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Morocco and the near East: Reflections on some basic differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Edmund Burke
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Extract

The comparative sociological study of the countries of the Middle Eastern culture area for the nineteenth century can scarcely be said to have begun. But such studies can do much to help us come to a more precise estimate of the functions which particular institutions might fill, and the weight they could be required to bear in different parts of the Middle East during the critical period of the onset of modernization. It is the purpose of this article to begin to make some of the kinds of distinctions which set off different parts of the Middle East one from another, using the case of late nineteenth century Morocco. It is hoped that the analysis which follows will stimulate the same kind of critical examination of the institutions of other segments of the Middle East culture area. Even if it does not accomplish this objective, such an exercise may be useful if in studying the Moroccan modifications of some of these basic institutions, it can shed light on why Morocco was significantly different and therefore perhaps on the nature of these institutions themselves.

Type
Survivances et permanences or Continuity and Re-enactment
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , May 1969 , pp. 70 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1969

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References

(1) Cf. the magistral work of Braudel, Fernand, La Méditerranée au temps de Philippe II (Paris 1949)Google Scholar. Also, Dofourq, Charles Emmanuel, L'Espagne catalane et le Maghreb (Paris 1966)Google Scholar and Bovill, E. W., The Golden Trade of the Moors2 (London 1968).Google Scholar

(2) Despite their importance, these years have received little study by historians of North Africa. The three-cornered struggle between crusaders, Ottomans, and the nascent sharifian dynasties have been briefly but suggestively analyzed by Auguste Cour in his L'établissement des dynasties des Chérifs au Maroc (Paris 1904).Google Scholar

(3) A beginning to the painstaking task of piecing together the history of the political use of the ṭuruq by the Ottomans and cAlawis in the nineteenth century has been made by Boyer, Pierre, Contribution à l'étude de la politique religieuse des Turcs dans la régence d'Alger, Revue de l'Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, I (1966), 11–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

(4) These Berber population movements, which resemble the tribal migrations of African history, have not been sufficiently investigated by historians. Cf. Lesne, Marcel, Historique d'un groupement berbère: les Zemmour (Paris 1959)Google Scholar, thèse complémentaire pour le doctorat ès lettres, Paris.

(5) On Islam in Morocco, cf. the review article of Berque, Jacques, Quelques problèmes de l'Islam maghrébin, Archives de sociologie des religions, II (1957), 3–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Doutté, Edmond, Notes sur l'Islam maghrébin: Les Marabouts (Paris 1900)Google Scholar; Michaux-Bellaire, Edouard, “Islam marocain”, and other essays in Archives marocaines, XXVII (1927), 114–115Google Scholar and especially Westermarck, Edward, Ritual and Belief in Morocco (London 1926), 2 vols.Google Scholar

(6) Gibb, H. A. R. and Bowen, Harold, Islamic Society and the West (London New York/Toronto 1957), Vol. 1, Part 2, pp. 70–80.Google Scholar

(7) Gellner, Ernest, Saints of the Atlas, in Pitt-Rivers, Julian (ed.), Mediterranean Countrymen (Paris/The Hague 1963), pp. 145–159.Google Scholar

(8) Le Glay, Maurice, Les chefs de la résistance berbère: Sidi Raho, France-Maroc, II (1918), 227–279.Google Scholar

(9) Ever since the pioneering study of Depont, O. and Coppolani, X., Les confréries religieuses musulmanes (Algiers 1897)Google Scholar, there has been considerable attraction to the fin de siècle rationalist approach. Memberships have been quantified and tabulated, chants and prayers (dhikr and wird) faithfully transcribed, and spiritual geneologies, or silasil have been patiently unraveled. A more promising approach, using history and sociology by Drague, Georges (pseud, for Georges Spillmann), Esquisse d'histoire religieuse du Maroc (Paris 1956)Google Scholar, hesitates before finally adopting the same path.

(10) Special mention must be made of the important brotherhood of the sharifs of Wazzān, in northwestern Morocco, who had very considerable privileges given them by the sultans. See Michaux-Bellaire, E., La maison d'Ouezzan, R.M.M., V (1908), 23–89.Google Scholar

(11) The partisans of the order founded by Shaykh Ma al-cAynayn at court and in the Gharb region similarly tended to act as a party. Mission Scientifique du Maroc, , Rabat et sa région, tome IV, Le Gharb (Les Djebala) (Paris 1918), p. 60.Google Scholar

(12) It is only recently that serious reflection upon the nature of the Near Eastern city has begun to produce results. Cf. Gibb, and Bowen, , op. cit., Vol. I, Part I, pp. 276–313Google Scholar, and the recent work of Lapidus, I. M., Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1967).Google Scholar

(13) From in abundant literature on Moroccan and North African cities, one work clearly stands out, Le Tourneau, Roger, Fez avant le protectorat (Casablanca 1949).Google Scholar

(14) Berque, Jacques, Médinas, villeneuves et bidonvilles, Les Cahiers de Tunisie, VI (1958). p. 15.Google Scholar

(15) Marçais, William, L'islamisme et la vie urbaine, Articles et Conférences (Paris, Maisonneuve, 1961)Google Scholar, Publications de l'Institut d'études orientales [Alger], XXI.

(16) Cited in Harris, Walter B., The Land of an African Sultan (London 1889), p. 268Google Scholar. Thus social mobility in the cities followed the general pattern already observed for the rural areas.

(17) It should also be mentioned that the lesser merchants and artisans of makhzan cities were dependent upon the expenditures of a court in residence—a phenomenon first noted by Ibn Khaldün. Cf. E. Gellner, Tribalism and Social Change, in Lewis, W. H. (ed.), French Speaking Africa, The Search for Identity (New York, Wallsen, 1965), pp. 107–118.Google Scholar

(18) On süqs see esp. Francisco Benet, Explosive Markets: The Berber Highlands, in Polanyi, Karl et al. , Trade and Market in the Early Empires (Glencoe 1957), pp. 188–217Google Scholar; also Fogg, Walter, The Organisation of a Moroccan Tribal Market, American Anthropologist, XLIV (1942), 47–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the sacredness of sūqs, Guennoun, Saïd, La montagne berbère (Paris 1933).Google Scholar

(19) For a clear picture of these itinerant merchants, cf. Michaux-Bellaire, E., Fès et les tribus berbères en 1910, Bulletin de l'enseignement publique du Maroc (1922), 3–10.Google Scholar

(20) This in any case was the opinion of Walter Fogg. Cf. his “Villages, Tribal Markets, and Towns: Some Considerations Concerning Urban Development in the Spanish and International Zones of Morocco”, The Sociological Review, XXXII (1940), p. 105.Google Scholar

(21) The far-reaching nature of these changes have been analyzed by Miese, Jean-Louis in his important Le Maroc et l'Europe (Paris 1961/1963), 4 vols.Google Scholar

(22) Cf. Aubin, Eugène (pseud, for Deseos), Le Maroc d'aujourd'hui (Paris 1904), pp. 172–257Google Scholar for the classic description of the makhzan. Also, Gaillard, Henri, L'administration au Maroc: le makhzen, étendue et limites de son pouvoir, Bulletin de la Société de géographie d'Alger (1909), 438–470Google Scholar; and Maudit, R., Le makhzen marocain, R.C., XIII (1903), 293–304.Google Scholar

(23) It should be emphasized, lest the point be overlooked, that these jaysh tribes were in no way comparable to the Mamluk slave armies of the Near East. The one experiment with a slave army in Morocco under the sultan Mawlay Ismail was ultimately inconclusive, though remnants of the Negro Buwakhir survived until the French conquest.

(24) On the ḥaraka, see Michaux-Bellaire, F. and Salmon, G., Les tribus arabes de la vallée du Lekkous, Archives marocaines, IV (1905), pp. 141–143.Google Scholar

(25) On the various means rebel notables could employ to oust an undesired qaid, Ibid.

(26) The practice of dividing tribal governorships by Mawlay al-Ḥassan is discussed by Erckmann, Jules, Le Maroc moderne (Paris 1885).Google Scholar

(27) Cited in al-Fāsī, cAlāl, Al-Harakat al-Istiqlāliyah fī al-maghrib al-cArabi (Marrakesh 1948), pp. 106–107.Google Scholar

(28) PéRetié, A., Les medrasas de Fès, Archives marocaines, XVIII (1919), pp. 284–285.Google Scholar

(29) Lecoq, André, Les écoles israélites au Maroc, Quest, dip. et col., XXXI (1911), pp. 682–683.Google Scholar

* Materials for the preceding article were gathered while the author was in Morocco and France (1965–1967) under the auspices of a N.D.E.A.-related Fulbright-Hays Fellowship. The conclusion, statements and opinions made in the article are those of the author and in no way obligate the Fellowship Program.