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Pan-Islam and Moroccan resistance to French colonial penetration, 1900–19121
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 January 2009
Extract
This article marks a beginning at tracing the links between Near Eastern and African Islamic resistance, through an analysis of the ways in which Pan-Islamic agents from Egypt sought to intervene in support of indigenous Moroccan efforts to resist French imperialism during the period 1900 to 1912. The first section explores the general patterns of Pan-Islamic ideology and political action, and places the study of Pan-Islam in the context of studies of African resistance to imperialism. Succeeding sections review Moroccan relations with the Near East, trace the stages of growing Near Eastern involvement in support of Moroccan resistance, which culminated in an abortive general rising in 1912, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of Pan-Islam as a transitional movement of political resistance to imperialism.
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References
2 African resistance and Islam are discussed in the following: Holt, P. M., The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1881–1898 (Oxford, 1958);Google ScholarLewis, I. M., The Modern History of Somaliland (London, 1965)Google Scholar for the Mad Mullah; Evans-Pritchard, E. E., The Sanusi of Cyrenaica (Oxford, 1954),Google ScholarBaroja, J. Caro, ‘Un Santon Sahariano y su familia’, in Estudios Saharianos (Madrid, 1955), 285–335, for Mā al ‘Aynayn.Google Scholar
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9 For Ranger's thesis, cf. his ‘Connexions between “primary resistance” movements and modern mass nationalism in East and Central Africa’, J. Afr. Hist. ix (1968);Google Scholar‘African reaction to the imposition of colonial rule in East and Central Africa’, in Colonialism in Africa, 1870–1960, ed. Gann, L. H. and Duignan, P., vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1969).Google Scholar Eric Stokes has sought to extend it to the Indian Mutiny. See his ‘Traditional Resistance Movements and Afro-Asian Nationalism: The Context of the 1857 Mutiny Rebellion in India’, Past and Present (August 1970), 100–18.
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29 The Times (London), 28 Dec. 1904. Article by W. B. Harris.
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45 F.O. 413/57, Kennard to Grey, 6 Sept. 1912, no. 239, Most Confidential, and F.O. 371/1167, Kitchener to Grey, 4 Nov. 1911, no. 109. Rifa't was the son of Maḥmud Bey Rifaʽt, and a relative of Rifaʽt Bey, a judge in the Egyptian Court of Appeals. He was a graduate of the Khedival School at Cairo, and a member of the Association of Egyptian Students in London while he was a student at Cambridge (1906–10). After the failure of the Egyptian Congress in Paris in 1911, he went to Morocco, and first sought to go to the Sous Valley.
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47 The first official circular warning of the possibilities of a general rising came from Lyautey. Guerre. Série EM-2, Lyautey to Regional Commanders, 31 Aug. 1912, no. 1069 B.M.2.
48 F.O. 413/57 Kennard to Grey, 6 Sept. 1912, no. 239. Most Confidential.
49 See the anonymous article ‘Le panislamisme et la France’, in Le Temps (Paris) 2 Nov. 1972Google Scholar, as well as F.O. 473/57, Kennard to Grey, 6 Sept. 1912, no. 239, Most Confidential.
50 F.O. 371/1114, Cheetham to Grey, 30 June, 1911, no. 68, Secret and Confidential. (A long confidential report on secret societies in Egypt prepared by British intelligence. It was brought to my attention by Professor Arthur Goldschmidt.)
51 Afrique Française (1912), 354–6, 361. The role of Spain in the events of August 1912 points to the role of dissidents among the Spanish industrialists who deeply resented their government's giving in to French desires with regard to Morocco. These groups had begun to associate themselves closely with German firms in favour of a more aggressive German role from 1904. The Tangier Spanish businessman, Saturinino Ximenes, may have been connected with the 1912 events, as he was with the 1904 merger discussions. Until Spanish archives are made available, it is unlikely that we shall be able to do more than speculate. On the earlier Spanish role, Guillen, P., op. cit. 782–7.Google Scholar
52 Anon., ‘Le panislamisme et la France’, op. cit.; ‘also Le Temps, 12 Sept. 1912 on the role of the Spanish consuls. The pages of Afrique Française for the period May-Oct. are informative on this subject as well.
53 F.O. 174/282, White to Lennox, 22 Sept. 1912, no. 22.
54 La Vigie marocaine (Casablanca), 5 09 1912Google Scholar, Anon. (‘De Bonne Source’).
55 F.O. 413/57, Kennard to Hunter, 13 Aug. 1912, Urgent and Confidential. ʽāif Bey was also the correspondent for al-Muʽayyad who wrote about Morocco and Moroccan resistance, as noted above.
56 See Lyautey's testimony on the complicity of ʽal-ḥafīẓ, Abd in Lyautey, P. (ed.), Lyautey l'Africain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1953–1957), vol. i, 31.Google Scholar
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58 Stoddard, op. cit.
59 For discussion of German attempts to foment a rising against the French in Morocco during the First World War by a German participant, see Bartels, Alfred, Fighting the French in Morocco, English translation (London, 1932).Google Scholar For a general view, see my ‘Pan-Islam, Moroccan Resistance, and German War Strategy, 1914–1918’, Francia (Munich), 1(2), (1972), forthcoming.Google Scholar
60 Landau, Jacob, ‘Prologomena to a Study of Secret Societies in Egypt’, Middle Eastern Studies, i (1965).Google Scholar An interesting but tentative distinction which might be advanced between transitional and pre-transitional Near Eastern political forms is that between the masonic–carbonarist style cell organization favoured by late nineteenth century (urban) resisters, and the sufi tarīqa, favoured by earlier (and rural) groups.
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