Saïd Djabelkhir

In April 2021 he was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine for "offending islam" by the Sidi M'Hamed court. The trial took place after a computer teacher filed a complaint because he felt offended by the remarks of the Islamologist. He appealed this decision. But the new trial, scheduled for July, was postponed in September, due to the absence of the complainant.

In May 2019, he declared that fasting in Ramadan was not an Islamic obligation, which earned him death threats from Islamists. He supported the right to celebrate Yennayer, the Berber New Year. He said that the ritual sacrifice of the sheep and the pilgrimage to Mecca existed before Islam and therefore have a pagan origin. He said that it is necessary, when reading the Qu'ran, to distinguish between history and myths, and that much of the Quranic stories must be taken from a symbolic point of view. He speaks out for a separation of politics and religion in Algeria, whose official religion is Islam.

In 2014, he founded the “Circle of Lights for Free Thought” (Moultaqa al Anouar), which invites thinkers to give lectures on religion, history, culture and Algerian society. He is particularly concerned about the issue of the diversity of society : "la démocratisation, la condition des femmes, l’école, la nécessité de préserver le religieux des manipulations" (democratization, the condition of women, school, the need to protect religion from manipulation).

(ar) The Sufi Confraternities in Algeria, (Fairouz, Algeria 2011)

(ar) Sufism, religion and religious referent (Fairouz, 2010)

Saïd Djabelkhir, born on December 17, 1964, at Boufarik, is an Algerian journalist and an Islamic scholar specializing in Sufism. In 2021, he was sentenced to prison on the charge of "offending Islam".