Colonial Islamophobia in the texts of the Algerianist writer Louis Bertrand

Abstract EN

The present paper explores the issue Islamophobia which dominates the current political and social arena from a new perspective.

Islamophobia in fact is not a product of current circumstances.

its origins go back to the earliest conflicts between Christians and Muslims during the crusades and later during the colonial campaigns.

the aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between Islamophobia and colonialism in the oeuvre of Louis Bertrand.

it analyzes the functioning of Bertrand’s discourse on Islam and Muslims in the colonial space of Algeria.

moreover, it shows how Islamophobia constitutes an elemental pillar of the colonial ideology that dominated the French colonial literature of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century.

for this reason, the study draws on Edward Said’s orientalism and his assumptions about the representation of Muslims in his covering Islam.