Abstract: | The Islamic reformist movement is a tangible example of Eastern Arab influence of North Africa in modern times. Although there was an original eastern Arab influence, North African Islamic reformism is best understood as yet another example of a classical historical pattern - a puritanical movement appealing to a threatened of déclassé people, urban and rural, during a period of social breaksown, a 'time of troubles'. Furthermore, the extent of the threat - the lack of a workable alternative - has governed in large degree magnitude of the response: the reformist movement. This may help to clarify the quite different impact of Islamic reformism in Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. References. |