On April 24, 2019, Dr. Abbasi Madani, a prominent political and public figure in Algeria and the entire Arab world, died. He was born in 1931, and in 1954-1962 he was an active participant in the war for the independence of Algeria.

In 1975-1978 he studied in a doctoral program at the University of London, where he defended his thesis on the psychology of education and moved to work at the University of Algeria, where he became a professor.

In 1988, he and his associate Ali Belhaj created the "Islamic Front of Salvation" Party. In 1990, this party won a convincing victory in the municipal and parliamentary elections in the Algerian Republic. However, due to the intervention of the military, the Party failed to realize their political plans.

In 1991, after the military coup, the "Islamic Front for Salvation" was eliminated, and Abbasi Madani and Ali Belhadj were arrested. In 1997, Dr. Madani managed to be released and he went to Qatar, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Later in 2007, the UN Human Rights Committee investigated this arrest and concluded that the conviction of Algerian military prosecutor to Dr. Abbassi constitutes a violation of article 14 of the international convention on human rights.

Dr. Abbasi Madani, unlike his more rigidly-minded comrade Ali Belhadj, was considered the representative of the moderate wing of the Islamic Salvation Front. He advocated a free market, arabization education, and early Islamic education. Abbasi believed that democracy and sharia can coexist (if the former does not conflict with the latter) and called the liberal Islamic reformer Muhammad Abdo part of the avant-garde of Islamic scientific thought. On the one hand, he sought to squeeze usury from the banking sector of his country, and on the other, he said that his party did not intend to impose the wearing of a veil or forbid women to drive a car, as might have been expected of the Islamic party.

MIF