Imam

Hassen Chalghoumi
Hassen Chalghoumi, Rue Nicolas-Appert, Paris, one day after the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
Born1972 (age 51–52)
Tunis
Employer(s)Drancy mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis, France

Hassen Chalghoumi (born Tunis, 1972) is the imam of the municipal Drancy mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris.[1]

He stood out during the Islamic scarf controversy in France for supporting French President Nicolas Sarkozy's draft law to ban the burqa.[2] He has good relations with Jewish organisations in France, which sometimes caused demonstrations and clashes in Drancy mosque.[3][4]

He studied in Syria and Pakistan in fundamentalist madrasa before coming to France in 1996. He was a member of the Tablighi Jamaat (with whom he remains close) until 2005. He was naturalised as a French citizen in 2005.[5] In 2009, he founded the "Conference of Imams", an organisation whose aim is to publish "fatwas" for Muslims living in France.[6]

Some of his opponents call him "Imam of the Jews" for his activism with the French Jewish organisation CRIF.[7] At the beginning of 2009 he was invited to the Elysée and the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions juives de France (CRIF), a French Jewish organisation. In 2006, he made a speech in front of the deportation memorial in Drancy.[8] His house was vandalized a few days later, although no link has been established between these two events.

In an interview in the Le Parisien he voiced the opinion that no man should refuse to allow his wife to be examined by a male doctor.

Chalghoumi has questioned Western support for the Arab Spring, due to the growing support in certain states for Islamist political parties.[9] He feels that Ben Ali, second President of Tunisia, saved the country from the Algerian Civil War.[10]

He is married and has five children.

References

  1. ↑ Cuénod, Jean-Noël (15 January 2009). "Un imam prêche la paix et la concorde avec les juifs: il est menacé de mort". Tribune de Genève. Archived from the original on 7 May 2009. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
  2. ↑ "FRANCE: ANTI-VEIL IMAM TARGETED; GROUP STORMS MOSQUE". Ansamed. 26 January 2010. Archived from the original on 20 April 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
  3. ↑ "Hassen Chalghoumi, un imam pas comme les autres". Le Point. 26 January 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
  4. ↑ "French Mosque Raided by Islamic Radicals". Israel National News. 28 January 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
  5. ↑ "L'Imam de Drancy, un médiateur menacé". Mejliss et kalam. 27 January 2010. Archived from the original on 30 January 2010. Retrieved 30 January 2010.
  6. ↑ Manji, Irshad (10 February 2014). "Moral Courage: Imam for Peace". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
  7. ↑ "'Unprecedented' Holocaust tribute by French imams". France 24. 5 February 2013. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
  8. ↑ "L'imam de Drancy prône l'ouverture". Le Figaro. 27 March 2009. Retrieved 31 January 2010.
  9. ↑ ""Arrêtez de soutenir les islamistes!" scande l'Imam de Drancy".
  10. ↑ L'Imam de Drancy: La burqa est un phénomène étranger à l'islam des Lumières Archived 26 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Metro, 15 septembre 2010; "Le président actuel a sauvé la Tunisie de la guerre civile algérienne" (The current president has saved Tunisia from the Algerian civil war).
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