L’émir Abdelkader et la franc-maçonnerie française : de l’engagement (1864) au renoncement (1877)

A major figure in the history of Franco-Algerian colonial relations Emir Abd-el-Kader is usually presented by his countrymen as the political, military and religious model of resistance to French colonialism in the 19th century.   The official Algerian historiography conveys the image of Abd-el-Kader as the religious leader who launched a jihad resistance complying with the exoteric rules of sharî’a, loyal and magnanimous warrior, strategist, whose military defeat ironically marks the founding of modern Algeria as a nation and state. The postcolonial sociopolitical construction of this myth has helped to legitimize the different political regimes that have succeeded in independent Algeria that have under an exoteric reading of Islam, always silenced the spiritual dimension of Abd-el-Kader disciple-heir and commentator on the work of magister Magnus Sufi IbnʻArabî.  Fascinated since the beginning of their colonization by this uncommon enemy the increasingly secularized French built a of Abd-el-Kader utilitarian image alienating his fellow countrymen. As this image took shape, it increasingly decoupled Abd-el-Kader from his Islamic faith.  Competing memories between the former colonial power and its former colony have generated several contemporary debates in regard to writing the history of colonization. The character of Abd-el-Kader was exploited by all sides. Two controversial events of his biography have become the subject of often rough and bitter controversy between Algerian and French authors-researchers: the accession of the Amir to the French Freemasonry and his separation from it. In this thesis, we demonstrate that Algerian authors' premise that Abd-el-Kader could not have joined the Grand Orient de France because of a supposed incompatibility with Islamic doctrinal concerns is in contradiction with his initiation into Masonry as it was presented to him, when it was still in agreement with his legalistic and mystical vision of Islamic dogma.  Basing our analysis careful periodization of the process of secularization of French Freemasonry during the period of the alleged reception of the Emir into the masonry, we show that he later withdrew from it for reasons of Islamic doctrine. The elimination of any deist reference in texts constituting the Grand Orient de France subsequent to Abd-el-Kader’s entrance could only make his participation eventually unacceptable as a Muslim defeated militarily but humanist spiritually strengthened by his growing proximity with his spiritual master IbnʻArabî. French Freemasonry had carried out an overhaul based on human rights stemining from the French Revolution, while Emir Abd-el-Kader is humanism had its source in the Unity of Being which is the Akbarian conceptual framework of understanding the relationship of God with its creatures. We show that Franco-Algerian controversies regarding Abd-el-Kader’s relations  to French Freemasonry mask another substantive debate that has lasted for centuries in the Muslim world: that of two legalistic hermeneutics of Islamic texts, one exoteric embodied in the work of the famous Muslim theologian Ibn Taymiyya and the other at the heart of esoteric writings of the mystic IbnʻArabî.

Keyphrases: Bārzakh, France, Algeria, Sufism, Sharî’a, isthmus, colonization, Freemason, Great architect of universe