Adel al-Alami once sold vegetables in the al-Mursi suburb of Tunis. A secondary school drop out with few prospects, al-Alami rose to notoriety after the 2011 revolution when he gave up his vegetable cart and became an Islamic preacher on a mission to save Sharia.
Adel al-Alami once sold vegetables in the al-Mursi suburb of Tunis. A secondary school drop out with few prospects, al-Alami rose to notoriety after the 2011 revolution when he gave up his vegetable cart and became an Islamic preacher on a mission to save Sharia.
“Yes, it was me who brought the cartoons of the Prophet to the Constituent Assembly,” al-Alemi says proudly. “ I put them in the office of the president of the council, not for the purpose of insulting our prophet but just to say that we will reach this stage and harvest the same results if the new Constitution does not stipulate that Shariah is the main source of legislation.”
Al-Alami also gave copies of the incendiary cartoons to Abdul-Raouf al-Ayadi, a leading member of the al-Wafaa Movement. The cartoons created a massive rift between parliament’s Islamists and secularists after the ratification of Chapter 6 of the Constitution, which no longer criminalizes non-belief of Islam or takfir. Al-Alami believes this chapter encourages atheism and devil worship under the “pretext of freedom of conscience.”
“I will go to the street and fight the enemies of religion,” he insisted. “I will neither rest nor feel comfortable until the MPs of the Constituent Assembly repent, become reasonable and support the law of God and his messenger against the enemies of Islam.” Al-Alami insists that any person who supports the new Constitution is betraying Allah and The Prophet.
Education on his own terms
Born in 1970, Adel al-Alami is neither a preacher of a certain religious school of thought nor is he an Islamic scholar. He was not taught religion by famous Islamic sheikhs known for their knowledge and proficiency in the eastern or western parts of the Muslim world. He is more of a self-made man.
“I am not an ignorant or a crazy person as the enemies of Islam say about me. It is true that I did not finish my education but the reason I didn’t continue my education, which many people do not know, is my refusal of the secular education imposed by Bourguiba.”
“I did not regret leaving school. I joined the Zaytouni education sessions that were held from time to time in the Zaytouna mosque and I met with a number of clerics in the mashreq, especially after the revolution. I can say that I am a person who built his own knowledge on the fundamentals of Islam.”
Pushing buttons
Al-Alami became controversial in April 2011 upon establishing relationships with the Islamic parties, especially the Ennahda Movement, who gave him a platform to create his “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Association” for which he is best known. He is regularly invited to be a guest by media outlets.
Under pressure exerted by some political parties and organizations, he was forced to change the name of his organization to the ‘Moderate Association for Awareness and Reform.’ Through his association he was able enter prisons and to give lectures to prisoners, especially when the leader of the Ennahda Movement Noureddine Beheiri was Minister of Justice. Many human rights activists were against these visits to prisons and considered them demagogic. However, Al-Alami was able to continue his lecturing activity for a long period of time.
Polygamy and Sharia
Bushra Ben Hamida, a human rights activist, said: “Adel al-Alami represents a sample of the opportunists and traders in religion. He perceives women as inferior to men and he sees them as maids and not as human beings. For him, the only role of women is to sexually please men.”
Al-Alami rejects these accusations and says that he only supports polygamy in Tunisia because it complies with the teachings of Islamic law.
In December 2013, he publicly announced the creation of the Tunisia – al-Zaytuna Party, which openly calls for polygamy, the prevention of adoption, the creation of Islamic courts and for gender segregation in schools, although the Personal Status Law in force in Tunisia outlawed polygamy in 1956. The law also forbids the creation of Islamic courts and the separation of boys and girls. It also legitimizes adoptions.
“Our schools have become places for immoral practices. We should protect teenagers from mixing because at this age, sexual desires reach their climax thus immoral acts may occur at any minute. Let us examine the number of children born outside marriages. The number is growing. We must save our children from harming themselves.”
A man of contradictions
Although he advocates polygamy, he says that he loves his wife. “Ever since we got married, we have been living a fictional love story. I do not think that there is another woman in the universe that can fill my heart other than my current wife. For these reasons, I will never marry another woman.”
Still he further justifies polygamy for other reasons. “If the first wife cannot have children, the husband should have the right to marry another woman, especially if he does not want to divorce them and fall in the act most loathed God— divorce.”
“It is really surprising to me to see society accepting mistresses, girlfriends, illegal relationships, children of unknown parentage, the prevalence of prostitution and secret prostitution while it revolts against legal polygamy.”
Al-Alami claims that 114,000 women in Tunisia signed a petition calling for legalization of polygamy. Al-Alami believes this could be done in agreement with the first wife or by a marriage contract for the duration of six months. “If the husband is not able to be just to the two wives in bed, clothes and food, he can divorce one of them.”
However, al-Alami would not accept his own daughter as a second wife. “When I become a father for a girl, I will teach her how she can make her husband find good qualities in her, which would not allow him to marry another woman.”
Yet Al-Alami says he is concerned about the dignity of women and therefore persistently attacks laws legalizing prostitution. “It is necessary to close all the organized prostitution houses and to adopt mechanisms to protect prostitutes by helping them marry.”
The Ennahda Movement is a traitor but Marzouki is a respectable person
Since forming his own party, al-Alami’s relations with the Ennahda Movement have chilled. “The Ennahda Movement has betrayed the Islamic stream in Tunisia and sold its conscious to foreigners. I advise the movement to dissolve itself. It is paying the price of its concessions by those who walked out, the dissidents and the splits and divisions which it is silently witnessing.”
Al-Alami publicly says that his new party is ready to recruit the dissidents of the Ennahda Movement although they hold different ideas. However, Al-Alami says he has a good relationship to the head of Ennahda. “I was wrong in judging Marzouki, but today I respect him.”
