Radical Salafist Imam Ceases Activities Due To Pressure From French Authorities EUP20050816338004 Paris Liberation (Internet Version-WWW) in French 16 Aug 05 [Report by Jacky Durand: "The Salafist Profession of Faith of a Contested Imam"]

It is a succession of corridors, of dark rooms cluttered with cables and heat pipes. In Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis), the Al-Salam mosque is housed on the ground floor and basement of a suburban building. For the past seven years, it is in these austere surroundings that Zouhair Razgallah, 38, has delivered his sermons. Surroundings that remain silent and empty between prayers. The place is reputed to be Salafist. During the past three years at least, RG [General Intelligence] memos have reported that the Stains mosque welcomes supporters of this rigorous movement that demands an original interpretation of Islam.

Unusually for this strand of Islam, the young believers agreed to speak of their faith and practice that they see as being close to that of the salefs, the companions and successors of the Prophet. They say that the Friday prayers led by Imam Zouhair Razgallah attracted crowds of worshippers. Zouhair Razgallah listens to them, a hint of a smile behind his beard. Between the mosque and his family he has made his choice. "It will be my children," he says. The man described as the "Salafist imam" has decided to no longer preach in Stains because he fears being targeted by the Interior Ministry since Nicolas Sarkozy decreed "zero tolerance" of radical imams following the London bombings. But he wanted to explain his position to a journalist. Zouhair Razgallah argues his personal cause with the aid of the audio recording of one his most recent sermons condemning violence and a work by the Committee of the Ulemas of Saudi Arabia condemning terrorism, in the French translation.

Distinction. It all began, says Zouhair Razgallah, with an interview that appeared in the 23 July issue of Le Parisien [Paris regional daily] in which Mohamed al-Saadi, director of the Stains mosque, explained that the "imam is a Salafist." "I said that the imam was a Salafist," admits Mohamed al-Saadi finally. "I said that he did not engage in politics. I did not say he was a jihadist," added the Stains mosque director in reference to the distinction made by researchers between the Sheikhist Salafists who condemn terrorism and the murder of civilians and the Jihadist Salafists who justify the use of violence. "The difficulty lies in knowing when people may move from one tendency to another and espouse violent extremism," says one investigator.

Last Friday [ 12 August] Zouhair Razgallah went elsewhere than Stains for his prayers, he says, due to "the immense media pressure" he is under. "I try to follow a traditionalist Islam, close to that of the Prophet, with no change from its source, its bases." The message has all the hallmarks of Sheikhist Salafism, that of the faithful who use the Internet or prepaid telephone cards to consult the Saudi "Shaykhs" who advise them on the interpretation of texts, on daily life, and religious practice. But the outgoing imam avoids using the word as he knows that it makes people frightened: "Today, if you want to say that someone is a fanatic you say that he is a Salafist."

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Intellectual baggage. Over the past year Abdel Ait Omar has been meeting with young people from the Stains mosque as part of his research for the Versailles Saint-Quenten-en Yvelines University. After his master's degree, he embarked on a thesis on "the practice of Islam in French society." "One youngster said to me: 'I am lucky to have found Islam as I saw a lot of my friends killed by drugs or in fights or hold ups.' For them Islam is often a way of breaking with a very burdensome past. They also have the feeling that by learning Arabic and embarking on a spiritual quest they will acquire the intellectual baggage they failed to obtain at school."