We are reproducing the text of the interview by Alexandre Devecchio published in the FigaroVox of 03/08/2022 at 19:16 p.m.
MAINTENANCE - Bernard Rougier, director of the Center for Arab and Oriental Studies, looks back at the career of Imam Hassan Iquioussen. According to him, the preacher, whom Gérald Darmanin wants to expel, played a considerable role in the re-Islamization of many young Muslims.
Bernard Rougier is also a professor at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University – Paris-III and edited the collective work “The Conquered Territories of Islamism” (PUF, 2021, 368 p., €23).
LE FIGARO. – Who is Hassan Iquioussen?
Bernard ROUGIER. – Originally from Souss, Morocco, born in France, in Denain in the suburbs of Valenciennes, aged 58, Hassan Iquioussen corresponds to a very widespread figure in the milieu of European militant Islam, that of a charismatic preacher who has managed to win Islamic legitimacy by capturing a young audience, both in the virtual world of social networks, with thousands of subscribers on his Facebook page and his YouTube channel (more than 150.000) and in the physical world of the neighborhoods.
For about twenty years, he has given numerous lectures in mosques in the north of France – where he is based – in the Île-de-France region and in Belgium, where, even better known than in France, he was regularly invited to Islamic institutes and lecture halls in Brussels, including the very Catholic Université Saint-Louis. At the time, in the years 2008-2010, he was the "second part" of the lectures of Tariq Ramadan, to whom he was close and who guaranteed him a large audience. He was also a recurring guest at the Paris Air Show, organized every year at Easter by the UOIF, which since 2017 has become Muslims of France, of Muslim Brotherhood orientation and identity.
Hassan Iquioussen played a considerable role in the "Islamic edification" of a generation now in its forties, whose training he supported as a guide and spiritual advisor. He gave his audience a strong community awareness by politicizing their religious affiliation. In this way, he spreads a kind of general Islamist culture, as others had done before him in the Middle East and the Maghreb. He is also a shrewd entrepreneur, who owns an impressive property portfolio that ensures him a comfortable lifestyle. Benefiting from their father's aura, and, above all, from his electoral strength, his sons, one of whom is a preacher, have also integrated the local political system in Denain, in Hauts-de-France, according to a mechanism of entryism unfortunately increasingly practiced by local elected officials.
Is he an Islamist?
The answer is obviously positive – he himself hardly hides it and promotes Erdogan's Turkey whenever there are tensions with Europe. Ideological and politicized version of Islam, islamism wants to transform a religious tradition into an instrument of power and control, notably by means of the production of binding standards. For the northern preacher, "Islam is the solution" au "planetary disorder" Parts and accessories "The world is run by people who are lawless. What is happening in the world today is due to the absence of Islam: Muslims no longer hold the reins!" (extract from a sermon in June 2014 in his mosque in Lourches in the Valenciennes region). Iquioussen identifies with the Muslim Brotherhood movement and claims to be the unconditional defender of its most eminent representative, the Egyptian-Qatari Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, known throughout the Arab world thanks to the program "Sharia and Life", long broadcast on the Qatari channel al-Jazeera.
How far does this support for Sheikh al-Qaradawi go?
For Iquioussen, "All those who fight al-Qaradawi are allies of the enemies of Islam, are allies of the despots and tyrants who rule the Muslim world." (extract from a conference given about ten years ago). The northern sheikh does not disavow al-Qaradawi's main public positions: the killing of unbelievers who have left Islam ("murtaddin"), whom he describes as "traitors to the community", denunciation of the Oslo Accords, legitimization of suicide operations during the second Intifada, including when the Israeli victims were non-combatant civilians - a solution also applicable to American civilians in Iraq after the occupation of the country in 2003.
When Iquioussen explains, in a conference given at the beginning of the Syrian conflict, that "The Shiites are now, clearly and unequivocally, our enemies" In an attempt to explain the clashes in Iraq and Syria, he places himself – and his listeners – in a generalized confessional war that gives a theological and essentialist dimension to Middle Eastern conflicts of a political nature. I was able to observe during interviews the reality of a "Sunni communal patriotism" unimaginable in France twenty years ago.
Does Iquioussen have a political position?
Hassan Iquioussen is explicitly seeking to create a “Muslim political lobby” and to structure a “Muslim community vote” whose aim is to put pressure on public authorities – in the same way, he says, as homosexuals imposed the law on marriage for all. The priority for him is to re-Islamize young Muslims to "get off drugs" and make them adherents to its collective and authoritarian vision of Islam.
In terms of municipal politics, Iquioussen posted a video in 2014 entitled Debate on the vote: halal (allowed) or haram (forbidden), chirk (associationism) or general interest? where he explains "How to guarantee Mr. Mayor the 853 votes of the mosque's faithful" to structure a Muslim electorate. According to him, the method is simple. You have to see the mayor and tell him: "Last time you won with 50 votes. I'll give you 853. What's the mayor doing? He's genuflecting and prostrating!"
What is the connection between the separatism law and this expulsion order?
The expulsion order is in line with the spirit of the law strengthening respect for republican principles – known as the law on separatism – passed on August 24, 2021, aimed in this case at punishing an Islamist preacher for “inciting hatred”. According to the explanations given to the National Assembly by the Minister of the Interior on Tuesday, August 2, Hassan Iquioussen, although born in France in 1964, refused to obtain French nationality when he came of age, which requires him to renew his residence permit every ten years. In May, the departmental commission had refused this renewal, probably due to the person concerned’s activism.
How do you analyse the reactions of solidarity in favour of Iquioussen and the petition signed by around twenty mosques in Hauts-de-France?
Those who are reacting today are the same as those who campaigned against the vote on the separatism law, denouncing the advent of "state Islamophobia" threatening freedom of expression.
Supported by decolonial and Islamo-leftist sympathisers, who see the government's policy as a neocolonial legacy, the Muslim Brotherhood network is mobilising to defend one of its emblematic figures, with the help of institutional and media outlets in Europe and the United States. A kitty has even been created for this purpose, which is indecent given the material means of the person concerned.
What more general lesson can be drawn from the current sequence?
In terms of political philosophy, the law on separatism strengthens the republican side of French democracy, after the accelerated development of its liberal side, under the influence of European jurisprudence. This liberal side continues to be exploited by illiberal forces to undermine, through in-depth work, the republican dimension of the State – the recognition of a common good through the identification of the citizen with the Republic. In this respect, the law separates the order of belief – the theological – from the order of doing – the normative –, to free Muslims from the risks of an Islamist hold on their tradition. Our Muslim compatriots must be able, in the name of their faith (or their lack of faith), to submit it, richer and more plural than what the Islamists say, to a right of inventory. Far from being liberticidal, the law appears to me rather as the legislative translation of the mass demonstration of January 11, 2015, after the massacre of the editorial staff of Charlie HebdoIt acknowledges the link between the high end of the spectrum – terrorist action – and the low end of the spectrum – the preaching of rupture, which seeks to set Muslims against the rest of the world.
