¹ See, Naciri, M., “Regards sur I'évolution de la citadinité au Maroc,” La yule arabo-musulmane (London, 1984), pp. 37–59.Google Scholar I am deeply indebted to Professor Naciri's writings on Moroccan and mid-eastern urban development (cf., inter alia, “Les politiques urbaines: Instruments de pouvoir ou outils de développement?” in Métral, J. and Mutin, G., eds., Études sur le monde arabe, No. 1 [Lyon, 1984], pp. 13–42;Google Scholar “Politique urbaine et ‘politiques’ de l'habitat au Maroc: Incertitudes d'une stratégie,” ibid., pp. 71–98; and, with Ameur, M., “L'urbanisation clandestine au Maroc: Un champ d'action pour les classes moyennes,” Revue Tiers Monde, 26 [1985], 80–92),CrossRefGoogle Scholar as well as to extended discussions with him concerning the issues raised in this article, though he is not responsible for the use, or misuse, I have made of his counsel. Similar remarks apply to Yakhlef, M., former President of the Sefrou municipal council. See his unpublished thesis: “Tatawwur adwāt al-siyāsat al-mahalliyya bi madīna Sufru, awākhir al-qarn 19—1956,” Faculty of Letters, University Mohammed al-Khamis, Rabat, 1986.Google Scholar

² For varying views, from varying disciplines, see Abu-Lughod, J. L., “The Islamic City—Historic Myth, Islamic Essence, and Contemporary Relevance,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 19 (1987), 155–76;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBisson, J. and Troin, J.-F., eds., Présent et avenir des médinas (de Marrakech à Alep) (Tours, 1982);Google ScholarBouhdiba, A. and Chevallier, D., eds., La ville arabe dans l'Islam (Paris, 1982);Google ScholarBrown, K., “The Uses of a Concept: ‘The Muslim City,’” in Solé, P. et al. , Middle Eastern Cities in Comparative Perspective (London, 1986), pp. 60–68;Google ScholarEickelman, D., “Is There an Islamic City?” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 5 (1974), 274–94;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHakim, B. S., Arabic-Islamic Cities (London, 1986);Google ScholarHolod, R., ed., Toward an Architecture in the Spirit of Islam (Philadelphia, 1978);Google ScholarHourani, A. and Stern, S. M., eds., The Islamic City (Philadelphia, 1970);Google ScholarSaqqaf, A. Y., ed., The Middle East City, Ancient Traditions Confront a Modern World (New York, 1987);Google ScholarSerjeant, R. B., ed., The Islamic City (Paris, 1980).Google Scholar For some of my own views on Islam and urban life, see “Suq: The Bazaar Economy in Sefrou,” in Geertz, C., Geertz, H., and Rosen, L., Meaning and Order in Moroccan Society (Cambridge, England, 1979), pp. 123–313.Google Scholar Most of the material to be discussed here was collected during a return study of Sefrou (a city I have been working on since 1964) from November 1985 to March 1986. The locus classicus of the Orientalism controversy is, of course, Said, E., Orientalism (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

³ For an excellent example of the use of traditional “Orientalist” literature, from Marçais and Massignon to Brunschvig and Lévi-Provençal, together with Arabic sources (al-Rami, Battuta, Mohammad al-Khodja) and direct observation, to produce a balanced and realistic picture of the elements of traditional Arabic cities and their Islamic base, see Hakim, op. cit., esp. chs. 1 and 2.

⁴ For an explicitly semiotic analysis, rather more centered on “communication” than is my own “interpretivist” approach, of some aspects of (rural) social structure in northern Morocco, see Joseph, R. and Joseph, T. B., The Rose and the Thorn: Semiotic Structures in Morocco (Tucson, 1987).Google ScholarJoseph, R. has also written, rather diffusely, on ‘The Symbolic Significance of the Moroccan City,’ in Vatin, J.-C. et al. , Connaissances du Maghreb (Paris, 1984), pp. 345–54. (Cf. his unpublished “The Moroccan City as a Text,’ 21 pp., 1984.)Google Scholar

⁵ Wollheim, R., Painting as an Art (Princeton, 1987), esp. ch. 2.Google Scholar Wollheim's term is, of course, a reworking for the visual arts, of Wittgenstein's “seeing-as,” the master idea of interpretive semiotics. For an incisive formulation, more strictly semiotic—that is, less psychological, as well as more rigorous—of the issues involved here, see Goodman, N., Languages of Art (Indianapolis, 1976).Google Scholar

⁶ Virtually all of the 37 odd “design elements” Hakim (op. cit., pp. 68–69, 98–101) lists for classical medinas generally (and Tunis particularly), from vaults ('aqd) and street-spanning rooms (sābāt) to Sufi “monasteries” (zāwiya) and public squares (sāha, riyād) are found in Sefrou. Only a few Ottomanish elements like turba (ruling class cemetery) or dīwān (courthouse) are absent. It is not entirely clear whether anything deserving the name of madrasa, “institution for higher religious learning,” has ever existed in Sefrou, but there are dozens of ordinary Qur'anic schools (msid).

⁷ Sefrou is an unusually thoroughly studied city, even for Morocco, where urban studies have long been highly developed. See, in addition to Geertz, C., Geertz, H., and Rosen, L., Meaning and Order, and M. Yakhlef, “Tatawwur,” already cited;Google ScholarRosen, L., The Structure of Social Groups in a Moroccan City, unpublished Thesis, University of Chicago, 1968;Google Scholaridem, “A Moroccan Jewish Community During the Middle Eastern Crisis,” The American Scholar, 37 (1968), 435–51; idem, “Muslim-Jewish Relations in a Moroccan City,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, 3 (1972), 435–39; idem, Bargaining for Reality (Chicago, 1984); Geertz, H., “The View from Within,” in R. Holod et al., Architecture as Symbol and Self-identity (np., 1980), pp. 63–70;Google ScholarDichter, T., “The Problem of How to Act on an Undefined Stage: An Exploration of Culture, Change, and Individual Consciousness in the Moroccan Town of Sefrou, with a Focus on Three Modern Schools,” Ph.D. Thesis, University of Chicago, 1976;Google ScholarRabinow, P., Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco (Berkeley, 1977);Google ScholarBenhalima, H., “Sefrou, de la tradition des Dir à l'intégration économique moderne: Étude de géographie urbaine,” Thesis, Troisième Cycle, University Paul Valéry (Montpellier), 1977; “L'artisanat Sefroui: son agonie et les limites de sa renovation,” Revue de géographie du Maroc, 28 (1977), 41–51;Google ScholarChaoui, M., “Sefrou: De la tradition à l'intégration, ce qu'est un petit centre d'aujourd'hui,” Lamalif (July/August 1978), 32–39;Google ScholarStillman, N., “The Sefrou Remnant,” Jewish Social Studies, 35 (1973), 255–63;Google Scholaridem, The Language and Culture of the Jews of Morocco (Manchester, 1988); Foucauld, Ch., La connaissance du Maroc, 2 vols. (Paris, 1888), vol. I, pp. 37 ff.;Google Scholar Lahbib, Embarek, Si Bekkai bin, “Sefrou,” Bulletin économique et social du Maroc, 15 (1952), 230–42;Google ScholarOvadiah, D., The Community of Sefrou (in Hebrew), 3 vols. (Jerusalem, 1974–1975);Google ScholarLe Tourneau, R., “L'activité économique de Sefrou,” Hespéris, 25 (1938), 269–86;Google ScholarBaddir, M., “L'économie sefriouie entrc le passé et le present,” Mémoire de Licence en Sciences Économiques, University Sidi Mohamed Ben 'Abdellah (Fez), 1979–1980;Google ScholarIbrahimi, M., “Baladiyya Sufrū wa dawruhā fī tanzīm al-majāl al-hadārī,” Mémoire de Licence en Géographie, University Sidi Mohamad bin 'Abdellah (Fez), 1982–1983; A. Moumou, “Sufrū al-hadamāt al-ta'limiyya wa-tanzīm al-majāl,” Mémoire de Licence en Géographic, University Sidi Mohamed bin 'Abdellah (Fez), 1984–1985; N. Essioti, “al-Majlis al-baladī li madīna Sufrū min 1963 ilā 1976,” Mémoire de Licence en Lettres, University Sidi Mohamed ben 'Abdellah (Fez), 1983; Chafaï, El Alaoui El Hassane, “Naissance et développement d'une municipalité marocaine sous le Protectorat Français: Sefrou (1912–1956),” Thesis, Troisième Cycle, Institut d'Histoire des Relations Internationales Contemporaines, University of Paris (I), 1985. Except for direct quotations, I shall not cite these publications in the sequel, but it should be understood that I am dependent upon them for much factual material. I am also indebted to Dr. Mustapha ben Yakhlef for 1982 census materials on Sefrou, and to Abderrahmane El Moudden for general research assistance.Google Scholar

⁸ The development of the city prior to this century is difficult to trace in any detail, though that it seems to have been reasonably stable in size and appearance over an extended period can be seen from Al-Bakri's 11th and Al-Idrissi's 12th century brief references to it. (Al-Bakri, , Description de l'Afrique septentrionale, de Slane, W., trans., [Paris, 1956];Google ScholarAl-Idrissi, , Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, Dozy, M. and de Goeje, M. J., trans., [Leiden, 1866];Google Scholar both these are partial translations.) The city walls took their present form in the 18th century; the earliest population figures are from de Foucauld, op. cit., of 3,000 in 1886, surely a mere estimate and likely an overly conservative one. All this is not to say that nothing ever happened in or to Sefrou until the French arrived, but merely that it seems to have happened much more slowly and episodically, and, so far as we can see, within a reasonably stable urban framework. For some discussion of the pre-Protectorate history of Sefrou, see, Geertz et al., op. cit.; Yakhlef, op. cit. The preesnt urban population of Sefrou is difficult to estimate exactly, because the most recent figure (1982) of 38,833 is for the pre-expansion city; the “berrani” quarters being “illegal” are counted (and undercounted) as “rural.” By now the “real” population of the town must be approaching 50,000.

⁹ About 70 percent of all post-war immigration into Sefrou up to 1971 took place in the 1960s; more recent figures are unavailable, but the 1970–1980 decade seems to have been even more active. In 1971 about 40 percent of the town population was recetly in-migrant from the countryside; by now the figure must be getting on toward two-thirds. (In 1984–1985, only b23 percent of the parents of secondary school students—and 32 percent of the students themselves—were city born.) For simplicity's sake I give Arabic glosses in the singular.

¹⁰ On the centrality of the nisba as a categorizing device in Sefrou social life, see Geertz, “Suq,” op. cit.; Rosen, Bargaining, op. cit.

¹¹ For the “effacement et survie des notables” in the immediate lndependence and poast-Independence periods, see Leveau, R., Le fellah marocain, defenseur du trône (Paris, 1976), esp. Part 1.Google ScholarCf. Waterbury, J., The Commander of the Faithful: The Moroccan Political Elite (London, 1970).Google Scholar

¹² “Pour un salon du bātiment de l'urbanisme et de l'architecture,” Le Matin du Sahara, March 1, 1986. Thisis not a transcript of the King's speech, which I was unable to obtain, but a reporter's (more or less official, considering the source) commentary on it in connection with an architectural exhibition in Casablanca that followed upon it. My own summary is thus a paraphrase of a paraphrase, filled out with accounts from Sefroui informants who heard, as I did not, theoriginal speech.

¹³ Ibid. The tendency for political leaders in the Muslim world to see architecture and city planning as critical to the sustenance of an authentic Islamic consciousness in the modern world, and threatended by “sudden affluence,” “an unprecedented growth of building activity,” “urbanization without urbanism,” and “ruralization of city life,” is very general: see, for example, His Highness the Aga Khan, “Opening Remarks,” in Holod, op. cit., pp. viii–ix; Hassan Bin Talal, Crown Prince of Jordan, “Introduction,” in Saqqaf, op. cit., pp. ix–xiii, from which these quotes are taken.

¹⁴ For a description of these officies and their (much weaker) cultural position in Sefrou of the 1960s, see Rosen, “Social identity and points of attachment,” in Geertz, Geertz, and Rosen, op. cit., pp. 68 ff.

¹⁵ For a discussion of the classical medina house (dar), see Hakim, op. cit., pp. 95–96, who outlines three “Islamic and ethical requirements” for them—privacy, interdependence, and bātin versus zāhir—remarking of the last: “One of the essential values in Islam is emphasis on the Batin of the Zahir (the external aspect of self or a thing). For example, internal goodness and well-being are emphasized and arrogance discouraged. The courtyard house and its aggregate organizational pattern is suitable for the application of this principle. Hence we find that the external walls are kept simple and relatively bare with few openings. The courtyard as the central important space is decorated—when the owner can afford it—to a high level of artistic sophistication, despite the fact that it is accessible to and enjoyed only by the occupants, and occasionally their relatives and close friends.” There are, of course, other reasons, traditionally, for this pattern: the desire, in the absence of an effective security system, to conceal wealth from predatory view and a general emphasis on civic and religious equality.

¹⁶ Rural women in Morocco are largely unveiled, elaborate face-tattoos often serving (especially among Berbers) as the equivalent. City women, at least in a place like Sefrou, are, after marriage, mostly veiled as a sign of both their propriety and their urbanity. It is tempting to place the house façades within this larger, very subtle, system of symbolic “faciality,” but I do not have the evidence at this point to do so. Some of the signs painted into the façades are traditional magical images: the hand of Fatima, geomantic figures, the name of Allah, or even the whole, Fātiha, in Arabic writing, yet others seem to be tribal marks. The detailed symbolism of all this—extremely varied, highly developed, and enormously intricate—remains to be investigated.

¹⁷ The process by which these houses come into being is also too complex to be entered into here. They are almost all built by traditional masons under the direction of the owners, the façade designs coming mainly from the latter, who in addition to craft motifs are often influenced by the ostentatious “neo-Moorish” pleasure palaces being built by the new rich of Fez in the upscale “quartiers chics/sheikhs” there. (The main such quarters are popularly referred to as al-Dallas, in honor of the American television show, and al-Pyramids, in honor of Farouk. For all his animadversions—he reputedly has issued a decree forbidding the building of such “un-Moroccan” houses in Fez—Hassan II has recently built an elaborate “guest-palace” for distinguished foreign visitors in al-Dallas; and King Fahd of Saudi Arabia has built an enormous vacation home, complete with airport and—so it is said—harem, just east of the city.) The Sefrou development, in itself necessarily simplified in this brief account, is part of a vast and various evolution of “architecture et urbanisme” now going on all over Morocco. The role of real estate speculators, of the growing influence of Fasi magnates, and of central government planification in Sefrou's transformation are other critical (and interconnected) matters that will have to be returned to on another occasion, as are the beginnings of al-Dallas-like construction in Sefrou's quarliers chics and the decline of the old city into red-light quartiers dangereux.

¹⁸ Though it was, of course, that. Another thing the council did was to erect two very large, very permanent, and very beige towers, shaped like giant chess rooks, with the king's coronation and anniversary dates carved onto them, on either side of the high road toward Fez, It is doubtful that the king will see them as what he had in mind. Everyone in Sefrou I talked to, including those who caused them to be put up, seemed to regard them as surpassingly ugly.

¹⁹ Marrakech's fame as “The Red City” (al-Hamrā') is, of course, international; but most classical Moroccan cities have a color they regard as distinctive of them. The “beige” idea seems to be the result of a folk etymology of Sefrou as deriving from sfer, “yellow.” It should also be remarked, as one of the ironies of all this, that, as they were not themselves Outsiders, but highly urbanized petty professionals (two-thirds of their leaders were school teachers, the rest pharmacists, lawyers, medical assistants, etc.), the Socialists' view of the façades was hardly different from that of the average “insider” townsman. Their sympathy for the in-migrants' social deprivations did not extend to approval of their tastes. The original “beige edict” was in fact enacted (but not promulgated) by the Socialists, and the notables council had only to revive it.

²⁰ Bulldozing “illegal” settlements is far from unheard of in Morocco, and has occurred occasionally in Sefrou. In order to prevent this from happening, the settlers (or the land speculators who sell them the land) commonly first erect a mosque, prior to putting up any houses, with the notion that the government will not want to be seen to be destroying a mosque. One result is that, especially given the increase in mosque building by prominent Real Sefrouis mentioned earlier, there are now a great many mosques, of all sizes and descriptions, in Sefrou.

²¹ On the central role of “bargaining” in Moroccan social relationships, see Rosen, Bargaining, op. cit.

²² “Discrimination among the inhabitants of the quarter Bni Saffar in getting drinkable water,” Al-'Alam, February 15, 1988 (no. 13,713). I am grateful to Abderrahmane El Moudden for bringing this letter to my attention and for help in translating the highly flowery prose in which it is cast. Apparently, with the Socialists broken in Sefrou, Istiqlal has emerged again as the main local oppositional voice. More recently, the local branch of Istiqlal has launched a full scale attack upon the municipal council for neglecting the needs of the city with respect to a wide range of issues—commercial, educational, and economic, as well as social. (See: “In an ordinary session of the council of the Istiqial party in Sefrou it is requested that the city be provided with a modern network of water distribution and electricity for the dark quarters … open an Institute for Applied Technology, increase the number of doctors … develop tourism … etc.” Al'Alam, April 2 and April 6, 1988.) Many in Sefrou believe that one reason the Socialists were “allowed” to win in the first place was to break the local hold of Istiqlal. Whether or not this is true, it is the case that the Outsider Sefroui/Real Sefroui confrontation is much more enduring and more deeply felt than political party allegiances, which, as a matter of fact, shift rather easily according to strategical, even personal, considerations.

²³ Mullaney, S., The Place of the Stage: License, Play, and Power in Renaissance England (Chicago, 1988), pp. vii, viii, 7, 10. Mullaney's study, though directed toward a quite different city, in a quite different culture, at a quite different time, and concerned with ritual, royal authority, and the theatre, rather than architecture and municipal politics, is conceived in terms—”an open-ended sociohistorical hermeneutics” (p. x)—very similar to those I have employed here: “The [late Medieval and Renaissance European] city was a… symbolic work in its own right, a social production of space, an oeuvre composed and rehearsed over the years by artisanal classes and sovereign powers, for whom meaning was always a public event, culture an ‘acted document’ and power a manifest thing, to be conspicuously bodied forth and located in the urban landscape” (p. 10).Google Scholar

²⁴ So far as Morocco is concerned, developments similar to Sefrou's occurred after the 1976 sondage experiment in small cities across the country (Taza, Sidi Kacem, Sidi Sliman), producing a mini-revolution emphiatic enough to alarm the Throne and end the experiment in such cities. The experiment was then transferred to the larger ones (Fez, Meknes, Tetuan, Marrakech), where presumably—though we shall see—it could be better controlled. On Moroccan politics in general during the 1970s and early 1980s, which were eventful (two coup attempts, the Saharan campaign, prolonged drought, growing foreign and domestic debt) without very much actually happening, see R. Leveau, “Le fellah, le trône et les autres,” paper delivered at the 18th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, 1984.