To start the case study section of this book, I begin with an area that has an ancient Islamic identity. Moroccans, in the form of Berbers who converted to the faith, participated in great numbers in the conquest of the Iberian peninsula beginning in 711 c.e. The officer who led the campaigns was Berber. At this juncture the area we now call Morocco was under limited control from the Umayyad Caliphate in Damascus and its governor in Qayrawan, the main city in Tunisia.

Morocco began to acquire a regional identity, as distinguished from Tunisia and Algeria, in the late eighth century c.e. This came when a descendant of the Prophet settled in the area, and since that time the rulers of Morocco have claimed a genealogical connection to Muhammad. They refer to their monarchy as the “Sharifian throne.” But this Islamic identity at the center of Moroccan life has not always brought satisfaction or prosperity to its citizens. In this chapter we look at what it has meant, over the centuries, to be Muslim in a state with a strong Islamic identity.

The Beginnings

The name Morocco means “far west” in Arabic, because the region stood at the westernmost limits of the Islamic world. One of the early Arab generals rode his horse into the Atlantic Ocean before turning back, and shortly after that the combined Arab and Berber force crossed the straits and started the Spanish Muslim regime we call Andalusia.