ALGIERS, May 22, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The Algerian Ministry of Education’s decision to remove the Shari`ah and Islamic studies subjects from the high-school curriculum has sparked a backlash from both scholars and students alike, who accused the government of bowing to foreign pressures.

“It is a crime against the Algerian people, their unity at a time when we are really in a dire need to learn more about Islam and its virtues,” Sheikh Abdul Rahman Shaiban, chief of Algeria ’s Muslim Scholars Association, told IslamOnline.net.

He warned that the government move is a preliminary step toward removing the Islamic studies subject from the university syllabus.

“In three years’ time, the tributary that provides Islamic institutions and mosques with religious cadres will be cut off despite the fact that the government is fully aware of the key role played by qualified imams,” Shaiban said.

He criticized the ministry’s justification that the cancellation would help push forward the progress wheel.

“In their own point of view, progress and modernity mean rebelling against our [Islamic] identity and past glories,” said the scholar.

Minister of National Education Boubekeur Benbouzid argued last week that the move was part of “modernizing and upgrading Algeria’s education system,” which is a mixture of French and Arabic-style teaching.

He said the decision is targeting seven other subjects, denying it would have a domino effect on the university education.

Sources close to the government told IOL that the move was driven by “influential” officials, who believed that teaching Shari`ah and Islamic studies proved a fertile ground for graduating extremist youths.

A library photo of a demonstration by Algerian students against the decision.

The move further drew flack from the powerful General Union of Free Students (UGEL), which described it as “unconstitutional” because Islam is the religion of the state.

“This is a decision we won't accept and will do all we can to change it. Teaching Islamic sciences should be promoted not cancelled,” UGEL Secretary General Nabil Yahyaoui told Reuters Saturday, May 21.

He warned of unprecedented protests, unseen since the height of the conflict in the mid-1990s after the army scrapped the results of the 1992 legislative elections which the now-banned Islamic Salvation Front party was believed to have won.

University students and professors have for many days staged sit-ins across the country’s universities to protest the decision.

They charged that the move was based on an overhaul education plan drawn up by secularists over the past four years at the request of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who frequently called for upgrading the country’s education system.

Prominent scholar Mohamed Chemsedine expected the government to back down.

“The education ministry's decision is a provocation to all Algerian Muslims, and I have no doubt that President Bouteflika will do the right thing,” he told Reuters.

Algerian scholars welcomed in February a government decision to backtrack on scrapping the role of a wali (a woman’s guardian) in concluding marriage contracts under the new amendments to the 1984 family code.

Last week, Harakat Moudjtamaa As-Silm (HMS) party, which is represented in the government by five ministers, denounced the curriculum-trimming move.

The party’s MPs submitted an interpellation to the parliament, asking the education minister to explain his decision.

The interpellation, a copy of which was seen by IOL, said the decision contradicts the presidential oath taken by Bouteflika to respect and glorify Islam.

HMS further condemned in a statement the ministry’s cancellation of this year exams in the subjects of history, Islamic education and Shari`ah at the sixth and ninth grades without consulting the government first.