Abstract
In 1903 Ibnou-Zakri (1852–1914), who was a native of a small hamlet in Kabylia named Ivessekriene, published an epistle (risāla) in which he pled an urgent and radical reform (iṣlāḥ) of zāwiyas in Kabylia. The project of Ibnou Zakri was neither a competitor nor an imitation of French model schools, but an attempt “from the inside” to modernize and rationalize traditional religious institutions, which were on their way to deterioration following their involvement in rural insurrections in Kabilya, especially those of the 1871 led by Shaykh el-Haddad. For this purpose, he suggested to introduce academic reforms to give zāwiyas a “school identity.” He also claimed he would revise part of the traditional customs concerning Kabyle women. Ibnou-Zakri’s example invites us to consider that Kabyle of that period was a society with elite who had various careers divided by fault lines and differences. The epistle objectifies the reformist ideas of Ibnou-Zakri, while the factual expansion of the reformist ideas of Ibn Badis suggests that Ibnou-Zakri’s reformism was a reform of concentration, which was aimed at the local level. Contrary to this, the reform of Ibn Badis was an Iṣlāḥ of expansion and totalization, which aimed at national and global levels.
