Sheikh Abdelhamid Ben Badis
“We have searched in history and in the present too and we have found that the Algerian Muslim nation was formed and that it exists, as all the nations of the earth were formed and exist. This nation has its history illustrated by the greatest deeds; it has its religious and linguistic unity; it has its culture, its traditions and its characteristics; good or bad, this is the case for every nation on earth. We say that this Algerian nation is not France, does not want to be France and cannot be France.”
[Abdelhamid Ben Badis in the Echihab magazine of April 1936].
Sheikh Abdelhamid Ben Badis was born on December 5, 1889 in Constantine where he died on April 16, 1940, exhausted by the long and fiery fight that his life devoted to the cause of his country.
With a few friends his age, he began to study both the national language and the French language. But very quickly, he reveals himself to be very different from his companions. One of the constants of his future character was evident from this time: he was already burning with the desire to learn, to compare, to understand and to discuss.
In 1908, the young Ben Badis went to Zaïtouna University in Tunis where for four years, he tried to synthesize, in contact with the greatest thinkers of the time, the fragments of knowledge imbued with a very strong personal coloring.
He left Zaïtouna University in 1912 to study in the Orient. When he returned to Algeria in 1921, the main lines of his thought had already crystallized: fight against decadence, against superstition and above all fight against the depersonalization started by colonialism.
Three years after his return from the East, Sheikh Abdelhamid Ben Badis, founded, with the collaboration of Sheikh Embarek El Mili, a first free school for the education of youth, the propagation of the national language and the teaching of morality consistent with the dignity of Algeria.
As a journalist, Ben Badis was an example combining the educator, the thinker and the revolutionary. In 1926, he began writing for the journal Annadjah. Shortly after, with the collaboration of some ulama, he founded the magazine Echihab. He was also the main creator of the weekly El Bassaïr (visions of the future) which was the official organ of the Association of Ulemas.
At a time when any allusion to Algeria as an entity was suspect, Ben Badis dared to write and speak without fear of Algeria, Algerian genius, culture and truly national values.
Thinker, man of action, orator, journalist, humanist, politician, renowned writer, the immense variety of knowledge of Sheikh Abdelhamid Ben Badis made him a universal spirit.
[Abdelhamid Ben Badis in the Echihab magazine of April 1936].
Sheikh Abdelhamid Ben Badis was born on December 5, 1889 in Constantine where he died on April 16, 1940, exhausted by the long and fiery fight that his life devoted to the cause of his country.
With a few friends his age, he began to study both the national language and the French language. But very quickly, he reveals himself to be very different from his companions. One of the constants of his future character was evident from this time: he was already burning with the desire to learn, to compare, to understand and to discuss.
In 1908, the young Ben Badis went to Zaïtouna University in Tunis where for four years, he tried to synthesize, in contact with the greatest thinkers of the time, the fragments of knowledge imbued with a very strong personal coloring.
He left Zaïtouna University in 1912 to study in the Orient. When he returned to Algeria in 1921, the main lines of his thought had already crystallized: fight against decadence, against superstition and above all fight against the depersonalization started by colonialism.
Three years after his return from the East, Sheikh Abdelhamid Ben Badis, founded, with the collaboration of Sheikh Embarek El Mili, a first free school for the education of youth, the propagation of the national language and the teaching of morality consistent with the dignity of Algeria.
As a journalist, Ben Badis was an example combining the educator, the thinker and the revolutionary. In 1926, he began writing for the journal Annadjah. Shortly after, with the collaboration of some ulama, he founded the magazine Echihab. He was also the main creator of the weekly El Bassaïr (visions of the future) which was the official organ of the Association of Ulemas.
At a time when any allusion to Algeria as an entity was suspect, Ben Badis dared to write and speak without fear of Algeria, Algerian genius, culture and truly national values.
Thinker, man of action, orator, journalist, humanist, politician, renowned writer, the immense variety of knowledge of Sheikh Abdelhamid Ben Badis made him a universal spirit.