Imam Detention + School for Scandal

The AP reports that French authorities have arrested Iraqi imam Yashar Ali for failing to obey a house arrest order. "French intelligence suspects Mr. Ali, who is married with four children, of being a leading figure among imams of the Salafist movement which holds to a strict interpretation of Islam," write the editors of the Australian, citing the AP as their source.

Le Monde reports that Interior minister Dominique de Villepin plans to establish a school for Imams. An expert panel was to convene today ways and means of achieving this. The committee's activities are now closely guarded secrets and officials have been instructed to treat the matter with the utmost discretion. Le Monde's controversial reporter Xavier Ternisien reveals that the committee is meeting at the offices of the International Insitute for Islamic Thought (IIIT), a private organization founded in 1981 in the United States (Herndon, VA) by adherents of the Muslim Brotherhood, that describes itself as "an intellectual forum working from an Islamic perspective to promote and support research projects." Since 2000, its chapter in France has been located in Saint-Ouen, a suburb nort of Paris (Seine-Saint-Denis).

The French branch is directed by the Tunisian Mohamed Mestiri, a graduate of the Islamic university of Zeitouna, in Tunis, and holder of a doctorate from the Sorbonne, who, according to Le Monde, describes himself as "evolving in contemporary but not necessarily modernist Islamic thought."

Mestri admits playing a part in planning for de Villepin's school: "We're in charge of coordination and moderating the committee's reflections. But nothing is official...."

Ternisien writes that, surprisingly, few of France's better known experts in Islam (Gilles Kepel or Mohamed Arkoun) are present on the committee. He also says that the establishment of the committee is a clear attempt to circumvent the French Council on the Islamic Faith (CFCM) (which doesn't have great relations with the current government) because its commission on Imam's is not sufficiently active. Only two of its members are on the new committee. It also circumvents the Paris Grand Mosque (affiliated with the CFCM) and the Union of Islamic Orgnizations of France (UOIF), the only two other Muslim federations in France that have training centers for Imams.

As if forgetting that his article is news and not opinion, Ternisien also writes that "it is clear, at any rate, that on this score the current miniter of the Interior is seeking to distinguish himself from his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy." Ternisien quotes a source as saying that, "a new time has come, after the Madrid attacks" and that "we can no longer stick to the traditional game plans." There will be no "security management" of Islam, the source says, but an emphasis on "Republican principles and social cohesion."

Sarkozy was often accused of playing into the hands of conservative Islam with his tough tactics. However, last April, Sarkozy attended a UOIF conference, and sources close to de Villepin say that this will be quite out of the question for the current office-holder. "The minsiter in charge of religious faiths is not required to appear at such meetings.