Algerian culture and life have been profoundly affected by 130 years of colonial rule, by the bitter War of Independence, and by the subsequent broad mobilization policies of the postindependence era. With the resulting emergence of a mobile, often rootless society, Algeria's cultural continuity has accordingly been undermined. Only Islamic belief and populist ideology have seemingly prevented social disintegration.

Daily life of the average Algerian is permeated with the atmosphere of Islam, which, in this former colony of a Western power, has become identified with the concept of an autonomous Algerian people and of resistance to the West. Practiced here largely as a set of social prescriptions and ethical attitudes, Islam has more characteristically been identified with supporting traditional values than with serving as a revolutionary ideology.