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Socioeconomic Dimensions of Reconquista and Jihad in Morocco: Portuguese Dukkala and the Sa ʿdid sus 1450–1557

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Vincent J. Cornell
Vincent J. Cornell
Affiliation:
Department of Religion, The University of Georgia
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Extract

Among the results of recent scholarly interest in the “World-Systems” perspective has been a revival of the debate concerning the origins of capitalism and the modern world economy. Despite the fact that the World-Systems approach at times seems as Eurocentric as some of the theories it purports to oppose, since the origins and “core” developments of both mercantilism and capitalism are considered to have been uniquely rooted in the socioeconomic experience of early modern Europe, it nonetheless offers historians the promise of studying social structural and economic changes in non-Western societies without recourse to the value judgments and prejudices implicit in models of development that employ such terms as “traditional society,” “underdevelopment,” or “modernization.” By demonstrating that market and productive forces external to a particular regional economy and social system can intrude upon that system, dominate it, and eventually stimulate its transformation, thus creating wider changes in intrasocietal social relations, the World-Systems model has the potential of offering a conceptual point of departure of great value to students of social change in regions other than Europe during the early modern era.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , November 1990 , pp. 379 - 418
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

Author's note: Besides the Moroccan historian Ahmed Boucharb, whose work is cited frequently throughout the first part of this article, the author would like to acknowledge his debt to Professor John Hunwick of Northwestern University, whose helpful comments and advice were utilized whenever possible.

1 An exception to this trend can be found in a number of articles written by the Turkish historian Huri Islamoğlu, such as Islamoğlu, H. and Keyder, Çağlar, “Agenda for Ottoman History,” Review, 1, 1 (Summer, 1977), 31–55Google Scholar; Islamoğlu, H. and Faroqhi, Suraiya, “Agricultural Production Trends in Sixteenth-Century Anatolia,” Review, 2, 3 (Winter, 1979), 401–36.Google Scholar While the 1979 article is a valuable study of the relationship between agricultural production and Anatolian demographics, the 1977 article seems almost polemical in its reliance upon out-of-date evolutionary schemes and Marxist models such as the “Asiatic mode of production.” The assumption that all “Asian” states or empires in the early modern period shared the same patrimonial mode of production is, in light of recent anthropological and historical research, overly simplistic to say the least. Furthermore, evidence of a lively and unfettered rural market economy in the Maghrib, whose form remained constant throughout hundreds of years of history, unequivocally demonstrates that the unspoken corollary to Islamoğlu's model—that in a “true” patrimonial society all peasant surpluses necessarily flow to the state—has little relevance to the region being studied in the preceding pages.

2 Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World-System, Vol. II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750 (New York, 1980), p. 17.Google Scholar

3 Braudel, Fernand, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World In the Age of Philip II (New York and London, 1973), vol. 2, p. 1195.Google Scholar Attitudes such as these are annoyingly present throughout Braudel's otherwise magisterial work, while socioeconomic and military developments in Morocco are ignored in particular. This great French scholar surprisingly appears to assume that even moderately sized Ottoman fleets and landing parties would have been sufficient to capture the city of Fez in the last two decades of the 16th century—even after the Sa'did Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur al-Dhahabi had defeated a large Portuguese expeditionary force at Wadi al-Makhazin in 1578 (see, for example, pp. 1179 and 1180).

4 According to this model, a European-controlled command economy built around “triangular trade” in slave-produced cotton, sugar, tobacco and silver prevailed in the Atlantic while trading posts based on “partnerships” with local merchants characterized European economic activity in the Indian Ocean region. See Wallerstein, , The Modern World System, 2:45–51Google Scholar, where this model is proposed for Dutch commercial activities in the 17th century.

5 de Azurara, Gomes Eannes (fl. 1450), Conquests and Discoveries of Henry the Navigator: Being the Chronicles of Azurara, trans. de Castro e Almeida, Virginia (London, 1936), pp. 67, 78.Google Scholar

6 Vogt, John, Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast, 1469–1682 (Athens, Ga., 1979), p. 1.Google Scholar

7 Azurara, , Chronicles, pp. 131–32.Google Scholar

8 Boucharb, Ahmed, Dukkāla wa'l-isti'mār al-Burtughālī ilā ikhlā' Āsafī wa Āzammūr (Casablanca, 1404/1984), p. 112.Google Scholar A good description of early Ibero-Moroccan trade patterns can be found in al-Sharif al-Idrisi (fl. 548/1154), Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq [Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne], ed. and trans. Dozy, Reinhart and De Goeje, M. J. (Leiden, 1968), pp. 82–84.Google Scholar

9 Ricard, Robert, Études sur l'histoire des Portugais au Maroc (Coimbra, Port., 1955), p. 100.Google Scholar Agreements with the town of Safi were continued without change until the end of the 15th century.

10 In but one example of such trade enticements, a certain Moroccan “Qa'id 'Abd al-Rahmān” received authorization to exchange one shipload of fabric per year for gold at the feitoria of Arguin (ibid., p. 98). Safi's commercial treaty with Portugal eventually became the stimulus for a call to jihad by the great Sufi sheikh Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Jazuli, an act that led to the creation of the Sa'did polity in the Sus.

11 The best 16th-century description of Dukkāla remains that of Leo Africanus, whose Arabic name was al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan. His Description of Africa (originally written in Italian) can now be consulted in an annotated Arabic translation by the Moroccan historians Muhammad Hajji and Muhammad al-Akhdar. See al-Fasi, al-Hasan Ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Gharnati (Africanus, Johannis Leo), Wasf Ifrīqiyya (Rabat, 1400/1980), vol. 1, pp. 116–28.Google Scholar For corresponding pages in the more commonly available French translation of this work see also, l'Africain, Jean-Léon, Description de l'Afrique, trans. Epaulard, A. (Paris, 1956), vol. 1, pp. 117–30.Google Scholar

12 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, pp. 88–89.Google Scholar Because of similar settlement patterns in Morocco and the pastoral regions of Spain, one is probably safe in applying the coefficient of 4.5 persons per vecino (Ar. kānūn) to the urban areas of Morocco in general, as Julius Beloch and Fernand Braudel have done for 16th-century Castile. See, Braudel, , The Mediterranean, 1:395, n. 194.Google Scholar For a description of early 16th-century Azemmour, see also Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 1:125–27.Google Scholar

13 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, pp. 90–94.Google Scholar Safi was prosperous enough to mint its own gold coins during its period of “independence” from the Marinid state between the years 1460 and 1508. Africanus, Leo (Description, Epaulard, trans., 1:117–21)Google Scholar reports 4,000 dwellings in the city, giving a population of between 18, 000–20,000. This figure seems low, inasmuch as Safi is known to have outstripped Azemmour as a commercial center after the end of the 15th century.

14 Ibid., p. 91.

15 Ricard, , Portugais au Maroc, p. 101.Google Scholar

16 Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 1:27–28.Google Scholar

17 Carette's formula, used in Boucharb, Dukkāla, is as follows: Tribal population = (Number of Fighters x 1.25) x 3.

18 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, p. 84.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 134.

20 On the history of the Banu Amghar family, see Cornell, Vincent J., “Ribāt Tīt-n-Fitr and the Origins of Moroccan Maraboutism,” Islamic Studies, 27, 1 (Spring 1408/1988), pp. 23–36.Google Scholar

21 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, p. 137.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., p. 136.

23 For an account of this coup in Safi, see Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 1:117–21.Google Scholar

24 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, p. 262.Google Scholar

25 Ibid., p. 260. It is interesting to speculate, though difficult to prove, that Yahya-u-Ta'fuft's attempt to create his own qanūn was done in conscious imitation of Ottoman precedent. Whatever the case, his action clearly seemed designed to express his formal independence from the Wattasid-Marinid state centered at Fez, the legitimacy of which was based on the allegiance of Maliki jurists.

26 Ibid., p. 267. The discrepancy between wheat and barley figures in these assessments is due to the fact that a grain of wheat weighs approximately one-and-one-half times as much as a grain of barley. If taxes had only been assessed in alqueires, which is a measure of volume rather than of weight, a farmer making his living from barley would pay two-thirds the tax of one planting wheat.

27 Ibid., pp. 267–68.

28 In the 16th century a dawwār (pl. adwār) was a group of 100 to 200 pastoralists whose palmreinforced goatskin tents were put in a circle as protection against attack. These tents were placed so as to form a continuous wall barring access from the outside and had two openings which were closed at night to keep out lions and other animal or human intruders. For tax purposes it was more common to count tribal populations in adwār (as units of production) than in numbers of individuals.

29 If a camel load of wheat for tax purposes is 25 alqueires, then the assessment for barley, based on figures given in Portuguese sources for commercial loads, should be about 37.5 alqueires, or one-and-one-half times the figure for wheat.

30 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, p. 108.Google Scholar

31 This table represents the author's own calculations of weight based on volume figures given by Boucharb in ibid., pp. 285, 287.

32 ibid., pp. 288, 290.

33 Vogt, , Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast, p. 76.Google Scholar

34 Ibid., p. 67.

35 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, pp. 111, 304.Google ScholarVogt, (Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast, p. 167)Google Scholar reports that at Mina one hanbal from Mazouna could be traded for one healthy male slave from Benin.

36 Wallerstein, , The Modern World System, 2:196.Google Scholar

37 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, pp. 110–11.Google Scholar Before the coming of the Banu Hilal Arabs, al-Madina al-Gharbiyya was the largest town in Dukkala and served as the major urban center and marketplace for the sedentary Mashanzaya Berber tribe. It was situated inland from the present coastal resort of Walidiyya (Oualidia), near the modern market town of al-Ithnayn al-Gharbiyya (Tnine El Rharbia). See also, Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 1:122.Google Scholar An individual named Maymun, the aged qa'id of one section of this town, was under arrest for advocating the payment of tribute to the Portuguese when Leo Africanus visited al-Madina al-Gharbiyya in 1515. It is possible that this unfortunate person may have been attempting to revive his community's once profitable hā'ik trade.

38 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, p. 309.Google Scholar The table has been changed from the original to show totals for all types of textiles.

39 The figures in this table have been taken from ibid., pp. 296–99; Vogt, , Portuguese Rule on the Gold Coast, p. 218.Google Scholar In order to show standardized weights, the present author has converted Moroccan figures into their equivalent value in Portuguese marks (1 mark = 8 ounces).

40 Boucharb, , Dukkāla, pp. 311–15.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 303.

42 ibid., pp. 299–300, 304. The term, almoxarife (Ar. al-musharrif), is the origin for the English word “sheriff.”

43 Ricard, , Portugais au Maroc, p. 157.Google Scholar

44 Ibid., p. 156. In Spanish sources he is known as “Estebánico de Azamor.”

45 Rosenberger, Bernard and Triki, Hamid, “Famines et épidémies au Maroc aux XVIè et XVIIè siècles,” Hespéris-Tamuda, 14 (1973), 129–33.Google Scholar

46 Ibid., p. 134.

47 This opinion is held by a number of Moroccan historians, including Hamid Triki (ibid., p. 135) and Boucharb, Ahmed (Dukkāla, pp. 462–63).Google Scholar

48 Ricard, , Portugais au Maroc, pp. 118–19.Google Scholar

49 ibid., pp. 124–27.

50 ibid., pp. 129–32.

51 al-Ifrani, Muhammad al-Saghir ibn al-Hajj (fl. late 17th cent.), Nuzhat al-hādī bi akhbār mulūk al-qarn al-hādī (Rabat, n.d.), p. 23.Google Scholar Translation by V. J. Cornell.

52 On the events leading up to the Spanish conquest of the Canary Islands, see Gómez-Tabanera, J. M., A Concise History of Spain, trans. Palmer, John Inderwick (Madrid, 1966), pp. 272–73.Google Scholar

53 The full name of the site was “Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué d'Agoa de Narba,” from its local name of Agādīr-n-Arbā'a (Granary of the Wednesday Market), used by the Masgina Berber tribe. Today it is the Moroccan city and beach resort of Agadir. It is interesting to note that Agadir was occupied the same year that Safi fell under direct Portuguese control.

54 Anonymous, , Chronique de Santa-Cruz du Cap de Gué (Agadir), ed. and trans. Cenival, Pierre (Paris, 1934), pp. 23, 155–56.Google Scholar Note that the amount for which the post was sold equaled a little less than four days' transactions at the market of Safi during the same period. This chronicle, the original title of which is Este he o origem e començo e cabo da villa de Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué d'Agoa de Narba, was probably written by a Portuguese knight residing in the town at the time of its capture by the Sa'dids in 1541.

53 Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 1:84–85, 86–87.Google Scholar The Moroccan translators Hajji, and al-Akhdar, , however, (Wasf Ifrīqiyya, 1:75–89)Google Scholar, put the total number of warriors from these regions at 120, 000, giving a much larger overall population. No explanation is given in this work for its discrepancies with the Epaulard volume, on which it was supposedly based.

56 Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 1:90–96.Google Scholar While existing population estimates, such as those given by Leo Africanus, for the rural areas of the Sus are very inexact, it is clear that these regions contained well over twice the population of urban areas.

57 Rosenberger, Bernard, “Tamdult, cité minière et caravanière presaharienne,” Hespéris-Tamuda, 11 (1970), 125.Google Scholar

58 Africanus, Leo, Wasf Ifrīqiyya, trans. Hajji, and al-Akhdar, , 1:114–15.Google Scholar The Epaulard version of the Description does not contain the above information. The Moroccan Sufi biographer lbn 'Askar (d. 1578) more accurately places the zawiya of Muhammad ibn Mubarak al-Aqqawi near the recently established Portuguese feitoria of Massa and describes the institution of weekly “days of Sidi M'barak,” during which fighting was forbidden in the interest of furthering local and regional commerce. See al-Hasani, Muhammad ibn 'Askar, Dawhat al-nāshir li mahāsin man kāna bi'l-Maghrib min mashā'ikh al-qarn al-'āshir, ed. Hajji, Muhammad (Rabat, 1397/1978), p. 114.Google Scholar

59 Rosenberger, Bernard, “Travaux sur l'histoire du Maroc aux XVè et XVIè siècles publiés en Pologne,” Hespéris-Tamuda, 12 (1971), 208.Google Scholar Information on the alfūf of 16th-century Morocco can be found in a synopsis of Dziubinski, Andrzej, “Les Chorfa saadiens dans le Sous et à Marrakech jusqu'en 1525,” Africana Bulletin, 10 (1969), 31–51.Google Scholar

60 Sijilmasa is called an “urban conglomeration” because toward the end of its existence it apparently was more of a densely packed collection of oasis communities than a single, unified city. See Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 2:424–25, 428–30.Google Scholar

61 Hajji, Muhammad, al-Haraka al-fikriyya bi'l-Maghrib fī'ahd al-Sa'diyyīn (Casablanca, 1396/1976), p. 41.Google Scholar

62 The name, “M'hammad,” is an Arabized version of the Tashilhit Berber name “Am'hammad,” which itself is a regional variant of the classical Arabic “Muhammad.”

63 Hajji, , al-Haraka al-fikriyya, p. 42.Google Scholar The Tagmadart-Zagora region (formerly called “Dar'a”) had long been famous for the production of indigo and was also an entrepôt for gold coming north from the Niger-Senegal region. For a 12th-century description of this collection of oasis communities, see al-Idrisi, al-Sharif, Description de l'Afrique, p. 61Google Scholar (Arabic text). The earlier Andalusian geographer al-Bakri (ca. 1068) calls the site Tīyūmātīn. See al-Bakri, Abu 'Ubayd 'Abdallah, al-Mughrib fī dhikr bilād Ifrīqiyya wa'l-Maghrib [Description de l'Afrique septentrionale], trans. de Slane, MacGuckin, (reprint ed., Paris, 1965), pp. 155–56, 295–96.Google Scholar On the Zagora region, see also Africanus, Leo, Description, trans. Epaulard, , 2:422–24.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., 1:93.

65 Hajji, , al-Haraka al-fikriyya, p. 42.Google Scholar See also, al-Ifrani, , Nuzhat al-hādī, p. 11.Google Scholar For a contemporary Iberian description of Muslim awliyā', see de Torres, Diego, Relación del origen y suceso de los xarifes y del estado de los reinos de Marruecos, Fez, y Tarudante, ed. García-Arenal, Mercedes (Madrid, 1980), p. 41 and p. 41, n. 20.Google Scholar

66 Hajji, , al-Haraka al-fikriyya, pp. 42–43.Google Scholar For a discussion of the problematical meaning of the title al-Qā'im in Islamic history see Sachedina, Abdulaziz Abdulhussein, Islamic Messianism (Albany, N.Y., 1981), pp. 60–64.Google Scholar The assumption, expressed by a number of 17th-century chroniclers of the Sa'did state, that Sheikh Barakat al-Tidasi was the sole catalyst for the movement begun by M'hammad “al-Qa'im” al-Zaydani, appears to have been due to confusion between the names “Barakat” (ibn Muhammad al-Tidasi) and “M'bsarak” (M'hammad ibn, al-Aqqawi). Further confusion was added by the fact that the initial bay'a to this movement was held at Tidsi, rather than at the latter's zawiya near Massa.

67 Although conventional wisdom attributes the origins of the name “Sa'did” to the Filali Sharifs of Sijilmasa, who used it to disparage the reputation of their rivals in the Sus by claiming that the latter were descended from the tribe of Banu Sa'd ibn Bakr rather than from the Prophet himself, recent evidence indicates that the term was also used by the Banu Zaydan Sharifs themselves as a means of stressing their ties to the Jazuliyya Sufi order. In this case, the Arabic term Sa'di would be a corrupted attributive version of Ahl al-Sa'āda (Those Who Are Happy), a common phrase used for Sufi adepts in the western Maghrib. See Cornell, Vincent J., “Mirrors of Prophethood: the Evolving Image of the Spiritual Master in the Western Maghrib from the Origins of Sufism to the End of the Sixteenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1989), pp. 520, 523, 591Google Scholar (on al-Jazuli's use of the concept, “happiness”), pp. 616–23 (on the Jazulite Sufi as a sociopolitical exemplar), pp. 669–72 (on the ambivalent relationship between the Jazuliyya order and the Sa'did state). Another opinion on this matter has been advanced by the Moroccan historian 'Abd al-Karim Krim, who notes that the first Sa'did ruler to use this term to designate his state was M'hammad al-Sheikh's son 'Abdallah al-Ghalib Bi'llah (d. 1574) and assumes it to have been a propagandistic device describing the “happiness” of Moroccans at their salvation from European domination and corrupt local rulers. See Krim, 'Abd al-Karim, al-Maghrib fī 'ahd al-dawla al-sa'diyya (Casablanca, 1398/1978), p. 40.Google Scholar

68 Rosenberger, , “Travaux,” p. 208.Google Scholar See also Anonymous, , Chronique de Santa-Cruz, p. 35.Google Scholar

69 Dziubinsk, Andrzej, “L'armée et la flotte de guerre marocaines à l'époque des sultans de la dynastie saadienne,” Hespéris-Tamuda, 13 (1972), 82.Google Scholar This flag was eventually to develop into the famous white banner (“de razo bianco bordado de oro”) containing Qur'anic verses embroidered in golden thread that accompanied the armies of Ahmad al-Mansur al-Dhahabi (the “Golden Conqueror”).

70 Anonymous, , Chronique de Santa-Cruz, pp. 45, 77.Google Scholar M'hammad al-Sheikh is also reported to have said that he would never break “his word or his lance” (ibid., p. 45).

71 Ibid., p. 89, np. 92–93. The Sa'did ruler M'hammad al-Sheikh's taste for things and people that were European apparently extended to women as well. After conquering Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué in 1541, he fell madly in love with Dona Mecia (or Mencía) de Monroy, the blond daughter of the defeated town's Castilian captain. She eventually converted to Islam, took the name 'Aliyya (the “Exalted”), and lived as the Sharif's favorite until succumbing to childbed fever in 1545 or 1546. Until the day he died, M'hammad al-Sheikh continued to regard Doña Mecía's father, Don Gutierrez de Monroy, as his father-in-law, even after the latter had been repatriated to Spain (ibid., p. 141). See also, Torres, , Relatión, pp. 113–14.Google Scholar

72 ibid., pp. 73–75.

73 Dziubinski, , “L'armée,” 71, 73.Google Scholar

74 Since the cannon is usually regarded as more of a phallic than a vaginal symbol, it is worth noting that “Sīdī Mīmūn” (rather than “Lālla Mīmūna, ” who most often acts as a playful succubus) is a name that has long been given to one of the seven kings of the jinn (and commander of their hosts in battle) throughout all regions of North Africa. Since jinn are also mentioned in the Qur'an as having been created from fire (“smokeless fire,” however, quite unlike early bombards: Qur'an, 55 [“al-Rahmān”]: 15), one might wonder whether or not 16th-century Portuguese chroniclers mistook the jiniyya Mīmūna for her more virile and powerful “relative.” On the names of jinn and their attributes see Doutté, Edmond, Magie et religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (reprint ed., Paris, 1984), pp. 119–22.Google Scholar On Lālla Mīmūna, see Crapanzano, Vincent, The Hamadsha, A Study in Moroccan Ethnopsychiatry (Berkeley, Calif., 1973), p. 148.Google Scholar

75 Dziubinski, , “L'armée,” 72.Google Scholar See also Anonymous, , Chronique de Santa-Cruz, pp. 89, 97–99.Google Scholar

76 Dziubinski, , “L'armée,” 67, 70–71, 72–73, 78.Google Scholar

77 A view somewhat similar to that outlined above has been advanced by the Nigerian politician and historian Yayha, Dahiru in Morocco in the Sixteenth Century, Problems and Patterns in African Foreign Policy (Atlantic Highlands, N.J., 1981)Google Scholar, where he characterizes M'hammad al-Sheikh's external political relations as being governed by a pragmatic, early-modern form of realpolitik that grew out of supposed ideological, politico-religious, and ethnic differences between Sa'did Morocco and the Ottoman state (pp. 8, 12–16). Yahya's view differs in significant respects from that of the present author, however, in that he seems to deny any long-term planning or consistency to the “Atlantic” policy followed by all Sa'did rulers through Ahmad al-Mansur and assumes that Morocco's overall orientation toward Europe was the creation, not of M'hammad al-Sheikh, but of his son and successor, 'Abdallah al-Ghalib, who hoped to disentangle his country “from its overt ‘Maghrebism’” (p. 34).

78 Mougin, L., “Les premiers sultans sa'dides et le Sahara,” Revue de l'Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée, 19 (1975), 171–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

79 Eustache, Daniel, “Les ateliers monétaires du Maroc,” Hespéris-Tamuda, 11 (1970), 97–98.Google Scholar M'hammad al-Sheikh eventually found himself compelled to exert direct authority over the trade routes leading to eastern Morocco as well, a necessity which resulted in his occupation of the salt-pan of Taghaza in 1556.

80 Krim, , al-Maghrib fī'ahd al-dawla al-sa'diyya, pp. 65–66.Google Scholar

81 Ibid., p. 45. It is interesting and probably not coincidental that the Sa'did political movement had its beginnings in Tidsi and that the influential Genoese convert Yahya al-'Ilj, a major landowner in the region, was to become governor of Tiyut for M'hammad al-Sheikh.

82 Rosenberger, , “Travaux,” 213.Google Scholar General information on the 16th-century Moroccan sugar industry can be found in a synopsis of Dziubinski, Andrzej, “Cukrownictwo marokanske w latach, 1516–1623,” Kwartalnik Historyczny, 78 (1971)Google Scholar, contained in ibid., 269–86.

83 Rosenberger, , “Travaux,” pp. 213–14.Google Scholar The overall prosperity and ample population of the Sus during the 16th century appears to have been partly the result of successful food distribution policies undertaken by the Sa'did administration during famine years with the help of their allies, the sheikhs of the Jazuliyya Sufi order. The Spaniard Diego de Torres, who was present with M'hammad al-Sheikh at his court in Taroudant between the years 1546 and 1550, reports that the Sharif and his administrators “spared neither their effort nor their expense to provide necessities of life at a reasonable price.” See Rosenberger, and Triki, , “Famines et épidémies,” 126.Google Scholar

84 Berthier, Paul, “Recherches archéologiques à la Zaouïa Bel Moqaddem,” Hespéris-Tamuda, 11 (1970), 141–69.Google Scholar

85 de Castries, Henri, ed., Les sources inédites de l'histoire du Maroc, première série, Dynastie saadienne (Angleterre), (Paris, 1918), vol. 1, p. 186.Google Scholar

86 “The Sherief, as the saieng goith here, hath lately usurped into his hands both the kingdome of Fez and sundrie other Estats of Barbery; and being thereby growne to great power, he is not a little feared in Spaine, speciallie because he hath in rediness a gret armie of both horsemen and footmen, and preparith sundre vessells, wherewith it is supposed he mindeth to passe into Spain” (Francis Yaxlee to William Cecil, June 7, 1549), Ibid., p. 11.

87 ibid., pp. 14–20.

88 “The king of the country [Morocco] hath offred to gyve fyve kyntalls of gonne mettall for every kyntall of tynne that shalbe brought him. …” (William Paget to Henry VIII, February 2, 1543), Ibid., p. 8.

89 Rosenberger, and Triki, , “Famines et épidémies,” 141, n. 98.Google Scholar The famines, epidemics, and battles that devastated parts of northern and central Morocco between the years 1515 and 1545 left most of the Sus untouched, largely because of the Sa'did food distribution policies mentioned above. The resulting population advantage enjoyed by M'hammad al-Sheikh in his home region, when combined with the technological and administrative advances already possessed by the Sa'dids, greatly eased his conquest of the rest of Morocco.

90 Examples of the prevailing lack of concern or ignorance about Sa'did Morocco's maritime capabilities can be found in Yahya, Morocco in the Sixteenth Century; Abun-Nasr, Jamil M., A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period (Cambridge, Eng., 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and even in the Laroui's, Moroccan Abdallah, The History of the Maghrib, An Interpretive Essay (Princeton, N.J., 1977)Google Scholar, none of which mention this factor in the Banu Zaydan rulers' plans for Morocco's development. Among historians dealing generally with this period only Krim (al-Maghrib fī 'ahd al-dawla al-sa'diyya, pp. 243–45) mentions the existence of a Moroccan fleet.

91 Krim, , al-Maghribfī'ahd al-dawla al-sa'diyya, p. 243.Google Scholar

92 Luis de Loureiro to João III, September 10, 1537. Castries, De, Les sources inédites, première série, Dynastie saadienne (Portugal), 1:106–13.Google Scholar

93 Dziubinski, , “L'armée,” 91–92.Google Scholar

94 Ibid., 92–93.

95 Castries, De, Les sources inédites, première série (Angleterre), 1:100–106.Google Scholar

96 Krim, , al-Maghrib fī'ahd al-dawla al-sa'diyya, p. 70.Google Scholar

97 M'hammad al-Sheikh's disdain for Ottoman pretensions at ruling the Muslim world was also shared by his son Ahmad al-Mansur, who considered them to be “a group of slaves and lackeys whom God has imposed upon the Muslims” (ibid., p. 229). The preceding quotation comes from the account of 'Ali al-Tamgruti, Moroccan ambassador to the Sublime Porte, who wrote a travel memoir entitled, al-Nafahāt al-miskiyya fī'l-sifāra al-turkiyya.

98 Hajji, , al-Haraka al-fikriyya, p. 49.Google Scholar

99 The concept of “imperium,” in which accumulation is furthered by the mercantile elites of dominant, “central” states via the securing of low-cost sources of supplies in “peripheral” areas and obtaining a high market value for their products in return, was clearly applicable to 16th-century Morocco, albeit in a limited sense. Although Sa'did trade agreements with European countries were favorable enough during this period to elicit considerable grumbling from foreign merchants wishing even greater profit margins (see, for example, de Castries, , Sources inédiles, première série [Anglelerre], p. 539Google Scholar), Morocco continued to rely on the exchange of raw materials for finished products (tin, framed timber, small firearms, body armor, oars, stain, wire, tents, and “bernatha” cloth from England alone) and expertise from abroad. For a discussion of the “imperium” concept, see Hopkins, Terrence K., “The Study of the Capitalist World-Economy: Some Introductory Considerations,” in Hopkins, Terrence K. and Wallerstein, Immanuel, World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology (Beverly Hills, Calif., 1983), p. 13.Google Scholar Needless to say, it is assumed in the preceding discussion that Moroccan trade with Europe was not merely the “disposition of irregular surpluses” or the “making up of irregular shortages,” but rather entailed “a continuing link between two serially related production processes,” where “the end product of one may be the raw material of the other … or the finished product of one may be a tool of the other… or the product of one may provide … staple means of subsistence for the labor of the other” (p. 36).

100 In the case of Dukkala, however, it must be noted that the region's “peripheralization” was somewhat indirect, since the majority of its agricultural surpluses and export-oriented textile production were sent to Portuguese Africa rather than to Iberia itself. This fact does not, however, imply any lessening in Dukkala's dependence on market relations over which its merchants had no control.

101 See Hopkins, and Wallerstein, , World-Systems Analysis, pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

102 Ibid., p. 25.

103 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Fishtali, the “official” court historian for Ahmad al-Mansur, intimated that the Moroccan conquest of Songhay in 1590 was not for the purpose of seizing gold in and of itself, but had the wider aim of utilizing the commodities of sub-Saharan Africa in a projected jihad against Spain: “And today he … is resolved to increase the fleets, desirous of jihad and victory over the enemy of religion … profuse in number [of men] and resources … by what fell to his conquering sword in the subjugation of the Sudanese kingdoms, whose plentiful produce and gold mines are destined for an increase in expenditure that fears neither poverty nor want; while the great, coveted blackness of its slaves will power the heavy oars of the fleets like the beating, speeding, and soaring wings of birds … until the land of Andalus is conquered to its furthest reaches ….” al-Fishtali, Abu Faris 'Abd al-'Aziz, Manāhil al-safā fī ma'āthir mawālāynā al-shurafā', ed. Krim, 'Abd al-Karim (Rabat, 1974), p. 197.Google Scholar

104 The term, “protocapitalist,” used above, is borrowed from Portes, Alejandro and Walton, John, Labor, Class and the International System (Orlando, Fla., 1981)Google Scholar, who regard “absolutist states and mercantilist trade as protocapitalist formations leading to the gradual demise of a feudal mode of production” (p. 12). The present author, however, differs from these scholars in that he does not consider 16th-century Morocco to have been a feudal society.

105 Al-Fishtali discusses at length the forced settlement of certain Banu Hilal tribes in “homelands” with clearly defined boundaries. Recalcitrant tribes would have their horses taken away and would be guarded by semisedentary tribal fractions allied with the state ('Arab al-Dawla), such as the Awlad Muta' of the Sus (al-Fishtali, , Manāhil, pp. 108–11Google Scholar). The most vivid description of landless tribes-people being reduced to sharecropping and wage labor comes from the same source, which details the reduction of Banu Hilal tribal segments in the region of Anfa: “Their possessions and their cattle were swept away, so they satisfied themselves with grains and fodder for food. Next, all their lawfully and unlawfully [obtained possessions] were confiscated and their houses and tents were torn down—this was all that remained to the rogues—and they retreated into the open country, barefoot, naked, and hungry, as if struck senseless by the shock of a thunderclap. Then they were spit forth throughout the land, scattered about in the occupations of digging ditches, sheep herding, and plowing for the fifth, begging from the populace …” (p. 193).

106 Hopkins, and Wallerstein, , “Structural Transformations of the World-Economy,” in World-Systems Analysis, pp. 126–33.Google Scholar

107 Ibid., p. 133.

108 Corroboration for this point of view can be found in Charles L. Redman's recently published monograph on the Moroccan-American archaeological excavations at al-Qasr al-Saghir, a minor port on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco between the cities of Ceuta and Tangier. Redman concludes that the town's period of greatest prosperity and population size occurred between the years 1350 and 1458, when it existed as an entity autonomous from the Marinid state, yet nearly totally dependent on trade with Muslim Granada and southern Europe. See Redman, Charles L., Qsar es-Seghir, An Archaeological View of Medieval Life (Orlando, Fla., 1986), pp. 41–43.Google Scholar

109 “[Then] came the rule of the Commander of the Faithful [Ahmad al-Mansur]… who rejected imitation, expanded innovation and invention, and pursued the deduction of the unknown from the known (qīyās al-mashāhid 'alā al-ghayb) … and the effects [of this policy] came forth with overwhelming success—the exaltation of industry, the rule of civilization, the sophistication of invention and innovation, the increase of capability, and greatness of form. There is no comparison between [this age] and what preceded it … the situation of these modern times is one of miracles beyond the understanding of mankind … [it is a period of] the powers of philosophical acuity and impulse as well as feats of engineering …” (al-Fishtali, , Manāhil, p. 209).Google Scholar

110 See Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Venture of Islam, Vol. III: The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times (Chicago and London, 1974), pp. 17–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Hodgson's term, “Gunpowder Empire,” has two unfortunate implications when applied to the economic, administrative, and technological transformations occurring in the Muslim world after the mid-15th century. First of all, as an “ideal type” it gives too great an importance to the role of military technology in the eventual geopolitical “success” or “failure” of Islamic states in their competition with Europe. Such a point of view minimizes the effects of other structural changes (such as those described earlier), unrelated to the use of gunpowder armies, that took place during this period. Second, the use of this term continues to perpetuate the Eurocentric bias discussed in the introduction to this article by implying that Muslim states, unable to innovate for themselves, had to rely solely on borrowed technology and expertise in order to play “catch-up” with the kingdoms of Europe, which, by comparison, are made to appear more progressive than their non-European counterparts. On the contrary, the successful outcome of Sa'did Morocco's conflict with Portugal clearly demonstrates that Muslim states, given a flexible administrative outlook and sufficient resources, were quite competent to take care of themselves. This lesson, however, is entirely lost on Hodgson, who excludes Sa'did Morocco from his grand march through Islamic history and, with scant regard for factual detail, deterministically concludes that the “economic base of the Sharīfian empire, isolated between the Atlantic and the Sahara, was not great enough to sustain its forces and rebuild its conquests” (p. 19).