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Agriculture, Ṣūfism and the State in Tenth/Sixteenth-Century Morocco1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
Extract
The tenth/sixteenth century was undoubtedly one of the most turbulent periods in the history of Morocco. Throughout the century the country was ravaged by civil strife, foreign occupation of some of its coastal regions and widespread social turmoil. Dynastic conflict between the two main contenders for the throne—the Wattasid vizierate and the Saՙdiyans—did not cease until the middle of the century. The prolonged warfare drained the economic resources of the country and crippled commercial activity. The crisis was especially acute in the countryside where the protracted political unrest disrupted agricultural activity. Sizable tracts of farmland were left uncultivated or were ruined by marauding gangs of brigands who plundered the peasants of their crops and cattle. As well as man-made damage, agricultural output was hit by a series of natural calamities (drought, plagues and scarce harvests), while intermittent outbreaks of epidemic decimated the population of certain districts. The results were catastrophic: famine became endemic in certain regions; previously fertile lands were abandoned and their soils became unsuitable for cultivation; trade in agricultural produce gradually ebbed; the price of foodstuffs rose to exorbitant levels and traders resorted to speculative practices, hoarding grain and other agricultural produce to inflate their value. The stagnation of agriculture led to a sharp demographic decline in the rural population and a substantial influx of migrant peasants into urban centres or rural areas less affected by scarcity. Entire rural communities were uprooted. Pauperism and mendicity proliferated in many regions as scores of impoverished peasants and herdsmen abandoned their indigenous lands and roamed the countryside in search of food.
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- Information
- Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , October 1996 , pp. 450 - 471
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1996
References
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50 A. Bukari, al-Zāwiya al-Sharqāwiyya, II, 70–71 (from al-ՙAbdūsī's Yatīma); M. Hajji, al- Zāwiya al-Dilā'iyya, 269 (from al-Ḥawwāt's Budūr); ՙAbd al-Latif al-Shadhili, al-Taṣawwuf wa-'l-mujtamaՙ, 205 (on the zāwiya of Ibn Nāṣir or Nāṣiriyya, founded by the shaykh ՙUmar b. Muḥammad al-Anṣārī in the Darՙa valley in 983/1575).
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60 The main traits of this policy are delineated, for instance, in the panegyric composed by Ibn al-Qādī (d. 1029/1616) in honour of the caliph al-Mansur, the al-Muntaqā al-maqṣūr ՙalā ma'āthir al-khalīfa Abī l-ՙAbbās al-Manṣūr, ed. Razzuq, M. (Rabat, 1986)Google Scholar, 2 vols. See introduction.
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