On his YouTube channel followed by 24,000 people, Shakeel Siddiq is clever. Catchy video titles – “Will Abbé Pierre go to heaven?” –, themes modeled on the tastes of the youngest – “What do you think of Inoxtag’s message?”, “Maeva Ghennam [NDLR : candidate de téléréalité très populaire] in Mecca. What is this repentance?”… The vice-president of the Sira institute, dedicated to the in-depth study of the biography of Mohammed, masters the codes of the Internet brilliantly. However, in substance, Shakeel’s speech Siddiq wants to be much less “modern”. In a video from July 28, 2022, the YouTuber deplores the expulsion from the national territory of Hassan Iquioussen, an imam registered as S, pinned for comments homophobic, sexist and anti-Semitic. The latter had notably accused the Jews of being an “ungrateful people” who “need to be called to order twenty-four hours a day”.
“France has a problem with this traditional Islam [qu’incarnerait Iquioussen]which refers to the Koran, to the hadiths, where the religious referents are in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. She wants to eradicate this thought”, develops in his video Shakeel Siddiq, for whom the country seeks on the contrary to impose a “progressive Islam, very LGBT, where homosexuals would be welcome and where we would say that it is something normal , human.” “If we do not subscribe to this vision, we are banned,” he continues. A month later, another video, entitled “The expulsion of Hassan Iquioussen validated”, is the opportunity for Siddiq to more explicitly support the imam: “France accuses him of anti-Semitism because he condemned Israel’s policy when there were bombings”, he comments Further on. YouTuber then urges Muslims “to fight verbally and effectively against injustice”, because “if we are crushed and humiliated, it is because we are “crushable” (sic) like a cockroach.”
What most of his channel’s subscribers don’t know is that Shakeel Siddiq wears another hat. For almost ten years, he has been one of two teachers of Islamic culture within the private establishment Al-Kindi, located in Décines-Charpieu (Rhône), the last Muslim school group under contract with the State, after the rupture of that of Averroès in Lille, last September. And his remarks, deemed “incompatible with the values of the Republic” by the prefect of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Fabienne Buccio, could today cost Al-Kindi dearly: on December 12, school officials are summoned to an academic consultation commission, the outcome of which could be the elimination of subsidies granted by the State.
Counterattack
So, on December 6, Al-Kindi prepared his counterattack. In a press conference organized within the establishment, Hakim Chergui, one of the co-founders of the school and also its lawyer, denounces a decision motivated by “a political agenda”, which could sign “the end of school”, yet ranked best establishment in the Rhône in 2022 by The Student. “The accusations which form the basis of this procedure are for the most part peccadillo, even lies,” he defends. According to him, Professor Shakeel Siddiq, currently on temporary layoff by the establishment “during an internal investigation”, was not criticized for “the content of his courses, what is taught in the classes “. “We are criticized for his actions outside, but we are not supposed to know exactly what people do in their private lives,” assures Hakim Chergui.
However, according to information from L’Express, Al-Kindi is far from unaware of his teacher’s activities. The son of the manager of the establishment intervenes within the institute… Sira, of which Shakeel Siddiq is the vice-president. In 2017, this same institute developed a book whose content was taught to students in the 6th grade of Al-Kindi, as evidenced by a Facebook post by Siddiq. “Parents also complained because he referred his students to his YouTube videos, which are public and not private,” confides a former teacher at the establishment. A testimony contested by Hakim Chergui: “To date, we have never had any negative feedback regarding this course. We welcome families of all persuasions, Shiites, Sunnis, and if a statement is proselytizing, divisive or radical, they would have been the first to give us the information.”
Because since 2020, Shakeel Siddiq has published more than 1,000 videos, alternating between the most classic religious questions – “Can a Muslim marry a non-Muslim?” ; no, he will answer – and current topics, like this sequence devoted to the performance of The Last Supper during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, where the YouTuber loses his temper: “How [les organisateurs] insulted Jesus with all these drag queens! That’s it, that’s the great replacement, this world of tomorrow, of transgenders and drag queens, which is replacing Christianity in France. But no, we are going to make people believe that the problem is us Muslims, we who love and respect Jesus!” Another video, concerning the Covid vaccine, gives Siddiq the opportunity to oppose “idolatry modern”, which are “the so-called secular sciences”, to Allah, sole holder of the “keys to all things”.
For educational sciences researcher Sébastien Vida, who carried out survey work in 12 Muslim schools under and outside contract between 2019 and 2022, this type of discourse from speakers is indicative of a “return of religion”. “There is a desire, among some of these actors, to deploy ‘integral education’ in schools, aimed at the acquisition of moral dispositions by children, he explains. This is in line with the aspirations of pietist families, in search of an Islamic atmosphere, where children are reminded of what “good behavior” would be “as a Muslim, and where we try to protect them from the perceived harmful influences of the contemporary world.”
Pro-jihad works
In Al-Kindi, four works present in the CDI documentary collection were also judged “contrary to the values of the Republic” by the prefecture, as indicated in the referral report. Among them, The Way of the Muslim by Abou Bakr al-Jazairi, a conservative Algerian theologian and promoter of jihad. One of its chapters states: “The main objective of jihad is to confront disbelievers and belligerents. It is a collective duty, but when it is accomplished by part of the population, the rest is exempted. ” For the author, supporting hadiths, “the merit of jihad and martyrdom for the Cause of God [sont] the most meritorious work and the most distinguished act of devotion”, and this requires acquiring in advance “all kinds of weapons”, including “war material”. Another work, entitled Rights and duties of women in Islam by Fatima Naseef, evokes a completely different subject: the obligation for women to obey their husbands, including in the satisfaction of their sexual desires. “Imam Abu Huraira reported that the Prophet said: ‘If one morning a man invites his wife to sleep with him and she refuses to come to him, then the angels send their curses until the morning.’ “, we can read there.
At a press conference, Al-Kindi avoided the problem, although the works have since been removed “as a precautionary measure”. “The school group has more than 6,000 publications, and these four books were already present during an inspection at the CDI carried out in 2023 by the same inspectors, who had nevertheless noted nothing,” maintains Sefen Guez Guez, one lawyers. “The books in question are all legal and freely accessible. If these remarks were crimes, it was up to the State to ban them, and we would not have kept them,” adds Hakim Chergui, denying the fact of having committed “a fault” which would justify the termination of the contract. It is now up to the prefect to decide.
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