Le piège : Kabyle de langue, Arabe de religion

Starting from a written exchange between a Kabyle village imam and Cheikh Hamani that deals with the issue of using the Berber language in religious sermons, this paper analyzes the main transformations that have had an impact on the Kabyle religious field (and more broadly the Algerian one): the status of the imam, the renovation of the mosques and the development of the Friday sermon. The Berber movement is, more often than not, represented as a secular movement based on linguistic and cultural claims. But the Kabyle society went through an intense period of arabization and strengthening of its religious aspiration. In view of these changes, the question of the impact and objectives of translations of the Koran in Berber are raised.