Mahfoud Nahnah

ALGIERS, June 20 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Mahfoud Nahnah, the head of Algeria's Society of Peace Movement, a moderate Islamic party, died Thursday, June 19, following a long illness, state television reported.

Nahnah, who had become the face of moderate Islamism in the north African country, had only recently returned from Paris where he underwent treatment in hospital, a party official said.

The local press had reported "serious concerns" over the state of Nahnah's health, with the daily L'Expression reporting last week that he had been treated for leukemia.

Sheikh Nahnah, the head of Algeria's Society of Peace Movement (MSP) who unsuccessfully sought the presidency in 1995 and 1999 in the north African country, was 61.

Once a member of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, Nahnah coined the term "shouracracy", a combination of the Islamic Shoura, or consensus decision-making, and Western-style democracy.

Sporting a close-cropped beard, the popular Nahnah was a master of literary Arabic but also slipped colloquialisms into his speeches.

Born in Blida, south of Algiers, to a conservative family, Nahnah studied at Arabic-language schools and graduated from university in Algiers in Arab literature.

After the Algerian independence in 1962, he became professor of Arabic at Algiers University where he had previously studied Arabic literature.

At that time he was closely connected to Egyptian professors -often members of the Muslim Brotherhood- who were responsible for the Arabisation and Islamisation of Algeria. Under their influence Nahnah became convinced of the necessity to establish a link between Arabism and Islam in Algeria.

In 1976, after signing a tract criticizing founding leader Houari Boumediene, Nahnah was accused of organizing a coup d’etat against the Algerian regime as he opposed imposing communism on the Algerian society.

He was condemned for civil disobedience to 15 years in prison. He was released after 5 years by presidential pardon after Boumediene's death and began a political career.

The democratic opening which followed the riots of 1988 forced the Islamic movement to organize itself but Seikh Nahnah refused to join the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and created his own political party, called Hamas, of which he became chairman.

The adjournment of the second round of the legislative elections in 1991 gave Mahfoud Nahnah the opportunity to present himself as the representative of a moderate and reform oriented Islam.

In the presidential elections of November 1995, Nahnah won 25.38% of the votes and came thereby in second position after General Zeroual. He did not present himself at the legislative elections of 1997 and has therefore been without political mandate since then.

His visits to Western countries made him however an unofficial spokesman for the Algerian government in the field of foreign policy.

On 21 February 1999, Nahnah announced that he would run for President of the Republic. His party had already designated him two months before but he had asked for a period of reflexion.

His candidacy was nevertheless rejected by the Constitutional Council on 10 March on the ground that he could not show the certificate of his participation in the war of independence (1954-1962) as stipulated in the Constitution for the candidates for the presidency born before July 1942 (art.73).

Sheikh Nahnah was a member of the Orientation Council of the "European Institute of Human Sciences" based in Château-Chinon (France). It is a training center for imams founded by the Union of Islamic Organizations of France.

He was influenced by a modern Islamic ideologue, Malek Benabi, who led Friday prayers at the university mosque and secretly opposed the sole party following independence from France, the National Liberation Force (FLN).