mostly bilingual became disciples of French orientalists. Their main contribution was translations of texts from Arabic to French. In this respect we name Muhammad Ben Cheneb, Muhammed Soualih, Ismail Hamet and Sayed Boulifa. Translation from French to Arabic was not allowed to make progress .Some Algerian educators and writers left a number of books which became important for the coming generation such as Aboulkacem Al-Hafnawi, Abdelkader Al-majjawi, Ben Cheneb, Mubarak Al-Mili, Ahmed T. Al-Madani ...
In the Algerian annals writers of inter war period, talk about the "Nahda" (renaissance) which started about ١٩٢٠. They usually had in mind Ibn Badis educational movement which carried the banner of reviving Algerian Arabic and Islamic identity . This revival included going back to the sources of pure Islam, modernizing Arabic language and spread of Arabic education through free schools (non-governmental) and giving sermons and religious guidance in mosques. Ibn Badis' efforts are later carried out by Association of the Algerian Muslim Ulama, created in ١٩٣١. In addition, Al-Kattanyah Institute in Constantine and Al-Hayat Institute in Mzab worked for the same goal. Algerian students sought Arabic and Islamic education at the Zitouna University (Tunis), Al-Azhar University (Cairo) and Al-Karawiyyn University (Fez).
Algerian teachers and students, however, were more interested in education than in cultural revival per see. Apart from musicians, journalists, dramatists, historians and poets, writing about culture was not of an interest to educated Algerians. Those whose education was only in Arabic were not trained to do research work, they were leaders trained to teach in schools and to give sermons in mosques. They call this mission the formation of men not writing books. As for the Algerians whose education was only in French, they were virtually cut off from their roots. They in fact, lost contact with Arabic documents, manuscripts and even their family genealogical trees which were all written in Arabic in different periods. So this category of Algerians were not expected to write cultural history of their country either. This cultural vacuum, therefore, I tried to fill in and, as I said earlier, it is not an easy
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