Exams Past, God Forgotten :(Ir) religiousness In Algerian Tertiary Schools

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue II, February 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Exams Past, God Forgotten :(Ir) religiousness In Algerian Tertiary Schools

Kassim Boudjelal Safir
Mustapha Stanbouli University- Mascara, Algeria

Abstract: “I am spiritual, but I am not religious”. This is the confession of one of the students when asked about his religiousness. The students ‘(ir) religiousness seems to be a deserted issue in the sociological studies about tertiary schools. In this study context, irreligiousness should not be understood as the absence of religion only, but the indifference towards it as well. Contexts, situations, and mood may affect students’ attitudes about religion. Despite the over-mediatisation of religious content in the Arab TV channels and social media, the Algerian society witnesses an unprecedented “loss of faith”. Has the rise of youth irreligiousness coincided with the rise of the technological revolution, social media and rationalism? This paper tries to identify the main reasons that are leading to this hypothesized “loss of faith” in religion. A semi-structured interview with ten schooled participants has been conducted to scrutinize their perception of religion. The results of the study yielded surprising ambivalent facts about the psycho-social profile of the modern Algerian young Muslim who acknowledged the presence of God. Religiousness can attain an unprecedented peak in exams time and tend to disappear as soon as far as exams finished. Exams Past, God forgotten?

Keywords: (Ir) religiousness, Tertiary Schools Algerian Students Loss of Faith

I. INTRODUCTION

The issues of religion and (ir) religiousness have always been a subject of great and passionate debates among sociologists. About 97% of the Algerian population are Muslims (Groth, Sousa-Poza, 2012). During the colonial period, the French tried relentlessly to undermine the Algerian culture that was based on Quranic schools, maraboutism, Turuq (ways), and traditional conservatism influenced by Berber than Islamic traditions (Lazreg, 2016). Islam survived all the attempts of the forced westernisation, but the majority of the Algerians adopted the coloniser’s modernisation of the educational institutions that replaced Quranic schools. The Ulemas (Muslim scholars) reluctance was timid but played a role in maintaining the spiritual roles of the rare Quranic schools.
After the independence (1962), Islam became the religion of state. The mosques, and the zaouias (Islamic religious schools), became parts of the architectural and cultural identity of the Algerian society. In the 90’s, students were permitted to create Mussallas (space of prayer outside mosques) in campuses and universities as an initiative from the government to deal tactfully with the Islamic sahwa that was the result of the cross-pollination between the Saudi Wahabism and the Egyptian Brotherhood (Obaid , 2020).

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