About Morocco
The History of Morocco directed by Mohamed Kably is a considerable work as much by its dimensions as by the quality of its technical realization, its maps, or its illustrations.
The authors, more than fifty names belonging to different institutions, form a close-knit team, which has accepted the process of "Moroccanization". Note that they are all Moroccans, with one exception. Except for the first chapter, the list of contributors does not make it possible to attribute to any one of them their individual share in the writing. The chapters include multiple contributions, not without inevitable and sudden breaks, visible during the presentation, in the choice of examples, the ways of saying, the expression - limpid and elegant or sometimes laborious -, or the tics of writing. History as a discipline has been "Moroccanized", to use a term which the volume has not abused, to such an extent that this collective work could itself be cited in the passage which closes the History of Morocco and which deals with contemporary forms of knowledge and writing.
The authors, more than fifty names belonging to different institutions, form a close-knit team, which has accepted the process of "Moroccanization". Note that they are all Moroccans, with one exception. Except for the first chapter, the list of contributors does not make it possible to attribute to any one of them their individual share in the writing. The chapters include multiple contributions, not without inevitable and sudden breaks, visible during the presentation, in the choice of examples, the ways of saying, the expression - limpid and elegant or sometimes laborious -, or the tics of writing. History as a discipline has been "Moroccanized", to use a term which the volume has not abused, to such an extent that this collective work could itself be cited in the passage which closes the History of Morocco and which deals with contemporary forms of knowledge and writing.
The proposed synthesis, in its current state, could be a milestone and require the attention of historians with different specialties.
It will happen that I have recourse to other works, on a complementary basis, but it is impossible to evoke all the subjects approached by this collective work. This difficulty is not the least if we want to account for such a sum, where the interferences between old works – sometimes republished – and those of today especially, published or unpublished, are numerous. I will not venture into the 20th century, leaving not without regret to others, academics or citizens, the appreciation of the often dense developments relating to the protectorate, the national movement, independent Morocco, the "years of lead" , political life, economic and social problems, and many other questions. It seemed useful to me to simply suggest other arrangements, between review and proposals, according to thematic and transversal approaches. Some, which I will successively specify, seemed to me to be essential. The first, the most obvious, was an issue of this massive book, which is characteristic of many national histories, written by a single author or in collaboration. Here, the number of co-authors would rather resemble an encyclopaedic work, where each would have contributed, in texts of unequal length, the part reserved for his specialty. It was therefore necessary to combine the unity of a research and the remarkable diversity of the different contributions. No doubt every individual contribution is comparative, containing elements of common, if not expressly collective research – by the object itself or by the treatment of this object. But if any collaboration is guaranteed by references and shared questions, it is nonetheless essential to draw the guideline, recognized by all.
A priori, continuity remains uncertain as long as it is not solidly built. Jacques Revel noticed that, more than the incessant communication and circulation between spatial units, the succession in time allowed ruptures or transitions, intervals and hiatuses, more or less long inflections to subsist.
These variables are not necessarily elusive. They can elicit sustained reflection. With regard to a potentially national history and duration situated in the relatively “short” time of a few centuries or two or three millennia, the collective of authors has been led to found and tie together a framework. The question of periodization will be at the center of my presentation. It is on this second point that I would like to insist, in different forms.
It will happen that I have recourse to other works, on a complementary basis, but it is impossible to evoke all the subjects approached by this collective work. This difficulty is not the least if we want to account for such a sum, where the interferences between old works – sometimes republished – and those of today especially, published or unpublished, are numerous. I will not venture into the 20th century, leaving not without regret to others, academics or citizens, the appreciation of the often dense developments relating to the protectorate, the national movement, independent Morocco, the "years of lead" , political life, economic and social problems, and many other questions. It seemed useful to me to simply suggest other arrangements, between review and proposals, according to thematic and transversal approaches. Some, which I will successively specify, seemed to me to be essential. The first, the most obvious, was an issue of this massive book, which is characteristic of many national histories, written by a single author or in collaboration. Here, the number of co-authors would rather resemble an encyclopaedic work, where each would have contributed, in texts of unequal length, the part reserved for his specialty. It was therefore necessary to combine the unity of a research and the remarkable diversity of the different contributions. No doubt every individual contribution is comparative, containing elements of common, if not expressly collective research – by the object itself or by the treatment of this object. But if any collaboration is guaranteed by references and shared questions, it is nonetheless essential to draw the guideline, recognized by all.
A priori, continuity remains uncertain as long as it is not solidly built. Jacques Revel noticed that, more than the incessant communication and circulation between spatial units, the succession in time allowed ruptures or transitions, intervals and hiatuses, more or less long inflections to subsist.
These variables are not necessarily elusive. They can elicit sustained reflection. With regard to a potentially national history and duration situated in the relatively “short” time of a few centuries or two or three millennia, the collective of authors has been led to found and tie together a framework. The question of periodization will be at the center of my presentation. It is on this second point that I would like to insist, in different forms.
The development of time does not exclude, it is necessary, the heavy climatic, environmental, demographic and technological transformations, as well as their effects in situ. In a more or less lasting way, in an introductory tableau, a deeper perspective is thus inserted into the story. The main thing is that it escapes an overly static rite of presentation, of the “country and people” type: the initial chapter of the volume engages – as we will see in the first part – much more. In volume, however, it is the succession of phases, or even its very principle, which has mattered the most, as evidenced by a few examples, the most diverse and the most significant, perhaps too classic. For the history of the ancient Maghreb from the 3rd to the 7th century, periodization was defined by French historians at the end of the 19th century and it undoubtedly weighed for a long time.
But always quoted is the sentence, written half a century ago by Abdallah Laroui: “There is neither to favor the success of Islam nor to be scandalized by it.
Other cuts, as strong in appearance, are hardly debatable: a previous History of Morocco.
Had recognized that of 1492. The quadripartite scansion of universal history (Antiquity, Middle Ages, modern era, contemporary era), stemming from French university and school history, was taken up in the Maghreb – including to qualify the historiography among ancient authors from Tunisia (a modern historiography and a contemporary historiography). And we remember, finally, the pedagogical timeline, punctuated with equidistant dates on which the cursor can move. Modern history and contemporary history? In 1970, official directives placed the caesura, in Moroccan secondary education, on the Declaration of Independence of the United States of 1776, while the beginning of the so-called contemporary period in Tunisia, easily fixed in 1881 following the French historians who introduced it without any real explanation, has now been moved to the middle of the 19th century, encompassing Tunisian reformism.
M. Kably's History of Morocco, which developed along a unified temporal axis, could not avoid, in topical moments, such questions, which will be the subject of a second part.
But always quoted is the sentence, written half a century ago by Abdallah Laroui: “There is neither to favor the success of Islam nor to be scandalized by it.
Other cuts, as strong in appearance, are hardly debatable: a previous History of Morocco.
Had recognized that of 1492. The quadripartite scansion of universal history (Antiquity, Middle Ages, modern era, contemporary era), stemming from French university and school history, was taken up in the Maghreb – including to qualify the historiography among ancient authors from Tunisia (a modern historiography and a contemporary historiography). And we remember, finally, the pedagogical timeline, punctuated with equidistant dates on which the cursor can move. Modern history and contemporary history? In 1970, official directives placed the caesura, in Moroccan secondary education, on the Declaration of Independence of the United States of 1776, while the beginning of the so-called contemporary period in Tunisia, easily fixed in 1881 following the French historians who introduced it without any real explanation, has now been moved to the middle of the 19th century, encompassing Tunisian reformism.
M. Kably's History of Morocco, which developed along a unified temporal axis, could not avoid, in topical moments, such questions, which will be the subject of a second part.
Without too much regard for the irreversibility of time, I resolved to abstract myself from continuity. Until now, it was organized according to periods, events, dynasties, but also political, military, religious, cultural phenomena, etc. In this sense, it is useful to intertwine the slow geographical history – not motionless, but powerful and invisible to the naked eye – and the punctual, decisive agitation of men and powers. If it is above all a question of a state-centric history of Morocco, the question will be: what Morocco and since when? And if there is little doubt that the arrival of Islam is a major event, that the history of Morocco was marked by the Idrissids in the eighth century, one can also wonder what Morocco was before Morocco . It is a universal problem, common to all nations, which I will address in a third part. Here, the pre-Islamic period was, as far as we know, less dense, less rich, than in Romano-African Tunisia. Does such an observation lead to a deepening of identity, to the recognition of origins? The character of Juba II, to mention only him, is he emblematic or not?
6From political authorities to cultural, religious, linguistic and educational organizations via the press and education, Morocco is defined as multiple, plural. Traditionally, historiography had oscillated between the affirmation of the originality, the singularity of the country – always apart, in particular, from the Ottoman influence – and its various affiliations (Mediterranean, Atlantic, Saharan, religious). The history of the Ottoman Empire, in its very formulation (the "Arab provinces" from the 16th to the 18th century, the beginnings of the "Eastern question" from the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kaïnardji in 1774) or by dates major events (Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798, the capture of Algiers in 1830), helped to determine a general, international framework, but it was from the mid-1980s that the opening towards the medium dimension -eastern, the most extensive, was crossed by Ottoman Moroccan researchers. The immense and precious collection of “Unpublished Sources of the History of Morocco” published by Geuthner from 1905 had left no room for the Ottoman archives. Nor, moreover, to European sources other than French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, such as, for example, Italian and German funds.
We sense what international relations with the Orient, with southern and northern Europe, and also with the Far East or the countries bordering the Atlantic, can contribute to the share, according to all the modalities, of exchange, model, observation and habituation in the construction of identity. These questions considered to be crucial will, albeit too quickly, be examined in fine.
6From political authorities to cultural, religious, linguistic and educational organizations via the press and education, Morocco is defined as multiple, plural. Traditionally, historiography had oscillated between the affirmation of the originality, the singularity of the country – always apart, in particular, from the Ottoman influence – and its various affiliations (Mediterranean, Atlantic, Saharan, religious). The history of the Ottoman Empire, in its very formulation (the "Arab provinces" from the 16th to the 18th century, the beginnings of the "Eastern question" from the Treaty of Kutchuk-Kaïnardji in 1774) or by dates major events (Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt in 1798, the capture of Algiers in 1830), helped to determine a general, international framework, but it was from the mid-1980s that the opening towards the medium dimension -eastern, the most extensive, was crossed by Ottoman Moroccan researchers. The immense and precious collection of “Unpublished Sources of the History of Morocco” published by Geuthner from 1905 had left no room for the Ottoman archives. Nor, moreover, to European sources other than French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, such as, for example, Italian and German funds.
We sense what international relations with the Orient, with southern and northern Europe, and also with the Far East or the countries bordering the Atlantic, can contribute to the share, according to all the modalities, of exchange, model, observation and habituation in the construction of identity. These questions considered to be crucial will, albeit too quickly, be examined in fine.
The geographical table of Morocco
It fell to Mohamed Naciri, a geographer experienced in all aspects of his discipline, but also in history and other social sciences, to compose the first chapter: “Morocco: from natural dynamics to territorial construction.
In the book, this type of table is almost the only one – by its scope, its object and the treatment of chronology. It is the prologue to the story, comparable in a sense to the geographical table of Paul Vidal de La Blache of 1903, which was read and understood as an independent treatise, but which was the first volume of the History of France directed by Ernest Lavisse
The reader notes obvious differences: P. Vidal de La Blache spoke of the “geographical personality” of France, of a “geographical being”, in anthropomorphic metaphors that are now obsolete. The geographer divided the French soil into vast and massive regions, orthonormal if you will. But the volume stands entirely apart, not introducing at all to those who follow.
8M. Naciri's contribution is much better linked to those who succeeded him. Without evading the part of the geological structure, he challenges as a Vidalian geographer, from the premises, the determinisms and, in this classic debate, underlines the effects of a possibility (the action of men in history). The original painting comes to life, takes on fluid and transitory forms. Between the internal constraints (the configuration of the territory) and external (the geopolitical position at the hinge of two continents and two seas), the future territorial division responds to multiple logics, ethnic – the powers are built on tribal movements – and mystical – “maraboutico-cherifian[ne.
A territorial framework is organized, according to geographical, historical, ecological, religious, cultural and state virtualities, in four large complex and changing units: Saharan, Atlas, Atlantic, Mediterranean. These impose themselves less as constant spaces than as geopolitical and environmental potentialities, defined by the mobility of populations (mountain dwellers for example.
by biogeographical characteristics to which men adapt, by the multiplicity and competition of the poles, by the "kinds of life" dear to ancient geographers. What matters is the strength of the fluctuations and the presence of sequences justifying a chart. One thinks of Fernand Braudel's so-called immobile time – whose initial Mediterranean picture is not static, whatever has been written about it. No doubt the links established by M. Naciri are not always fully explained, but, by this expectation and this orientation towards subsequent commentaries, they are integrated into a project of general history. From this chapter are thus located the role of the Atlantic race in the seventeenth century, the rare endogenous cartographic productions of Morocco in the nineteenth century, or even the modalities of nibbling operated by France in the eastern borders and resulting from the combination between internal situation and external pressures.
The originality of this painting is in its explicit function as a dynamic introduction and beginning, emphasizing the "historicity.
Among the possible devices – thematic, chronological and spatial – Mr. Naciri has chosen to highlight the last. It only remains to be seen whether this governs what follows, or combines with the others, to constitute a united whole, given that the spatial framework is not fixed, that so-called national history changes the configuration of a country through military operations, through diplomatic exchanges, with migrations – in particular the arrival of diverse populations –, through the presence of foreigners. The constant transfers operate in both directions, from the outside to the inside and vice versa – in varying proportions, without a definitive balance. The much talked about porosity, the movement of populations, products and ideas redistribute the relationship between political and social actors. The political, military and religious conjuncture can modify relations in depth, if only through minimal differences over time. The maintenance of the national framework thus implies a continuous tension between the space which would be given and the time under construction. Isn't this the stake of this vast book, extending over the very long duration? In other words, will the geographical and environmental milieu, or the relations between Morocco, the Mediterranean, Europe and the world, constitute a grid for historical analysis and narrative, at times or constantly? The following pages, attentive to climatic changes, the evolution of flora and fauna and agricultural practices, social organization or even rock art, are already an echo of this, for the study of a country that is simultaneously Mediterranean, Atlantic and Saharan.
Perfectly informed, they are read with pleasure, but their content escapes the layman.
In the book, this type of table is almost the only one – by its scope, its object and the treatment of chronology. It is the prologue to the story, comparable in a sense to the geographical table of Paul Vidal de La Blache of 1903, which was read and understood as an independent treatise, but which was the first volume of the History of France directed by Ernest Lavisse
The reader notes obvious differences: P. Vidal de La Blache spoke of the “geographical personality” of France, of a “geographical being”, in anthropomorphic metaphors that are now obsolete. The geographer divided the French soil into vast and massive regions, orthonormal if you will. But the volume stands entirely apart, not introducing at all to those who follow.
8M. Naciri's contribution is much better linked to those who succeeded him. Without evading the part of the geological structure, he challenges as a Vidalian geographer, from the premises, the determinisms and, in this classic debate, underlines the effects of a possibility (the action of men in history). The original painting comes to life, takes on fluid and transitory forms. Between the internal constraints (the configuration of the territory) and external (the geopolitical position at the hinge of two continents and two seas), the future territorial division responds to multiple logics, ethnic – the powers are built on tribal movements – and mystical – “maraboutico-cherifian[ne.
A territorial framework is organized, according to geographical, historical, ecological, religious, cultural and state virtualities, in four large complex and changing units: Saharan, Atlas, Atlantic, Mediterranean. These impose themselves less as constant spaces than as geopolitical and environmental potentialities, defined by the mobility of populations (mountain dwellers for example.
by biogeographical characteristics to which men adapt, by the multiplicity and competition of the poles, by the "kinds of life" dear to ancient geographers. What matters is the strength of the fluctuations and the presence of sequences justifying a chart. One thinks of Fernand Braudel's so-called immobile time – whose initial Mediterranean picture is not static, whatever has been written about it. No doubt the links established by M. Naciri are not always fully explained, but, by this expectation and this orientation towards subsequent commentaries, they are integrated into a project of general history. From this chapter are thus located the role of the Atlantic race in the seventeenth century, the rare endogenous cartographic productions of Morocco in the nineteenth century, or even the modalities of nibbling operated by France in the eastern borders and resulting from the combination between internal situation and external pressures.
The originality of this painting is in its explicit function as a dynamic introduction and beginning, emphasizing the "historicity.
Among the possible devices – thematic, chronological and spatial – Mr. Naciri has chosen to highlight the last. It only remains to be seen whether this governs what follows, or combines with the others, to constitute a united whole, given that the spatial framework is not fixed, that so-called national history changes the configuration of a country through military operations, through diplomatic exchanges, with migrations – in particular the arrival of diverse populations –, through the presence of foreigners. The constant transfers operate in both directions, from the outside to the inside and vice versa – in varying proportions, without a definitive balance. The much talked about porosity, the movement of populations, products and ideas redistribute the relationship between political and social actors. The political, military and religious conjuncture can modify relations in depth, if only through minimal differences over time. The maintenance of the national framework thus implies a continuous tension between the space which would be given and the time under construction. Isn't this the stake of this vast book, extending over the very long duration? In other words, will the geographical and environmental milieu, or the relations between Morocco, the Mediterranean, Europe and the world, constitute a grid for historical analysis and narrative, at times or constantly? The following pages, attentive to climatic changes, the evolution of flora and fauna and agricultural practices, social organization or even rock art, are already an echo of this, for the study of a country that is simultaneously Mediterranean, Atlantic and Saharan.
Perfectly informed, they are read with pleasure, but their content escapes the layman.
Which principle: themes or periodizations?
Once the "Kably" closed, the impressed reader begins to wonder: where to locate, in the last instance, the main project of the book? The History of Morocco is not a history of settlement.
It is not an economic and social history, despite the importance and often the quality of the developments that go in this direction, in the way that many historical works characteristic of the 1960s and subsequent decades were. Nor is the History of Morocco governed by dominant categories of religion or religious anthropology, in the broadest sense, even if the authors attribute their place to ideologies, theological debates, zaouïas, or still to holiness and eschatological fears. Finally, the History of Morocco is not a cultural history either, although it is present in certain passages and in particular in the remarkable developments which deal with recent developments - from editorial questions to linguistic issues (Tamazight, darija) – popular literature, press, arts, heritage, among other objects. What general trend then emerges? One solution would have been to systematically combine thematic and chronological approaches, as was the case with the History of France published a quarter of a century ago.
The volume entitled L'espace français indeed takes up different chronologies depending on the subject: the formation of space, the human landscape, the space of capital, cultural resources and regional planning. The one dealing with The State and Conflicts, without renouncing the chronological framework, proceeds by thematic series: the revolts of the Old Regime, religious disagreements, revolutionary conflicts, political and social conflicts, peripheral minorities. In the case of the History of Morocco, on the contrary, the axis is indeed chronological, from chapter 2 to chapter 10, up to “independent Morocco”.
11Many of these objects are present in the volume, as the conclusion of the presentation on medieval society and civilization shows.
But if there is an axis or a model, it is elsewhere. We are dealing with a history of historians interested in the Makhzen (State), in its entirety and in its most distant ramifications: as the origin and place of the central power, dominant or weakened, in relation to which are described and analyzed the particular evolutions . But what was the Makhzen, in the sixteenth or in the nineteenth century? The fact that this object, preponderant in the work, is not circumscribed or conceptually isolated shows that it is considered by the authors of the book as the main actor, at work in the conquests of power and the fight against the territorial fragmentation or ideological disputes. There are many examples of this omnipresence: under the Almoravids and the Almohades, under Moulay Ismaïl (1672-1727) or Moulay Hassan (1873-1894) – as eponymous sultans of their time – it was always the State which manifested, differently perhaps, but continuously. It can also be seen in the place occupied by the Marinid sultans among the sovereigns who supported important artistic achievements in the history of emerging power and the construction of the Alawite Makhzen, and in the examination of the processes of government and the urban work of Moulay Ismaïl; or even in the history of tribal crises, at the time of Moulay Slimane (1792-1822) and the Makhzen system – even though the author echoes English-speaking anthropological analyzes On the contrary, we observe that certain welcome developments on architecture and the Saadian arts (civil and military monuments, sanctuaries and religious foundations are presented in an unusual setting – this is not the only case –, a little apart: the device would suggest that they enter more difficult than the powers or economic life in the historical narrative?
However, the notion of "hinge", sensitive for example in the history of Moroccan Sufism, or, more broadly, the idea of a transition which develops in a century can give rise to delicate questions on the moments and limits of a chronology, on the articulation of various durations. A concordant periodization, which is so simple, so conventional in appearance, is at the same time Moroccan, Mediterranean and global.
But elsewhere, in the web of specific evolutions (land, man, faith, thought, etc.), the periodizations are multiple and contradictory, constructed by historians and always provisional.
The Moroccan team, with reservations, chose for example to maintain the classic notion of the Middle Ages, carried on this point – among other explanations – by a French pedagogical tradition included in the baggage and customs of the protectorate. Questions related to periodization – omnipresent in the reflection of historians – applied to Morocco and Tunisia have been central in the chronology of the History of Morocco.
The periodization…. The authors of Chapter 4 explain this: the expression Middle Ages, introduced and developed in European historiography, has been maintained, even though the content has been perceived differently, from contempt for this age to exaltation and to understanding.
The Moroccan 15th century is presented as constituting the transition which prepares the country “to pass from the so-called ‘Middle Ages’ period to the period considered as ‘modern’.
The author, obviously, accumulates precautions here, but ultimately accepts the cutting. In writing, the term is not a problem.
This “turning century” begins with the Portuguese occupation of Sabta (Ceuta) in 818/1415, and ends in 916/1510, the date, since it is necessary, which marks the foundation of the Saadian dynasty. The Hijri millennium is gradually approaching. The Iberian threats are pressing on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coast, the Ottomans take Constantinople, the Reconquista ends in Spain which sees the New World open up: the picture is well known. The fundamental features of this medieval century are carefully analysed, from the lasting effects of the Iberian conquest on urban planning (building materials are imported from Portugal, masons and architects come from abroad) to its consequences. economic and demographic - desertification of coastal regions such as Chaouïa and the Doukkala, capture of nearly 5,000 people of both sexes and of all ages in seventy-eight years of occupation of Asila, sale to the occupants, especially during the great famine of 927/1521, of some 100,000 people according to some estimates. The upheavals are accompanied by panic fears, a strengthening of the cults dedicated to the saints, the development of mystical and messianic currents for the reform of religious power. Al-Djazouli, for example, tries to reunite the Sufi movements in southern Morocco, his strength and his authority based on the claimed resemblance to Moses and on waiting for the favorable moment for him to declare himself as Mahdi.
It is in this tense context that the march to power of the Saadian chorfa asserted itself, a family that came from Arabia in the fourteenth century and settled in the Dra Valley: the first of them, learned, pious, ardent in war holy, offers the image of a charismatic leader.
Further on, there is talk of a "long nineteenth century."
. We recall the classic discussions in France: the eighteenth century may officially end in 1789, but historians have highlighted a sequence spanning decades of the eighteenth century and part of the nineteenth century. We come back to the thematic indices, to the multiplicity of variants. The same date often has different meanings. 1830 is the end of the Ottoman Empire in Algiers and a decisive moment for the history of Algeria, but not for the history of colonization: the capture of Algiers completes a long series of naval interventions on the coasts of the Maghreb, and it was only at the end of ten years without consistency that the conquest and the occupation in Algeria entered their nineteenth century. The historian who has wondered about the beginning of the Moroccan century is sensitive to the tremors caused by the event of 1830, after the expedition to Egypt, and its impact for all Muslim countries. But he recognizes that the evolution of Morocco is apart.
The decade 1790-1800 is more appropriate, the initial date corresponding to the death of a sultan, but above all announcing a so-called "irreversible" evolution of a Morocco more influenced by Europeans - since the Egyptian expedition - than by Moroccans themselves, led to alienate their sovereignty. The end, in 1330/1912, was essential: it is the moment of the establishment of the protectorate. The century seems to be driven by a kind of finalism.
The chapter also opens with a real picture, as if landlocked, marked by excellent works on pre-colonial Morocco. Is this why the reader wonders why questions of “structure” are dealt with here (a “static” society, an “archaic” economy, a “traditional” educational system).
Why in this place – and not around 1750, or around 1880? The insertion of a picture of permanence in a conjunctural device is not only due to successive contributions. It poses a major theoretical question specific to the nineteenth century, and also perhaps to the book as a whole. How can more general temporalities be embedded in shorter times, given that this cannot be like geological outcrops? Doesn't the structure of the book reflect hesitations – in the relationship between long time and short time – and editorial choices?
What starting point?
The principle being fixed, a sensitive question arises, that of the starting point, of the beginning. It is both chronological and philosophical. As we were able to wonder about France before Clovis, what was Morocco before Islam? Two chapters of the History of Morocco cover a number of centuries and subjects, for a country that is both Mediterranean, Atlantic and Saharan.
A first question is that of the depth of the past, the growth of knowledge, the reduction of approximations. Let's take an example, for comparison. In 1984, a new History of France began to appear under the direction of Jean Favier. The author in charge of the volume concerning the period "before the year one thousand" showed how the historians of the "Hexagon" at its beginnings - the term was not the best chosen - appealed to biology, geology, to chemistry and physics, dendrochronology or archeology. The "mists of time", he wrote, putting the expression in quotation marks, is clearing up, and the gap between the history of the origins of man and that of the men of Gaul and ancient France is closing. “The differences in principle are settling, the differences in detail are becoming clearer: today's man looks further into space, but also further into the past.
Based on an important bibliography, recent, in French and in English, the History of Morocco gave on subjects as diverse as the tools, the social organizations, the oldest indications of sedentarization or the rock art, indications that only specialists can assess.
Where should a starting point (in the broad sense) be located? Historians have clashed over this almost universal question. Pierre Vilar, in his admirable Histoire de l'Espagne, wrote: "Before recalling the most classic history of Spain, which begins with the invasion of Islam, it was no doubt necessary to measure everything first what accumulation of civilizing sediments precedes, in the Spanish past, this medieval era.
Either a brilliant prehistory, a lasting Romanization, an active participation in the formation of the Christian world. Closer to and contemporary with the History of Morocco by M. Kably is that of Daniel Rivet. “From when is it legitimate to speak of an entity called Morocco…? he asks himself. Not without the feeling of "risk", he chose not the moment of a Juba II (25 BC-23/24 AD), this monarch who could pass for an ancestor founder and scholar, or any other landmark, but the arrival of the Arabs and Islam, and the eighth century, op. cit. The author has however…, while the same passage evokes the place of Clovis in the imagination of the French. The author of another History of Morocco, Michel Abitbol, seems to hesitate, granting only about twenty pages to the pre-Islamic period, from the first inhabitants to the end of Roman Africa: that is less than a real chapter, in despite its status, only a kind of introduction,…. M. Kably brings clearly the longest duration in the History of Morocco, by integrating clearly, and definitively, the two long phases that he devotes to chapters 2 and 3.
A first question is that of the depth of the past, the growth of knowledge, the reduction of approximations. Let's take an example, for comparison. In 1984, a new History of France began to appear under the direction of Jean Favier. The author in charge of the volume concerning the period "before the year one thousand" showed how the historians of the "Hexagon" at its beginnings - the term was not the best chosen - appealed to biology, geology, to chemistry and physics, dendrochronology or archeology. The "mists of time", he wrote, putting the expression in quotation marks, is clearing up, and the gap between the history of the origins of man and that of the men of Gaul and ancient France is closing. “The differences in principle are settling, the differences in detail are becoming clearer: today's man looks further into space, but also further into the past.
Based on an important bibliography, recent, in French and in English, the History of Morocco gave on subjects as diverse as the tools, the social organizations, the oldest indications of sedentarization or the rock art, indications that only specialists can assess.
Where should a starting point (in the broad sense) be located? Historians have clashed over this almost universal question. Pierre Vilar, in his admirable Histoire de l'Espagne, wrote: "Before recalling the most classic history of Spain, which begins with the invasion of Islam, it was no doubt necessary to measure everything first what accumulation of civilizing sediments precedes, in the Spanish past, this medieval era.
Either a brilliant prehistory, a lasting Romanization, an active participation in the formation of the Christian world. Closer to and contemporary with the History of Morocco by M. Kably is that of Daniel Rivet. “From when is it legitimate to speak of an entity called Morocco…? he asks himself. Not without the feeling of "risk", he chose not the moment of a Juba II (25 BC-23/24 AD), this monarch who could pass for an ancestor founder and scholar, or any other landmark, but the arrival of the Arabs and Islam, and the eighth century, op. cit. The author has however…, while the same passage evokes the place of Clovis in the imagination of the French. The author of another History of Morocco, Michel Abitbol, seems to hesitate, granting only about twenty pages to the pre-Islamic period, from the first inhabitants to the end of Roman Africa: that is less than a real chapter, in despite its status, only a kind of introduction,…. M. Kably brings clearly the longest duration in the History of Morocco, by integrating clearly, and definitively, the two long phases that he devotes to chapters 2 and 3.
The ancient history of Morocco, yesterday and today
At the end of the 1960s, a young French cooperator arrived in Morocco and was given a course on Roman Africa at the faculty of Rabat. A group of students followed him, listening to presentations by one or other of them on Juba II, the Limes, the Baquates, African writers, Apuleius or Saint Augustine, on cities like Volubilis, Theveste or Thamugadi. The bibliography of the colonial era available at the General Library of Rabat was abundant, between the works of Charles Joseph Tissot, diplomat and archaeologist, dealing with the geography of Mauretania Tingitana, and those of René Cagnat, Stéphane Gsell or Jérôme Carcopino and many others. Gabriel Camps could show how the work of a sovereign such as Massinissa, who had reigned for more than half a century over all of Numidia in the 2nd century BC. J.-C. and to which all the merits were lent – as agronomist king, administrator or religious reformer – had to be evaluated as that of a dynasty, over a longer period, articulating different chronological series.
Many local, technical and recent studies prove to be less useful for a first approach. The problematic of Romanization, the question of Christianization or the place of Latin-African literature seemed less oriented towards critical perspectives than the history of Athenian democracy and the knowledge of a world capable of enlightening the present of the Arab-Islamic world
The History of Morocco by M. Kably comes from the amplification - or the questioning - of this historiography which has gone through all sorts of writings by amateurs, soldiers or academics and which has been renewed, from Marcel Bénabou, dealing with African resistance to Romanization, to the works prepared in Moroccan, French or Spanish universities, and to the series of Africa Romana whose congresses in Sassari have given material for thirty years to thousands of pages. In half a century, the evolution has been considerable, showing many Maghreb specialists, working with those of Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom or elsewhere, showing, more than ever now, by the field experience that archeology is a place of intense reflection on territoriality, and precisely for the current history of Morocco.
Uncertainties and obscurities may have imposed a long duration. Under a broad and prudent title, the chapter “Morocco and the Mediterranean before Islam” deals with more than fifteen centuries, from the twelfth century BC. J.-C. according to the texts, or of the viie av. AD according to the excavations. Such an extension may seem surprising, but no more so than the long Western Middle Ages, within which historians recognize heterogeneous periods, interwoven with overlapping durations, or not, without the possibility of generalization. A long presentation, which runs from the Neolithic to the Phoenicians, to a Moorish kingdom and Roman occupation, to the withdrawal of the imperial administration, to hypothetical Vandals and Byzantines, up to a kingdom of Volubilis, sets up a continuity, in rigorous, structured and documented pages. Not without a few passages that are too short, on the Jews – mentioned in more or less recent chronicles or compilations – or on the Christians, as far as we know both. Because in the end we only know a few things for sure (about Volubilis, where a Christian community continued to live until the arrival of the Arabs, or the admission of the Jews into the walls of the first Fez). If the question of the relations between Berbers and Judaism has been debated, there is an almost total silence of the sources, apart from the legends, on the Jewish presence during the time separating the "latest" Roman period from the Arab conquest.
On the other hand, on subjects such as the economy and cultures (the vine), the relationship between town and country, town planning, architecture and the arts, religious life, not to mention other useful notations, for example bilingualism – to the two Libyan and Punic languages was added Latin attested on coins and amphoras – the text is convincing. The conclusion brings together achievements and real lessons, evoking the persistence of tribal structures.
Many local, technical and recent studies prove to be less useful for a first approach. The problematic of Romanization, the question of Christianization or the place of Latin-African literature seemed less oriented towards critical perspectives than the history of Athenian democracy and the knowledge of a world capable of enlightening the present of the Arab-Islamic world
The History of Morocco by M. Kably comes from the amplification - or the questioning - of this historiography which has gone through all sorts of writings by amateurs, soldiers or academics and which has been renewed, from Marcel Bénabou, dealing with African resistance to Romanization, to the works prepared in Moroccan, French or Spanish universities, and to the series of Africa Romana whose congresses in Sassari have given material for thirty years to thousands of pages. In half a century, the evolution has been considerable, showing many Maghreb specialists, working with those of Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom or elsewhere, showing, more than ever now, by the field experience that archeology is a place of intense reflection on territoriality, and precisely for the current history of Morocco.
Uncertainties and obscurities may have imposed a long duration. Under a broad and prudent title, the chapter “Morocco and the Mediterranean before Islam” deals with more than fifteen centuries, from the twelfth century BC. J.-C. according to the texts, or of the viie av. AD according to the excavations. Such an extension may seem surprising, but no more so than the long Western Middle Ages, within which historians recognize heterogeneous periods, interwoven with overlapping durations, or not, without the possibility of generalization. A long presentation, which runs from the Neolithic to the Phoenicians, to a Moorish kingdom and Roman occupation, to the withdrawal of the imperial administration, to hypothetical Vandals and Byzantines, up to a kingdom of Volubilis, sets up a continuity, in rigorous, structured and documented pages. Not without a few passages that are too short, on the Jews – mentioned in more or less recent chronicles or compilations – or on the Christians, as far as we know both. Because in the end we only know a few things for sure (about Volubilis, where a Christian community continued to live until the arrival of the Arabs, or the admission of the Jews into the walls of the first Fez). If the question of the relations between Berbers and Judaism has been debated, there is an almost total silence of the sources, apart from the legends, on the Jewish presence during the time separating the "latest" Roman period from the Arab conquest.
On the other hand, on subjects such as the economy and cultures (the vine), the relationship between town and country, town planning, architecture and the arts, religious life, not to mention other useful notations, for example bilingualism – to the two Libyan and Punic languages was added Latin attested on coins and amphoras – the text is convincing. The conclusion brings together achievements and real lessons, evoking the persistence of tribal structures.
Juba II: from history to memory
The character of Juba II is complex, and the one who is considered a friendly jack-of-all-trades became famous, according to a phrase of Pliny the Elder, for his learned works more than for his reign, for his many curiosities. (in history, geography, natural history, art history, poetry, grammar and philology), for the discovery expeditions he organized, for his compilations. The character is sufficiently malleable to have given rise to a variety of portraits: as a scholar whose research was studied by specialists in France or Germany, at a time when the two powers were in competition for control of Morocco; as an African prince brought up in Rome, then client king, protected by Augustus, precisely at the time of the protectorate; or as sovereign of a first Morocco among authors in search of origins. The portrait is sometimes caustic and condescending, sometimes admiring, if not enthusiastic, or more measured and credible.
Thus Mr. Bénabou, who took up the word – usual in the 20th century – of protectorate, a regime less onerous than annexation, and more skilful, presented the African prince as a zealous servant of Rome and as a character associating African values, Romans and Greeks.
A century of Juba? Neither history nor legend brought him the posterity and status of a Vercingetorix or a Clovis.
It is no different in the History of Morocco by M. Kably, who devotes several pages to his Greco-Latin culture, his taste for Hellenism, the influence of Cleopatra Selene, daughter of the Queen of Egypt Cleopatra VII and Marc Antoine, to dependence on Rome, to economic renewal and urban development, to the beginnings of Romanization.
The presentation is complete and honest, avoiding emphasis or condescension. But the biography must be situated in a long trajectory. Even though Juba would have been iconic at one time – a short time – it cannot be isolated. Current literature has instituted an extended sequence in its own way. As if in reverse, memory and legend give substance to Juba II and its time. What will we say then? The "good king Juba" or "under Juba II"?
The elements of appreciation remained tenuous for a long time, sometimes innovative, from the nineteenth century. In the acerbic report he gave of René de La Blanchère's thesis, Émile Masqueray criticizes the author for having supposed that the Oran Tell and the mountainous regions of Morocco could have resembled the Great Kabylie of the 19th century. , by virtue of a false historical continuity that disregards changes.
Studies have warned against assimilations between ancient and contemporary tribes, as if vast displacements had not taken place.
Last remark, finally, concerning an apparent continuity: scholarly literature does not renounce the names of Morocco or Algeria, which are only a convenient means of retrospectively locating very far back in time. What can we conclude here about the link between history and memory? In quick succession, two fictionalized stories about Juba and his son have appeared, which explicitly prolong memory.
This recent flowering of books of which Juba is the hero says a lot about this feeling: two millennia ago, a king, a culture, already plural.
Thus Mr. Bénabou, who took up the word – usual in the 20th century – of protectorate, a regime less onerous than annexation, and more skilful, presented the African prince as a zealous servant of Rome and as a character associating African values, Romans and Greeks.
A century of Juba? Neither history nor legend brought him the posterity and status of a Vercingetorix or a Clovis.
It is no different in the History of Morocco by M. Kably, who devotes several pages to his Greco-Latin culture, his taste for Hellenism, the influence of Cleopatra Selene, daughter of the Queen of Egypt Cleopatra VII and Marc Antoine, to dependence on Rome, to economic renewal and urban development, to the beginnings of Romanization.
The presentation is complete and honest, avoiding emphasis or condescension. But the biography must be situated in a long trajectory. Even though Juba would have been iconic at one time – a short time – it cannot be isolated. Current literature has instituted an extended sequence in its own way. As if in reverse, memory and legend give substance to Juba II and its time. What will we say then? The "good king Juba" or "under Juba II"?
The elements of appreciation remained tenuous for a long time, sometimes innovative, from the nineteenth century. In the acerbic report he gave of René de La Blanchère's thesis, Émile Masqueray criticizes the author for having supposed that the Oran Tell and the mountainous regions of Morocco could have resembled the Great Kabylie of the 19th century. , by virtue of a false historical continuity that disregards changes.
Studies have warned against assimilations between ancient and contemporary tribes, as if vast displacements had not taken place.
Last remark, finally, concerning an apparent continuity: scholarly literature does not renounce the names of Morocco or Algeria, which are only a convenient means of retrospectively locating very far back in time. What can we conclude here about the link between history and memory? In quick succession, two fictionalized stories about Juba and his son have appeared, which explicitly prolong memory.
This recent flowering of books of which Juba is the hero says a lot about this feeling: two millennia ago, a king, a culture, already plural.
Dark Ages and Space
It is then the entry into the so-called "dark" centuries, in the words of Émile-Félix Gautier, or preferably into late antiquity, accepted in France since Henri-Irénée Marrou and defined in a variable way.
There has been a tendency since colonial times to fill it, according to a general thesis, with decisive migrations – from east to west, between the fourth and seventh centuries – which, according to its most intrepid partisans, could have reached as far as in Morocco, as far as the region of Tangier, even as far as Sijilmassa and Sous. It is the tenacious myth of a migratory model from Eastern origins, covering, as in a devastating flow, unknown centuries, the model being based on interpretations of texts devoid of critical editions, but not of ideologies. This myth has been discussed.
Work has made it possible, in the search for transitions, to establish an inventory of places and to identify toponyms according to approaches of historical geography. The contribution is an opening up of the ancient period, based on texts by Arab historians and geographers of the Middle Ages when their accounts are not allusive: clues are reported, as well as - despite the long-linked ruptures, among other reasons , to scientific specialization – forms of continuity suggested by the memory of texts and places.
North Africa is exposed to the question of transitions in Roman and post-Roman times, and to that of their periodization, but with distinct answers: Romanization in Mauretania Tingitana could go through three successive phases until the beginning 8th century; on the whole, the vitality of Late Antiquity, whose limits are as much spatial as chronological, was less intense in the west than in the east of Romanized Africa.
There has been a tendency since colonial times to fill it, according to a general thesis, with decisive migrations – from east to west, between the fourth and seventh centuries – which, according to its most intrepid partisans, could have reached as far as in Morocco, as far as the region of Tangier, even as far as Sijilmassa and Sous. It is the tenacious myth of a migratory model from Eastern origins, covering, as in a devastating flow, unknown centuries, the model being based on interpretations of texts devoid of critical editions, but not of ideologies. This myth has been discussed.
Work has made it possible, in the search for transitions, to establish an inventory of places and to identify toponyms according to approaches of historical geography. The contribution is an opening up of the ancient period, based on texts by Arab historians and geographers of the Middle Ages when their accounts are not allusive: clues are reported, as well as - despite the long-linked ruptures, among other reasons , to scientific specialization – forms of continuity suggested by the memory of texts and places.
North Africa is exposed to the question of transitions in Roman and post-Roman times, and to that of their periodization, but with distinct answers: Romanization in Mauretania Tingitana could go through three successive phases until the beginning 8th century; on the whole, the vitality of Late Antiquity, whose limits are as much spatial as chronological, was less intense in the west than in the east of Romanized Africa.
Plural Morocco
The idea that Morocco is anything but monolithic is developed with consistency and conviction by M. Kably and his co-authors, and the country's history bears witness to this. The first chapter, written by Mr. Naciri, laid the foundations.
It is now important to perceive how the general dynamics and their expressions are organized for a history and a nation where the concepts of “plural identity” and “plural culture” have been taken up by researchers. The term caught on.
It is now important to perceive how the general dynamics and their expressions are organized for a history and a nation where the concepts of “plural identity” and “plural culture” have been taken up by researchers. The term caught on.
Forms and aspects of the room
Local history has been illustrated by monographs, but it can remain the access route to the synthesis announced in the subtitle of the History of Morocco by establishing different or simultaneous chronologies, labile articulations between the scales: a zaouia or a region is a window on the global. The right monograph poses very general problems, wrote Pierre Bourdieu.
Observatories thus exist far from the capitals. The outskirts can be ephemeral – or distant like Seville, “a sort of parallel capital of the [Almohad] empire.
Antagonisms and conflicts have given rise to moments of dissidence, even revolts. They do not always appear on the scale of the whole country, but in constant scalar modifications, on the basis of tribes and confederations of tribes, brotherhoods, minorities, cities occupied by foreigners then liberated, and even independent. Works on regional history and geography define shared processes, forms of spatial being, which fit together, as if fragmentary spaces could only take on meaning in a dominant, Makhzenian model.
The local can be the opposite of definitive secession, so numerous and complex are the links between interior and exterior, through war, peace or exchanges – towards the Mediterranean as well as towards the Ottoman Empire. The chronology coupled with a precise analysis shows to what extent the separatist and autonomist tendency of medieval Ceuta, which gave itself a place as a city-state, was combined with other scales manifesting the break-up of the Maghreb in rival provinces, the struggle for control of a Mediterranean city – at a time when Sijilmassa, a key Saharan city on the fringes of the empire, is coveted by a suitor –, as well as negotiations and confrontations which insert Ceuta into a set of protagonists including the masters of Seville, Fez or Tunis. Ibn Khaldoun, relative of the dynasty of the 'Azafides and familiar with the oligarchy of Ceuta, relied on this case to clarify a political theory: when a dynasty weakens and withdraws from its distant provinces, the great families local authorities provide the city with its elders and chiefs.
Other examples: the clans vying for power in the sixteenth century – as in Safi at the beginning of the century, when an ambitious local chief assassinated a rival, stood up to the Portuguese, then stayed in Portugal, where the king named him “caïd des Doukkala” – the urban revolts, the de facto independence of Tetouan at the beginning of the 17th century, and later of Fez, or even the appearance of the maraboutic principality of Tazerwalt. All these events weave a multiplicity of local stories that take on their meaning in a situation where pressure from the Turks of Istanbul and Algiers and that of the King of Portugal is exerted. Constituting de facto city-states governed by rebel families or administrators, Tétouan and Rabat in particular, which welcomed Morisco immigrants, live from seafaring and strive to free themselves from the powers in place of sultans or dilaïtes in the 17th century, until the new Alaouite dynasty overcame these desires for independence and reunited the territory.
The fragmentation of the country, depending on uncertain rules of succession and power networks, can be read in episodes and conflicts which, by threatening the stability of the whole, confer on the local and regional scale, on other geographical and political poles, a proper existence outside the constraints of the Makhzen. This disunited history is as important as that of unity, which it allows us to better understand. Under the accident, constants could emerge.
Observatories thus exist far from the capitals. The outskirts can be ephemeral – or distant like Seville, “a sort of parallel capital of the [Almohad] empire.
Antagonisms and conflicts have given rise to moments of dissidence, even revolts. They do not always appear on the scale of the whole country, but in constant scalar modifications, on the basis of tribes and confederations of tribes, brotherhoods, minorities, cities occupied by foreigners then liberated, and even independent. Works on regional history and geography define shared processes, forms of spatial being, which fit together, as if fragmentary spaces could only take on meaning in a dominant, Makhzenian model.
The local can be the opposite of definitive secession, so numerous and complex are the links between interior and exterior, through war, peace or exchanges – towards the Mediterranean as well as towards the Ottoman Empire. The chronology coupled with a precise analysis shows to what extent the separatist and autonomist tendency of medieval Ceuta, which gave itself a place as a city-state, was combined with other scales manifesting the break-up of the Maghreb in rival provinces, the struggle for control of a Mediterranean city – at a time when Sijilmassa, a key Saharan city on the fringes of the empire, is coveted by a suitor –, as well as negotiations and confrontations which insert Ceuta into a set of protagonists including the masters of Seville, Fez or Tunis. Ibn Khaldoun, relative of the dynasty of the 'Azafides and familiar with the oligarchy of Ceuta, relied on this case to clarify a political theory: when a dynasty weakens and withdraws from its distant provinces, the great families local authorities provide the city with its elders and chiefs.
Other examples: the clans vying for power in the sixteenth century – as in Safi at the beginning of the century, when an ambitious local chief assassinated a rival, stood up to the Portuguese, then stayed in Portugal, where the king named him “caïd des Doukkala” – the urban revolts, the de facto independence of Tetouan at the beginning of the 17th century, and later of Fez, or even the appearance of the maraboutic principality of Tazerwalt. All these events weave a multiplicity of local stories that take on their meaning in a situation where pressure from the Turks of Istanbul and Algiers and that of the King of Portugal is exerted. Constituting de facto city-states governed by rebel families or administrators, Tétouan and Rabat in particular, which welcomed Morisco immigrants, live from seafaring and strive to free themselves from the powers in place of sultans or dilaïtes in the 17th century, until the new Alaouite dynasty overcame these desires for independence and reunited the territory.
The fragmentation of the country, depending on uncertain rules of succession and power networks, can be read in episodes and conflicts which, by threatening the stability of the whole, confer on the local and regional scale, on other geographical and political poles, a proper existence outside the constraints of the Makhzen. This disunited history is as important as that of unity, which it allows us to better understand. Under the accident, constants could emerge.
Solidarity and dissemination
The more or less static zones of influence are often evident on figurative documents. But representing the processes and phenomena of diffusion by maps is always a challenge, especially since the relationship of the Makhzen to the territory was expressed in oral knowledge or by physical effort (the sultan's continual movements).
Religious history has been marked by the struggle against the Christians on the coast, by a policy of political domination – that of the zaouïa of Dilā', a strong regional power – or by the control of the trans-Saharan roads by the brotherhoods. Such geographical supports explain on the map of the situation in the seventeenth century, clear and instructive, large areas of influence in splashes of color. Another map of zaouïas inscribes, for the nineteenth century, a pattern of asterisks, indicating the dispersion of the brotherhoods in different places.
What prevails in the work, however, is the static picture of coexisting marks, linked to times, to politics, at the expense of the slower historicity of religious phenomena: holy war, balance of power, interests economic, arbitration between tribes, doctrines and practices, expansion or decline. The stains and marks of color do not tell this whole religious story, any more than the discontinuous signs fixing a snapshot. The difficulty is real, in the case of about fifteen zaouïas, some of which are quickly cited, much longer in the case of the dilaïtes. The relationship to the central power is exposed as a priority – more than the adhesion of the faithful – in a centripetal or centrifugal perspective. This is the whole question, which maps could highlight, of the relations between spatial picture and invisible dynamism.
Monographs and summaries have insisted on the place of space in the founding and dissemination of brotherhoods. For Morocco at the end of the 19th century, Charles de Foucauld designated five large zaouïas (of Ouezzane, Boujad, among others), without worrying about possible relations with the rest of the Maghreb.
At the same time, Louis Rinn wrote that “the Tidjaniya congregation is the only Muslim congregation which has, exclusively in Algeria, its origins, its traditions and its material interests. It is the only one which, by its very statutes, cannot have ties with the religious orders of the Orient or Morocco.
Indeed, the question relating to the geographical anchorage, the brotherhood can pass as pro-French. Dissemination is monitored. But the reality can be different from static descriptions or vows, and brotherhoods are spreading, like that of Ouezzane or the Darqawiyya in Algeria.
Consider the example of the Tijāniyya. In the current of Sufism, a chain was formed, spreading from the ksar of Ayn-Mâdi, on the southern slope of Jebel Amour, on the edge of the Sahara, and not far from Laghouat, in a region of contact between men, ideas and foodstuffs from the Maghreb, Africa and the Orient. It was here that the founder of the Tijāniyya, Ahmed Tijani, was born in 1737-1738. The latter makes multiple wanderings in Morocco, in southern Algeria, in Tunisia, in Cairo, in Mecca. He stays in Morocco several times before his final installation; and the Tijāniyya is established there, in a space that is nevertheless saturated with brotherhoods. A zaouia is built in the heart of the ancient city of Fez, in the district of the Qarawīyyīn mosque, and it is moreover there that Tijani dies in 1815. The tomb of this original charismatic figure then became a place of pilgrimage . At the same time, the strategies of the brotherhood were caught up in the tormented political issues of its time: tense relations between the Tijāniyya and the Turkish power in Algeria, easier between the Tunisian tijanis and the beys of Tunis, seat of Ayn- Mādī by Abd el-Kader in 1838, possible competition between the Moroccan and Algerian branches for the symbolic possession of the tomb.
. The origins of a... The diffusion, in the form of chains and inter-African affinities, did not cease extending to current Mauritania, to Senegal, to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. This large network has evolved into competing centers, according to branches and, today, international axes. Morocco is far from absent.
A monograph can be dynamic and expand the limits in time, and thus cease to be isolated, so many are the meeting points. Concluding to the dynamics of the diffusion, a reckless officer doubted that the conquest of Morocco could be represented in solid and smooth colors or in hatchings, and he believed that it was necessary to take into account successive realities, insensitive to immediate perception, and to recognize traces: these are moments and knots, solids and voids, and invisible sequences in the only immobile data.
It is necessary to include the religious forces, in long reticular journeys.
Religious history has been marked by the struggle against the Christians on the coast, by a policy of political domination – that of the zaouïa of Dilā', a strong regional power – or by the control of the trans-Saharan roads by the brotherhoods. Such geographical supports explain on the map of the situation in the seventeenth century, clear and instructive, large areas of influence in splashes of color. Another map of zaouïas inscribes, for the nineteenth century, a pattern of asterisks, indicating the dispersion of the brotherhoods in different places.
What prevails in the work, however, is the static picture of coexisting marks, linked to times, to politics, at the expense of the slower historicity of religious phenomena: holy war, balance of power, interests economic, arbitration between tribes, doctrines and practices, expansion or decline. The stains and marks of color do not tell this whole religious story, any more than the discontinuous signs fixing a snapshot. The difficulty is real, in the case of about fifteen zaouïas, some of which are quickly cited, much longer in the case of the dilaïtes. The relationship to the central power is exposed as a priority – more than the adhesion of the faithful – in a centripetal or centrifugal perspective. This is the whole question, which maps could highlight, of the relations between spatial picture and invisible dynamism.
Monographs and summaries have insisted on the place of space in the founding and dissemination of brotherhoods. For Morocco at the end of the 19th century, Charles de Foucauld designated five large zaouïas (of Ouezzane, Boujad, among others), without worrying about possible relations with the rest of the Maghreb.
At the same time, Louis Rinn wrote that “the Tidjaniya congregation is the only Muslim congregation which has, exclusively in Algeria, its origins, its traditions and its material interests. It is the only one which, by its very statutes, cannot have ties with the religious orders of the Orient or Morocco.
Indeed, the question relating to the geographical anchorage, the brotherhood can pass as pro-French. Dissemination is monitored. But the reality can be different from static descriptions or vows, and brotherhoods are spreading, like that of Ouezzane or the Darqawiyya in Algeria.
Consider the example of the Tijāniyya. In the current of Sufism, a chain was formed, spreading from the ksar of Ayn-Mâdi, on the southern slope of Jebel Amour, on the edge of the Sahara, and not far from Laghouat, in a region of contact between men, ideas and foodstuffs from the Maghreb, Africa and the Orient. It was here that the founder of the Tijāniyya, Ahmed Tijani, was born in 1737-1738. The latter makes multiple wanderings in Morocco, in southern Algeria, in Tunisia, in Cairo, in Mecca. He stays in Morocco several times before his final installation; and the Tijāniyya is established there, in a space that is nevertheless saturated with brotherhoods. A zaouia is built in the heart of the ancient city of Fez, in the district of the Qarawīyyīn mosque, and it is moreover there that Tijani dies in 1815. The tomb of this original charismatic figure then became a place of pilgrimage . At the same time, the strategies of the brotherhood were caught up in the tormented political issues of its time: tense relations between the Tijāniyya and the Turkish power in Algeria, easier between the Tunisian tijanis and the beys of Tunis, seat of Ayn- Mādī by Abd el-Kader in 1838, possible competition between the Moroccan and Algerian branches for the symbolic possession of the tomb.
. The origins of a... The diffusion, in the form of chains and inter-African affinities, did not cease extending to current Mauritania, to Senegal, to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa. This large network has evolved into competing centers, according to branches and, today, international axes. Morocco is far from absent.
A monograph can be dynamic and expand the limits in time, and thus cease to be isolated, so many are the meeting points. Concluding to the dynamics of the diffusion, a reckless officer doubted that the conquest of Morocco could be represented in solid and smooth colors or in hatchings, and he believed that it was necessary to take into account successive realities, insensitive to immediate perception, and to recognize traces: these are moments and knots, solids and voids, and invisible sequences in the only immobile data.
It is necessary to include the religious forces, in long reticular journeys.
Memories and traces
It would be necessary to take up the history of the Jews of Morocco in its very long duration and via its memory, continuously. Attention has been focused on the Arab, Berber and Jewish components and their relationships. The Jews expelled from Spain, the megorashim, established themselves in Morocco, brought their knowledge and customs there; the Muslim and Jewish populations preserved the memory of Hispano-Arabic music, the Jews supplying musicians to the court orchestras; a specific literature has developed, in popular poetry and through Judeo-Muslim stories; pilgrimages brought together Muslims and Jews. Purims have been instituted, commemorating the battle of the Three Kings in 1578, the bombardment of Tangier in 1844, the landing in 1942. We will certainly be careful not to omit the tensions and see only a constantly idyllic story. But Haïm Zafrani insisted, like other authors, on the forms of convergence, of symbiosis, and on a double identity, faithful to universal Judaism and anchored in the local socio-cultural environment.
The black captives would come from Sudan according to repeated, dubious testimonies, such as that of the French slave Germain Moüette
Convoys of slaves would have been led to Morocco, after successive captures, well dated. This is the version carried by sparse, approximate indications. The expedition organized by Ahmed al-Mansour in the Sudan (1590-1591) brought back gold – but not, as has often and wrongly been written, in large quantities – and slaves – for a first nucleus of the future army of the 'Abîd al-Bukhârî as well as for the chiourmes, but not for the sugar plantations of the Sous, where there was no lack of manpower. The vast majority of the ‘Abîd al-Bukhârî army was recruited by Moulay Ismaïl in Morocco itself, in the tribes of Haouz, the Rif, the coastal plains, the cities (Meknes, Fez, Tetouan).
A large part was assigned to Mashra ar-Ramla, another to Meknes, and the rest distributed among the various qasbas established in the empire. The constitution of such an army is considered today as a tangible sign of the diversity of the contingents, which make it such a disparate and fluid entity that it does not allow simple distinctions between categories. The criteria for establishing the latter are multiple, linked to policies, forms of prestige, uses and, ultimately, to unstable ideological constructions: "Whites" or "Blacks" in descriptions, physical appearance and diversity of colors. of skin, variety of legal conditions and degree of dependence (undisputed slaves, recruits of ambiguous status, free volunteers), absence of lineage memory and territorial anchoring – that is to say a certain vulnerability –, exclusive obedience due to sultan consolidated by an oath of fidelity, endogamous marriages, economic functions.
The heterogeneity of military forces is no more a specificity than elsewhere, and everywhere it substitutes malleable assignments for spatial frameworks. The jurisconsults of Fez rose up against the enslavement of free Muslims. These questions are exposed in the History of Morocco, concisely and clearly, as an episode of the manifest military mastery of a strong, armed state.
In the immense retrospectively reconstructed history of the settlement, contradictory hypotheses and affirmations have been made, and it is necessary to integrate these relays, even if they do not tell the truth. The lines of a geographer like Élisée Reclus are a milestone, when he strives to define social groups – “white” Berbers, “black” Haratîn – that can enter into a systematic history of Orientalist traditions.
And posthumous clues, which other memorial references could support, have been noted, expression of deferred effects and traces, lasting and sometimes imaginary, in the population.
Black domesticity, in the cities and the countryside, is indicated by all kinds of testimonies (including tales). Ernest Gellner says that in the mountains of central Morocco where he was doing fieldwork in the 1950s and early 1960s, he met a black man, a former slave, whose grandfather still spoke an African language and who had been brought “probably” across the Sahara. Blacks from Gharb were referred to as the "tribe of abid"". The Gnaoua claim to be from ancient Sudan. The black slave and his origins have entered into a legend, coming from historiography and oral memory, which shatters established frameworks. Stemming from diverse origins and filiations, diffuse mobility, the part of black Africa remains an object for the historian, the ethnologist and the anthropologist. That of the Orient too: like "a big belly that feeds tirelessly on foreign food", the land of the Aït Ba'amran Berbers, south of Tiznit, was open from the start, according to the legends, to adversaries of Sidna Suleyman (King Solomon), who were sent to the Sous on camels, to characters from the East (such as Sidna Ali, son-in-law of the prophet), as well as to exiles originating from tribes in Morocco. It is again the relationship between history and memory that is at stake here: requisitions and displacements, and their supposed consequences, must be understood both in the places of arrival and of departure, or only in the region of welcome, but always over time. The group does not escape the entry of the world into the most contemporary memory, following migrations and through fiction.
The black captives would come from Sudan according to repeated, dubious testimonies, such as that of the French slave Germain Moüette
Convoys of slaves would have been led to Morocco, after successive captures, well dated. This is the version carried by sparse, approximate indications. The expedition organized by Ahmed al-Mansour in the Sudan (1590-1591) brought back gold – but not, as has often and wrongly been written, in large quantities – and slaves – for a first nucleus of the future army of the 'Abîd al-Bukhârî as well as for the chiourmes, but not for the sugar plantations of the Sous, where there was no lack of manpower. The vast majority of the ‘Abîd al-Bukhârî army was recruited by Moulay Ismaïl in Morocco itself, in the tribes of Haouz, the Rif, the coastal plains, the cities (Meknes, Fez, Tetouan).
A large part was assigned to Mashra ar-Ramla, another to Meknes, and the rest distributed among the various qasbas established in the empire. The constitution of such an army is considered today as a tangible sign of the diversity of the contingents, which make it such a disparate and fluid entity that it does not allow simple distinctions between categories. The criteria for establishing the latter are multiple, linked to policies, forms of prestige, uses and, ultimately, to unstable ideological constructions: "Whites" or "Blacks" in descriptions, physical appearance and diversity of colors. of skin, variety of legal conditions and degree of dependence (undisputed slaves, recruits of ambiguous status, free volunteers), absence of lineage memory and territorial anchoring – that is to say a certain vulnerability –, exclusive obedience due to sultan consolidated by an oath of fidelity, endogamous marriages, economic functions.
The heterogeneity of military forces is no more a specificity than elsewhere, and everywhere it substitutes malleable assignments for spatial frameworks. The jurisconsults of Fez rose up against the enslavement of free Muslims. These questions are exposed in the History of Morocco, concisely and clearly, as an episode of the manifest military mastery of a strong, armed state.
In the immense retrospectively reconstructed history of the settlement, contradictory hypotheses and affirmations have been made, and it is necessary to integrate these relays, even if they do not tell the truth. The lines of a geographer like Élisée Reclus are a milestone, when he strives to define social groups – “white” Berbers, “black” Haratîn – that can enter into a systematic history of Orientalist traditions.
And posthumous clues, which other memorial references could support, have been noted, expression of deferred effects and traces, lasting and sometimes imaginary, in the population.
Black domesticity, in the cities and the countryside, is indicated by all kinds of testimonies (including tales). Ernest Gellner says that in the mountains of central Morocco where he was doing fieldwork in the 1950s and early 1960s, he met a black man, a former slave, whose grandfather still spoke an African language and who had been brought “probably” across the Sahara. Blacks from Gharb were referred to as the "tribe of abid"". The Gnaoua claim to be from ancient Sudan. The black slave and his origins have entered into a legend, coming from historiography and oral memory, which shatters established frameworks. Stemming from diverse origins and filiations, diffuse mobility, the part of black Africa remains an object for the historian, the ethnologist and the anthropologist. That of the Orient too: like "a big belly that feeds tirelessly on foreign food", the land of the Aït Ba'amran Berbers, south of Tiznit, was open from the start, according to the legends, to adversaries of Sidna Suleyman (King Solomon), who were sent to the Sous on camels, to characters from the East (such as Sidna Ali, son-in-law of the prophet), as well as to exiles originating from tribes in Morocco. It is again the relationship between history and memory that is at stake here: requisitions and displacements, and their supposed consequences, must be understood both in the places of arrival and of departure, or only in the region of welcome, but always over time. The group does not escape the entry of the world into the most contemporary memory, following migrations and through fiction.
Enclaves and access routes
The traces and actors of the world are found in the meshes of the local, and the history of the corsairs of Salé is an example of the intricacy of geographical areas. The captains of ships (raïs) who were, in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, mostly converts, originating from Algiers, other Mediterranean ports, or Europe, took their places at the mouth of the Bouregreg from where, from the middle of the seventeenth century, the members of the same families can illustrate themselves in the near or distant campaigns, towards the Canary Islands and the Azores, England, Iceland or Newfoundland. These men connect the maritime spaces, from a dynamic base, a pole and relay, and they contribute to conquer the oceanic ways.
Contact with the outside is made through doors and enclaves. The occupation of coastal cities – Tangier was taken back from the English in 1684, Larache in 1689, Asila from the Spaniards in 1690 – had effects on the hinterland. Close to the continent, such is the role of Gibraltar after 1704: it integrates England into a regional entity. The place is now supplied by Morocco, and soon an embassy obtains economic privileges such as the extension of maritime trade and freedom of movement for the English who promise the supply of arms. Relations with foreign countries have introduced Gibraltar into the history of Morocco: it is an anticipated beginning of the 19th century.
36English, Dutch and Scandinavian commerce and diplomatic missions in the 18th century brought an exotic commodity: tea.
Also enter, directed towards Tetouan or Fez, the porcelains of China and Japan, known through the intermediary of the Dutch. For the redemption of captives, a complicated procedure is implemented: funds on deposit in Cadiz; trips to Tangier, Tetouan, Ceuta; gifts for intermediaries. The presents for the sultan at Meknes consist of two mirrors, a silver-trimmed shotgun, brocades, a piece from the Gobelins, three chests of faience and cabarets from China, and one of tea.
Foreign fashions transform culture. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, Pierre Loti, who accompanied an embassy to Fez, described the tea ceremony, a drink which it was fashionable to take three times, and specified that his two Moroccan servants drank it all night.
Consumption has spread, in successive waves.
Contact with the outside is made through doors and enclaves. The occupation of coastal cities – Tangier was taken back from the English in 1684, Larache in 1689, Asila from the Spaniards in 1690 – had effects on the hinterland. Close to the continent, such is the role of Gibraltar after 1704: it integrates England into a regional entity. The place is now supplied by Morocco, and soon an embassy obtains economic privileges such as the extension of maritime trade and freedom of movement for the English who promise the supply of arms. Relations with foreign countries have introduced Gibraltar into the history of Morocco: it is an anticipated beginning of the 19th century.
36English, Dutch and Scandinavian commerce and diplomatic missions in the 18th century brought an exotic commodity: tea.
Also enter, directed towards Tetouan or Fez, the porcelains of China and Japan, known through the intermediary of the Dutch. For the redemption of captives, a complicated procedure is implemented: funds on deposit in Cadiz; trips to Tangier, Tetouan, Ceuta; gifts for intermediaries. The presents for the sultan at Meknes consist of two mirrors, a silver-trimmed shotgun, brocades, a piece from the Gobelins, three chests of faience and cabarets from China, and one of tea.
Foreign fashions transform culture. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, Pierre Loti, who accompanied an embassy to Fez, described the tea ceremony, a drink which it was fashionable to take three times, and specified that his two Moroccan servants drank it all night.
Consumption has spread, in successive waves.
The exterior and the interior
Mr. Kably, in conclusion, qualifies Morocco as a “smuggler”. The word emphasizes the forms and effects of mobility, in time and space, through the exchange of goods and ideas. Relations with the exterior are of an indefinite variety. Contacts are perceptible inside the country. Europeans, captives, religious redeemers, come and go, observe and relate, as ethnologists. The question of captives has been the subject of renewed work in recent years. That they hardly liked Morocco is a fact. But they lived there, left testimonies. Moüette's story recounts eleven years of captivity in various cities of Morocco, in particular in Meknes where Moulay Ismaïl had huge works carried out. He learned Arabic, inquired, described what he saw or heard, and the work contains a Franco-Arabic dictionary of nearly nine hundred words and phrases.
His map of the States of the Sultan of Fez, which perhaps reveals strategic concerns, is the work of a real collaboration between the prisoner and a scholar from Fez. We still see Moulay Ismaïl, the great sultan, learned and pious, proposing a theological discussion to a monk, or listening to a debate between advisers on the advisability of a project of peace negotiations with the English: these profess the Protestant religion, much closer to that of the Muslims, since they do not worship images. In short, knowledge circulates. Moüette's work has been translated several times, including into Arabic, in Morocco, some twenty-five years ago.
Morocco is also an issue. The protectorate, the Rif war and independence bear witness to external links. Some passages deserve special attention, such as the convincing pages, also framed, which end on the differentiated collective memories, in Algeria and Morocco, about the relations between Sultan Moulay Abderrahmane and Abd el-Kader. A little surprising, on the other hand, is the limited part attributed to international relations, where the works of Djamal Guenane, Pierre Guillen, Jean-Claude Allain and Jean-Marc Delaunay are hardly used. The policies of conquest, decided in European capitals, are nevertheless important for understanding the crises of the early 20th century and for the history of a Morocco that was more than a colonial and military objective. Through relations with Europe, even if they are the product of mistrust and force, the world unfolds.
It is again the gaze of others that has been introduced into the country, through the stories of travelers in the 19th century – French, English, Spanish, German –, through European military missions, through tourism itself. A form of globalization is also taking place in knowledge, which relates to geology, flora, the arts and other disciplines during military and scientific expeditions and in learned societies. Explorers, consecrated or not by the University, traveled the country. The History of Morocco specifies the works of geographers without going into the details of their contributions. The names of scholars and intellectuals – Foucauld, Robert Montagne, Louis Massignon, Jean Dresch, Jacques Berque and many others – are briefly cited. The political context may have guided their steps, the ideologies of the time inflecting some of their work. It remains that they have seen, described and often understood. They worked out diagrams and theories, which, although dated, did not however disappear. There are lessons that have left their mark on the disciplines, by shaping or reshaping them. The internationalization of knowledge has gone through multiple experiences.
How to write a History of Morocco? The one directed by Mr. Kably is marked by a certain unity, thanks to the erudition that unfolds from recent work in the design of the whole. However, different approaches would be possible, and it is likely that they are linked. I will remember two. First, extensive recourse to other considerations, emanating from neighboring disciplines, anthropology and linguistics. According to the dense and accessible teachings of a book spanning three millennia, from the appearance of Libyan writing to Berberist militancy, the first was born of Phoenician influence – the probability of an endogenous creation being very low.
Such a question, belonging to the number of those which are particularly difficult, could be approached without dogmatism by critical arguments which make allowance for hypothesis, probability and relative certainties. From the beginning, the societies of the Maghreb have indeed been open to outside contributions, and they have not ceased to be so. Another choice, above all, would tend to the establishment of multiple temporalities, overlapping or not, that a history developed over a very long period encourages research and rediscovery: either a transgression of centuries, if one wanted to judging according to multiple timelines. Because the temporalities are specific, according to the disciplines, but also and especially according to the objects, like the landscapes, the State, the trade and the race, the religious life or the intellectual currents. Let us add finally that, in the connections and the correspondences, I evoked mainly a direction: towards the places of the reception. The examination of a slow expansion towards the world would engage a complementary reflection on the opening towards the Mediterranean, Africa and Europe.
It is therefore always possible to borrow from other disciplines, and the choice of periodizations can give rise to hesitation. But my observations are not enough to change the general impression left by the history of Morocco. The other question indeed, as for the tonality of the unit, would consist in evaluating in final analysis the place of this monumental history in the course of historiography today. The scientific meetings mentioned have repeatedly brought together researchers from the Maghreb around questions such as sources, historical writing, periodization, the survivals of so-called colonial history, and have shown how imperative such reflection is. , not to say axial. These colloquia, especially the most recent ones, have clearly signaled disparities, or rather oscillations, mainly, between scales: one that tends towards generalities, too simplistic not to be suspect – like modern times, the contemporary era –, the other towards state, national or proto-national specificity and exceptionality, which may have seemed to some, in reaction, excessive, even obsessive. The dilemma has been recurrent. At times, it can pass for an excessive, heavy and hopeless ritual. These same communications emphasize forms of continuity, those which, for example, would be based on the essential distinction between obsolete colonial knowledge – and its political uses –, other knowledge no less old, but precious – which therefore do not all, or entirely, constitute an in-itself foreclosed by definition – and a fortiori those who fortunately followed. It thus happens that the most innovative historians consider that old, classic works remain “indispensable”. If in detail – which always counts – sites, little-known moments, religious forces, economic innovations or even conflicts from the past give rise to discussions, these are no longer linked, and have been for a long time, to tenacious and immutable survivals, exclusively ideological, as massive and marked out as the great doctrines of the past, each disqualifying the preceding or the competing one, as if the history of Morocco had had and had to be, now, at all costs, rethought and rewritten from bottom to bottom.
In more discreet forms, somewhat implicitly, these debates crop up in the history of Morocco. The ability of most of its authors to adapt to the most diverse subjects presupposes, despite some shortcomings in this or that development, that the work was produced as an integrated and unified work, without overflow. This is also, I believe, what the book has, in sum, achieved: the work is useful, often convincing, educational and accessible to various audiences, because it is neither overly skeptical nor offensive. , neither intransigent nor polemical. Difficult to reduce to one or more particular historical currents, it is of university invoice, written in a spirit of reasonable balance, in conformity with the rules and the uses. It is based on current historical knowledge, multiple, without preconceived borders, and it knows how to be no less attentive to works which still deserve - subject to an examination conducted with circumspection and critical sense - to be received: this History of Morocco reveals, ultimately, experimental and pragmatic