arabic-speaking publicists of nationalist ideas. In addition, he founded an institute in Ghardaia for teaching the Arabic language and literature as well as the Islamic religion and initiated a literary club.

Between 1926 and 1938 he founded a total of eight newspapers: Wādī Mizāb (October 1926 to January 1929, 119 issues), Mizāb (25 January 1930, one issue), al-Maghrib (May 1930 to March 1931, 38 issues), an- Nūr (September 1931 to May 1933, 78 issues), al-Bustān (April 1933 to July 1933, ten issues), an-Nabrās (July to August 1933, six issues), al-Umma (September 1933 to June 1938, 170 Editions) and al-Furqān (July to August 1938, six editions). Abū l-Yaqzān and his guest authors dealt primarily with the questions of religious and political identity and the national, transnational and interdenominational unity of Muslims, as well as the resistance to colonialism and the restrictions on the freedom rights of the "indigenous" population in the regions colonized by France. At the beginning of the journalistic activity the published articles consisted mostly of prosaically written, overt criticism, but were increasingly replaced by lyrical and implicit texts due to political pressure. These, too, were regularly censored and banned by the French authorities due to their negative attitude towards their policies and the accusation of rioting. As part of this, Abū l-Yaqzān received a year-long publication ban in January 1929.

Due to a lack of printing equipment, the first newspapers had to be printed in Arabic in Tunisia and brought back into the country before Abū l-Yaqzān founded his own printing company in 1931, called al-Matbaʿa al-ʿArabīya . This was supported by the Salafist- oriented publicist Muhibb ad-Dīn al-Chatīb , with whom he maintained a close relationship and who appeared in his newspapers as a guest author. Abū l-Yaqzān also regularly published content from al-Chatīb's newspaper al-Fath , which appeared in Egypt, promoting Salafist and Pan-Islamic teachings. Through this correspondence he was in close contact with the Lebanese - Druze pan- Islamist Shakīb Arslān and representatives of the Nahda movement throughout the Arab world.

The guest authors in his journals included Arslan and al-Chatīb, as well as numerous internationally known scholars, politicians and writers, such as Sulaymān al-Bārūnī , Emir Khaled , Mustafā as-Sibāʿī , ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ath-Thaʿālbī , Muhammad Husayn Haykal , Mohammed Amin al-Husseini , Chair ad-Din az-Ziriklī , Elia Abu Madi , Messali Hadj , Abdelhamid Ben Badis and Ferhat Abbas .

Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqzān was one of the founding members of the Islamic Islamic Society of Algerian Muslim Legal Scholars in 1931, and he was elected to its executive committee in 1934.

Withdrawal from the public and old age

After increasing repression by the French colonial authorities, he was forced to give up his work as a publisher and journalist in 1938. From then on he devoted himself to writing longer monographs.

On April 3, 1957, he suffered a stroke that permanently paralyzed one side of him and made him dependent on a wheelchair.

Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqzān died on March 30, 1973 at the age of 84 in his native Ghardaia .

In his work as a writer he has written over 60 books and essays, including textbooks for children.

In November 2017 he received a posthumous honor from the Algerian government through the Minister of Culture Azzedine Mihoubi for his life's work, which his grandson Hamīd Abū l-Yaqzān accepted.

Think

Amal Ghazal describes Abū l-Yaqzān as one of the most influential Mozabite anti-colonialists of the 20th century. Especially in the newspapers he published, he found clear words against colonialism and the oppression of the Algerian population and the Islamic religion it caused. In the very first edition of his newspaper Wādī Mizāb on October 1, 1926, he made the statement "Islam is your father and Algeria is your mother".

Furthermore, he saw in the French colonial policy an attempt to Christianize and Frenchize or Francophiliation of the Algerian indigenous population. He was one of the strong opponents of conscription for Algerians in the French army, as well as the Blum-Violette project , which in 1936 sought to grant French citizenship to a select Algerian elite.

Similar Ibrahim Atfayyasch and Sulaymān al-Baruni Abu l-Yaqzan was among the reformist Ibadites who tried to integrate Salafism in the Ibaditentum.

He was close to both pan-Islamism and the Salafist islāh movement and understood Arabism as part of Muslim identity. While in the 1920s he mainly campaigned for Algerian unity and an Algerian nation-state, combined with the unification of the various religious groups, there was also a strong commitment to Arab unity in his publications in the 1930s, especially in his weekly newspaper al-Umma added, taking up elements of pan-Arabism. He also campaigned for the exclusion of ethnic origin and the Islamic schools of law . He was ideologically close to Muhibb ad-Dīn al-Chatīb and Raschīd Ridā , to whom he sent his newspapers.

In October 1931, Abdelhamid Ben Badis referred to Abū l-Yaqzān's commitment to pan-Arabism , noting that his Mozabite-Berber origin and identification as an Arab would not be mutually exclusive. This suggests a more ideal than ethnic interpretation of the term "Arab" by Abū l-Yaqzān and the Association of Algerian Muslim Legal Scholars. Abū l-Yaqzān spoke out against the isolation of the Mozabite community and in favor of participation in the national discourse that called for an Algerian nation-state with an Arab-Islamic influence. He considered the establishment of Muslim nation states to be an overarching goal and gave patriotism the same importance in the Islamic religion as prayer and jihad .

Works (selection)

• Iršād al-Ḥāʾirīn . Tunis: Maṭbaʿat al-ʿArab. 1923.
• Diwān Abī l-Yaqẓān . Volume I. Algiers: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿArabīya. 1931.
• Bayān Ḥaqīqa . Algiers: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Ǧazāʾirīya. 1931.
• Sulaymān al-Bārūnī Bāšā fī Aṭwār ḥayātihi . Algiers: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿArabīya. 1957.
• Al-Fikr al-Islāmī . Algiers: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿArabīya. 1964.
• Sullam al-Istiqāma li-Abnāʾ Madārisinā al-Qurʾānīya al-Ibtidāʾīya . Algiers: Maktabat al-ʿArabīya li-Dār al-Fikr al-Islāmī. Volume I-III. 1965-1967.
• Sullam al-Istiqāma li-Abnāʾ al-Madāris aṯ-Ṯānawīya . Algiers: Maktabat al-ʿArabīya li-Dār al-Fikr al-Islāmī. Volume I-III. 1968-1970.
• Sabīl al-Muʾmin al-Baṣīr ilā llāh . Nālūt: Dār ad-Daʿwa. 1969.
• Al-Islām wa-niẓām al-ʿašāʾir fī Wādī Mīzāb . Algiers: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿArabīya. 1972.
• Fatḥ Nawāfiḏ al-Qurʾān . Beirut: Dār ad-Daʿwa. 1973.
• Diwān Abī l-Yaqẓān . Volume I-II. Sīb: Maktaba al-Ḍāmirī. 1991. Posthumous
• al-Luġa al-ʿArabīya Ġarība fī Dārihā . Guerrara: Ǧamʿīyat al-Turāṯ. 1993. Posthumous

literature

• Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . Algiers: La Bibliothèque Verte. 2012.
• Amal N. Ghazal: The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism: Ibadis, Berbers, and the Arabist-Salafi Press in the Interwar Period . In: International Journal of Middle East Studies . Vol. 42, No. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2010. pp. 105-120, especially pp. 111-116.
• Achour Cheurfi: Ibrahim Abou El Ikdane . In: Écrivains algériens. Dictionnaire bibliographique . Algiers: Casbah Éditions. 2003. pp. 157f.
• Martin H. Custers: al-Ibāḍdiyya. A Bibliography . Vol. 1 Ibāḍīs of the Maghrib (including Egypt) . Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. ²2017 [2008]. 2nd, revised edition. Pp. 25-35.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Martin H. Custers: al-Ibāḍdiyya. A Bibliography . 2017. p. 25
2. ↑ ^{a b} Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 5
3. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 6
4. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 6f.
5. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 8
6. ↑ ^{a b} Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 9
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Amal N. Ghazal: Counter-currents: Mzabi independence, pan-Ottomanism and WWI in the Maghrib . In: First World War Studies . Vol. 7 No. 1. Oxfordshire: Routledge. 2016. p. 85.
8. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 11
9. ↑ ^{a b} Achour Cheurfi: Ibrahim Abou El Ikdane . 2003. pp. 157f.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 12
11. ^ Mourad A .: Haut conseil islamique: Qui connaît Omar Ben Kaddour, l'érudit algérien du début du XXe siècle? In: El Moudjahid. February 26, 2014, accessed February 4, 2020 . 
12. ↑ ^{a b c d} K. Smail: Evocation, hommage et reconnaissance. In: El Watan. November 5, 2017, accessed February 4, 2020 . 
13. ↑ Achour Cheurfi: Moufdi Zakaria . In: La classe politique algérienne. De 1900 à nos jours. Dictionnaire biographique . Algiers: Casbah Éditions. 2001. p. 345
14. ↑ ^{a b} Slimane Chikh: Homage to Abū al-Yaqẓān . In: Annuaire de l'Afrique du Nord . No. 18. Paris: CNRS Éditions (ed.). 1980. pp. 1035-1037.
15. ↑ ^{a b} Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 13.
16. ↑ Amal N. Ghazal: An Ottoman Pasha and the End of Empire: Sulayman al-Baruni and the Networks of Islamic Reform . In: James L. Gelvin and Nile Green (Eds.): Global Muslims in the Age of Steam and Print . Berkeley: University of California Press. 2014. pp. 62–82. here: p. 49.
17. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Amal N. Ghazal: The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism: Ibadis, Berbers, and the Arabist-Salafi Press in the Interwar Period . 2010. p. 112f.
18. ^ Martin H. Custers: al-Ibāḍdiyya. A Bibliography . 2017. pp. 25–35.
19. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. pp. 20-26.
20. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 20
21. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 26f.
22. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 28
23. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 29
24. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. p. 20ff.
25. ^ Robin Bidwell: Dictionary of Modern Arab History . Oxfordshire: Routledge. 2010 [1998]. 2nd, revised edition. P. 92.
26. ↑ ^{a b} ʿAbd ar-Razzāq Qassūm: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān ḫuṭūrat at-ṭaḥadī ... wa-ṣalābat al-istiǧāba. In: Ben Badis Foundation. March 31, 2013, accessed May 31, 2020 . 
27. ^ Amal N. Ghazal: The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism: Ibadis, Berbers, and the Arabist-Salafi Press in the Interwar Period . 2010. p. 116.
28. ^ Salīma Kabīr: Ibrāhīm Abū l-Yaqẓān. Raǧul ad-Daʿwa wa-l-Iṣlāḥ bi-Wādī Mizāb . 2012. pp. 26f., 32f.
29. ^ Amal N. Ghazal: The Other Frontiers of Arab Nationalism: Ibadis, Berbers, and the Arabist-Salafi Press in the Interwar Period . 2010. p. 111.