Ennahdha et l’essor des associations islamiques en Tunisie: revendiquer l’islam politique au-delà de la dimension partisane?

After the fall of Ben Ali’s regime in 2011, the opening of socio-political opportunities allowed the emergence of new forms of Islamic engagement in parallel with the legalization of the Ennahdha party. This article addresses the positioning of new religious associations vis-à-vis the evolution of the party’s Islamist agenda, from 2011 until the elections of 2019. The analysis focuses in particular on how religious associations have reacted to the party’s ideological transformation, which culminated with the decision, taken at the party’s tenth Congress in 2016, to separate politics from religious activities. Based on immersive fieldwork in four regions of the country, this article wishes to contribute to the literature on the transformations of political Islam through the entry point of the study of religious associations, by highlighting the specificity of the Tunisian context. Thus, this article points out the pluralisation of the mobilisation practices beyond the partisan sphere, by critically questioning the academic works based on a linear and one-dimensional analysis of the transformation of the Tunisian Islamist movement. Indeed, this study reveals that complex relational dynamics exist between the party and those activists engaged outside the partisan sphere, which ultimately shape heterogeneous forms of Islamic militancy.