Kahina Bahloul

Kahina Bahloul (born 1979) is a French imam and Islamic academic. An adherent of Sunni Islam and Sufism, she became the first female imam in France in 2019, when she founded the unisex Fatima Mosque. She advocates liberalization and modernist reforms in Islam, including equal rights for women in Islam, the creation of a distinct French Muslim identity, and an individualist approach to religion and spirituality. Bahloul does not wear a veil, which she sees as a symbol of Islamism. She opposes traditional and conservative interpretations of the Quran and their dominance in the Muslim world.

Born in Paris to an interfaith family, Bahloul grew up in Algeria where she was raised by her Muslim father. He taught her about Islam from a humanist perspective, and her faith was shaken by Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism that took hold during the Algerian Civil War. Bahloul returned to France in 2003 where she worked in insurance. The death of her father in 2009 led her to explore Sufism and become an Islamic academic. Multiple acts of Islamic terrorism in 2015 motivated her to reform and redefine Islam, leading her to found the Fatima Mosque and become an imam.

Early life

Childhood in Algeria Kahina Bahloul was born in Paris in 1979 to a French mother and a Kabyle Algerian father. and her atheist mother was the child of a French Catholic man and a Polish Jewish woman. As a child, Bahloul was raised in the Kabylia region of Algeria.

Though her father had little formal knowledge about Islam, he taught her to practice the religion in conjunction with humanism and progressivism. She never left Islam, but she distanced herself from the religion as a teenager because she felt unwelcome as a woman. While in Kabyila, Bahloul obtained her master's degree in law. She took interest in Algerian law's adherence to Sharia, as opposed to other places where Western law was inherited through colonialism. In her view, patriarchy in Algeria prioritized men over Sharia. As the Algerian Civil War progressed, Bahloul objected to what she saw as fundamentalist Islam being imported to Algeria from Saudi Arabia, including the expectation of women to wear a hijab.

Life in France Bahloul returned to France in 2003, a decision that she attributed to the country's principles of democracy and gender equality. She considered French society liberating, especially because she was allowed to choose what clothes to wear. She coped with his death through the works of Syrian poet Khaled Roumo. It was at this time that she explored Sufism and mysticism in Islam, To further her involvement, she began sharing her religious beliefs when she created on YouTube.

Imamate and Fatima Mosque

Bahloul set out to create a unisex place of worship, and she applied for the establishment of Fatima Mosque in November 2018, co-founding it with philosophy professor Faker Korchane. She invokes Sufism as a form of individualist Islam that is free of dogma. but that it has also allowed Islamic nationalism and anti-Western sentiment to replace liberal Islam.