INTERPRETI AUTOREVOLI: GLI INTELLETTUALI PUBBLICI TUNISINI E L’INTERPRETAZIONE AUTONOMA DELLE FONTI

Tunisian religious associations, which emerged thanks to the new spaces of expression granted by the 2010/2011 revolution, propose themselves as authorita- tive collective subjects in the interpretation of the Islamic message. They are part of the contemporary Islamic public, which claims the right to interpret autono- mously the Scriptures (ijtihad), relying on their knowledge and skills of textual analysis. This Islamic public emerges as a point of contestation both for traditional religious authorities (the ‘ulema’) and for political authority, as long as the latter tries to monopolize the understanding of the religious message. The contempo- rary Islamic intellectuals join this debate; they are the thinkers of formal political movements, who represent the most openly ‘political’ voice in the contest for interpretative authority.