The Rise and Repression of an Islamic Movement: Harakat al- Nahda in Tunisia

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the Tunisian Islamist current set the standard for the rest of the Maghrib. The Islamic movement in Tunisia was by far the best organized and most articulate in the area. Examination of the Islamic movements in Tunisia, particularly the mainstream organization, Harakat al-Nahda, reveals a pattern of increasing growth and importance during the Bourguiba era, followed by repression under Ben Ali's regime. By the late 1970s and 1980s al-Nahda was a dynamic actor and a viable force in Tunisian politics. During the 1960s, Ahmed Ben Saleh, a strong union leader appointed in 1961 by Bourguiba as minister for planning and finance, led the drive for a planned socialist economy. The beginning of the Islamic Tendency Movement was in al-Zaytouna Mosque, which despite the regime's measures to undermine it, remained a gathering place for traditional scholars seeking refuge from the secularization policies of Bourguiba's regime.