their ability to perform miracles. Recognized as just and spiritual men, marabouts often had extensive followings, locally and regionally. Muslims believed that baraka could be inherited, or that a marabout could confer it on a follower. The turuq, meaning way or path, or brotherhoods, were another feature of Islam in the Maghreb from the Middle Ages onward. Each brotherhood had its own prescribed path to salvation, its own rituals, signs, symbols, and mysteries. The brotherhoods were prevalent in the rural and mountainous areas of Algeria and other parts of North Africa. Their leaders were often marabouts or shaykhs. The more orthodox Sunni Muslims dominated the urban centers, where traditionally trained men of religion, the ulema, conducted the religious and legal affairs of the Muslim community. Islam and the Algerian state Jews and Christians, whose religions Allah according to the Qur'an recognized as the precursors of Islam and who were called "people of the book" because of their holy scriptures, were permitted to continue their own communal and religious life as long as they recognized the temporal domain of Muslim authorities, paid their taxes, and did not proselytize or otherwise interfere with the practice of Islam. Soon after arriving in Algeria, the French colonial regime set about undermining traditional Muslim Algerian culture. The French ideas such as freedom of religion, however, vastly differed from the Islamic way of living. For this reason, Islam was a strong element of the resistance movement to the French. After independence, the Algerian government asserted state control over religious activities for purposes of national consolidation and political control. Islam became the state religion in the new constitution and the religion of its leaders. No laws could be enacted that would be contrary to Islamic tenets or that would in any way undermine Islamic beliefs and principles. The state monopolized the building of mosques, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs controlled an estimated 5,000 public mosques by the mid-1980s. Imams were trained, appointed, and paid by the state, and the Friday khutba, or sermon, was issued to them by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. That ministry also administered religious property, the habus, provided for religious education and training in schools, and created special institutes for Islamic learning. Those measures, however, did not satisfy everyone. As early as 1964, a militant Islamic movement, called Al Qiyam (values), emerged and became the precursor of the Islamic Salvation Front of