Farānsah dar Sarzamīn-i Islām: Persian 1402

For more than a century and a half, the French colonial empire was a space of contact between the religions of the Mediterranean Basin. How do we establish coexistence? How do we regulate, in a French framework, relations between Islam, Muslim brotherhoods, Christians, and Jews? These questions were the daily concern of generations of officers and administrators, under the leadership of successive governments. This work traces the history of practices implemented in the beating heart of the colonial empire, its “Arab” and “Arab-Berber” lands. It recounts the discovery of Islam at the beginning of the 19th century, the hazards of protecting Eastern Christians, the relationship with Judaism, the missions, and the politics of the “Arab kingdom”. It analyzes how the “secular” Republic controlled religions and the reactions aroused in North Africa, notably the rise of Salafism at the dawn of decolonization. Often ignored, the colonial heritage weighs on our present. Understanding its complexities can only help to confront the problems of our time, particularly the religious question, which we wrongly believed to have been resolved. In this regard, this book is an essential contribution.