Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
In spite of the fact that it has been a favorite subject of scholars for more than seventy years, the religious history of Morocco, especially concerning the period before the French protectorate, remains at best incompletely studied and at worst completely misunderstood. This does not mean, however, that theories and indeed dogmatic assumptions have not been advanced, most notably in the study of what has been termed “popular religion,” that exotic blend of “orthodox” scholasticism and “heterodox” praxis that has made “Moroccan Islam” so interesting.
1 Eickelman, Dale, Moroccan Islam (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976).Google Scholar
2 Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).Google Scholar
3 Gellner, Ernest, Saints of the Atlas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).Google Scholar
4 Geertz, , Islam Observed, p. 16.Google Scholar
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6 Ibid., p. 15.
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9 Ibid.
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11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., p. 31.
13 These authors' misunderstanding of the walī's role is all the more surprising when one that three major indigenous sources for Moroccan history, two of them contemporary “Maraboutic Crisis,” have been translated into French. These contemporary sources are: Muḥammad, Ibn ⊂Alī Ibn Miṣbāḥ Ibn ⊂Askar, Dawḥat an-Nāshir li Maḥāsin man Kāna bi'l Maghrib min Mashāyikh al-Qarn al-⊂Ashir, Mission Scientifique du Maroc, Graulle trans. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1913),Google Scholar and Muḥammad, al-Qādirī, Nāshir al-Mathānī, Mission Scientifique du Maroc, Graulle Maillard trans. (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1913).Google Scholar An excellent nineteenth-century secondary source is Aḥmad, Ibn Khālid an-Nāṣirī as-Salāwī, Kitāb al-Istiqṣā'li Akhbār ad-Duwwal al-Maghrib al-Aqḥā⊃, Direction des Affairs Indigènes, various translators (Paris: Librarie Ancienne HonoréChampion, 1934).Google Scholar
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15 Ibid., p. 2.
16 Ibid.
17 Cour, Auguste, La Dynastie marocaine des Beni Wauas, (Algiers: Université de Alger, 1920), pp. 28–45.Google Scholar
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19 Berque, Jacques, L'Intérieur du Maghreb (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1978). p. 150.Google Scholar
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23 An-Nāṣirī, , Kitāb al-Istiqṣā⊃, “Les Merinides,” pp. 470–471.Google Scholar
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27 Ibid., pp. 110–111.
28 An-Nāṣirī, , Kitāb al-Istiqṣā⊂. “Les Saadiens,” pp. 6–7.Google Scholar
29 Al-Qādirī, , Nāshir al-Mathānī, pp. 236–237.Google Scholar
30 An-Nāṣirī, , Kitāb al-Istiqṣā, “Les Saadiens,” p. 12.Google Scholar
31 Ibid., pp. 14–15.
32 Ibid., pp. 16–17.
33 Anonymous, Ta⊃rīkh ad-Dawla as-Sa⊂adīyya, p. 6.Google Scholar
34 Cour, , La Dynastie marocaine, pp. 36–37.Google Scholar
35 Berque, , L'Intérieur du Maghreb, p. 163.Google Scholar
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37 Al-Qādirī, Nāshir al-Mathānī.
38 Ibn ⊂Askar, Dawḥat an-Nāshir.
39 A similar conclusion was drawn by the anthropologist David Hart, who attempted to deal with the problem of definition by postulating the existence of “big imrabdhen” and “little imrabdhen” among the saintly families of the Rif (Hart, David, The Aith Waryaghar of the Moroccan Rif [Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976], pp. 190–191).Google Scholar
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41 Lévi-Provencal, E., Les Historiens des Chorfa (Paris: Emile Larose, 1922), pp. 231–234.Google Scholar
42 An excellent introduction to mainstream Shādhilī doctrine as interpreted in the twentieth century can be found in Schuon, Fritjof, Understanding Islam (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1976).Google Scholar
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47 Ibid., p. 102.
48 Ibid., pp. 75, 102.
49 Ibid., p. 102.
50 Examples of Professor Maquet's ideas can be found in Maquet, Jacques, “Meditation in Contemporary Sri Lanka: Idea and Practice,” Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 7, 2 (1975),Google Scholar and “The World/Nonworld Dichotomy,” in Bharati, Agehananda, Ed., The Realm of the Extra-Human: Ideas and Actions (The Hague: Mouton, 1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
51 One could also mention the famous Qur⊃ānic phrase, Innā li'llāhi wa inna ilāyhi rāji⊂ūn.
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56 Ibid., book II, pp. 46–47.
57 Geertz, et al. , Meaning and Order, pp. 92–101.Google Scholar
58 This assumption is implicit throughout Islam Observed.
59 ⊂Abd, ar-Raḥmān Ibn Muḥammad al-Fāsī, Sharḥ Ḥizb al-Barr (Cairo: Maktaba al-Kulīyya al-Azhārīyya, 1969), p. 112.Google Scholar
60 Ibid., p. 119.
61 Muḥammad, al-Fāsī, Mumatti⊂ al-Asmā⊂, pp. 3–4.Google Scholar
62 Ibid., p. 6.
63 Ibid.
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65 Muḥammad, Ibn Sulaymān al-Jazūlī, Dalā⊃il al-Khayrāt (Tunis: Al-Manār, 1964).Google Scholar
66 Muḥammad, al-Fāsī, Mumattī⊂ al-Asmā⊂, p. 10.Google Scholar
67 Ibid., pp. 4–6.
68 Ibid., p. 5.
69 Ibid., pp. 7–8.
70 See al-Qādirī, Nāshir al-Mathānī, and an-Nāṣirī, Kitāb al-lstiqṣā⊃.
71 Muḥammad, al-Fāsī, Mumattī⊂ al-Asmā⊂, pp. 22–23.Google Scholar
72 Ibid., p. 16.
73 Ibid., p. 22.
74 For example, see Anonymous, Ta⊃rīkh ad-Dawla as-Sa⊂adīyya, p. 2.Google Scholar
75 Introduction to Ibn ⊂āskar, Dawḥat an-Nāshir.
76 Muḥammad, al-Fāsī, Mumatti⊂ al-Asmā⊂, p. 7.Google Scholar
77 Ibid., p. 5.
78 Ibid., p. 12. An-Nāṣirī, , Kitāb al-Istiqṣā⊃, “Les Merinides,” pp. 507–511.Google Scholar