Morocco's Fundamentalists

S1‘UDIES O N NOR‘IH AFRICA - I

Henry Munson, J r

Morocco’s Fundamentalists

MOROCCO HAS A NUMBER OF ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS THAT demand the establishment of a truly Islamic society. Most of them sprouted up in the 1970s and caused considerable anxiety in the immediate aftermath of the Iranian revolution. But these movements have proven to be less powerful than was once feared - or hoped. After describing the main tendencies represented by these groups, I shall suggest some possible reasons for their political inefficacy.

Morocco’s ‘fundamentalist’ Islamic movements can be divided into three types: traditionalist, as represented by al-Fqih al- Zamzami; mainstream, as represented by ‘Abd al-Slam Yasin; and radical, as represented by ‘Abd al-Karim Muti‘.‘ This is a rather crude typology, but useful nonetheless. There are two other groups sometimes associated with Morocco’s Islamic opposition, notably the Pakistani-based Jama ‘at aL-TabLigh wa ’L- Da‘wa (the Society for Communication and the Call) and the Butshishiyya Sufi Order.3 The ethos of these groups certainly conflicts with that of the Moroccan monarchy and elite and

’ Most of the information presented in this paper is based on interviews with leaders and members of Morocco’s Islamic movements and documents and books distributed by them. My research concerning this topic was made possible by grants from the Social Science Research Council (summer 1987), the University of Maine Summer Faculty Research Program (summer 1988), and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Program on Peace and International Cooperation (summer 1990). I am indebted to Jean-Francois Clement, George Joffe, and Mohamed Tozy for their help. Further references can be found in Henry Munson, Jr, ‘Morocco’, in Shireen 1’. Hunter (ed.), The Politics .f Islamic Reuiuafism, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1988, pp.

For a review of the debate over using the termfundamentalisl in the Islamic context, see Henry Munson, Jr, Islam and Revolution zn the Middle East, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988, pp. 3 - 15. ’ See Mohamed Tozy, ‘Champ et contre-champ politico-religieux au Maroc’, T h h e

pour le doctorat d’ttat en science politique, FacultC de Droit et de Science politique d’Aix- Marseille, 1984, pp. 267 - 80, 307 - 45; Gilles Kepel, Les Banlieues de I’lslam: Naissance d’une religion en France, Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1987, pp. 177 -209.

133-47.

332 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

members of both have sometimes evolved into politically active fundamentalists. But the groups themselves are apolitical.

AL-FQIH AL-ZAMZAMI AND T H E TRADITIONALISTIC ‘SUNNI’ ISLAMIC OPPOSITION

Among the least overtly political of Morocco’s Islamic movements is that exemplified by the late Fqih al-Zamzami of Tangier and his sons ‘Abd al-Bari’, Shu‘ayb, and Ubayy. When I spoke with al-Zamzami at his home in 1987, he was a frail old man in his late seventies. He died in 1989. Al-Zamzami was the scion of the bin al-Siddiq family, which has produced some of the most important shaykhs of the Darqawi Sufi order in northern Morocco. He underwent a transformation from Sufi to Wahhabi- like reformer in the 1950s. (Al-Zamzami never accepted the label ‘Wahhabi’, although it is often used to describe him.) And he began condemning Sufism as a perversion of Islam while still preaching in his family’s Darqawi zawiya in Tangier. This did not endear him to his relative^.^

Whereas the more radical fundamentalists are largely unknown in the popular quarters of Tangier, virtually all the Muslims of this city have heard of al-Fqih al-Zamzami. Many, including ‘ulurnu (religious scholars) like the late ‘Abdallah Guennun, regard him as having been an ignorant rabble-rouser (interview with ‘Abdallah Guennun, 27 August 1987). But in popular quarters, both young and old generally speak of al-Zamzami with awe. One young jeweller told me that people thought of the Fqih ‘as a prophet’. However, some fundamentalist high school and university students from these quarters speak contemptuously of al-Zamzami and his followers as hidebound traditionalists unwilling really to challenge the regime of King Hassan 11.

‘Abd as-Slam Yasin, the leader of Morocco’s mainstream fundamentalist movement, laughed when I mentioned al- Zamzami to him in June 1987. His daughter Nadia suggested that al-Zamzami was actually a government agent. Yasin himself said that regardless of his intentions, al-Zamzami was in fact helping the government by focusing attention on matters of ritual and dress rather than on the need for a fundamental

’ For a complete list of al-Zamzami’s writings and a brief biography, see ‘Abd al-Bari’ al-Ftuh, ‘Fi dhikra wafat al-‘allama Muhammad al-Zamzami bin-al-Siddiq’, al-Furqan, Vol. 6, No. 20, February 1990, pp. 6-9.

MOROCCO’S FUNDAMENTALISTS 333

transformation of the economic, social, and political order. Al- Zamzami’s sons respond to such statements by condemning Yasin as a wild-eyed revolutionary. Al-Zamzami’s youngest son Ubayy praises the Iranian revolution for having shown ‘the true face of Islam’, but says that, unlike Yasin, his father wanted to change people rather than overthrow the government. It is certainly true that al-Zamzami never openly advocated revolution in his writings.

Al-Zamzami’s ideas have been disseminated by both cassette tape and short books. Both are sold clandestinely in all the cities of Morocco. While many of his publications were pamphlets with titles like ‘How to fulfil the obligation of prayer’, some were critical of the present social and political order in Morocco. We may consider, for example, his tract Mawqif al-Islam min al- aghniya’ wa’l-jiiqara’ (The Position of Islam vis-8-vis the Rich and the Poor), the second edition of which was published in 1979 - 80 (1400 A.H.). This 91-page opus is banned in Morocco and I was given my copy in a manner that might have been imagined by Ian Fleming.

Al-Zamzami begins this book by stressing that Islam does not allow the rich to possess wealth beyond what they need to live on. To support his critique of the rich, al-Zamzami cites a hadith that says that ‘I saw hell and most of the people in it were women and the rich’ (ittalu ‘ t f ; al-nar fa ra’ayt akthar ahlha al-nisa’ wa’l-aghn&a’) (p. 18). The fact that al-Zamzami would cite such a hadith illustrates his traditionalism vis-&-vis the more radical fundamentalists, who stress the spiritual equality of men and women. Al-Zamzami goes on to say that the rulers and the rich of the present age squander vast sums on worldly goods even though this is forbidden by Islam (pp. 20 - 2 1). By referring to ‘the rulers and the rich of the present age’ (al hukkam wa’l-aghniya’fi hadha’l- waqt), al-Zamzami avoids direct criticism of King Hassan I1 - although it is obvious that his words are in fact aimed primarily at the Moroccan monarch. He continues describing ‘the rulers and the rich’ as follows:

We find that they squander more than even the kings arid the rich of the

And their goal is eminence, and the display of fake greatness and pageantry! They oppress ‘the weak’ and devour the rights of the poor in order to live in

luxury and to increase their enjoyment of the pleasures of the world. . . (p, 21).

Al-Zamzami says that the exploitation of the poor by the rulers and the wealthy of the present serves to strengthen and legitimate communist attempts to overthrow them.

infidels!


Al-Zamzami declares that the imams and muezzins of Morocco’s mosques are paupers living on the crumbs from the tables of the wealthy bureaucrats in the Ministry of ul-Awquf, or religious endowments (p. 22). He contends that one room in the house of a former Minister of al-Awqaf was so big that one could barely see who was sitting at the opposite end (p. 23).

One of al-Zamzami’s favourite themes is corruption:

The aid provided to the poor by ‘foreign countries’ does not reach them and they know of it neither much nor little. For those in charge (al-ru’asa’) take from it what they please. If anything remains - and it is only flour - they distribute it to the poor by way of the government employees, whose wages for this consist of ‘the flour of national cooperation’ (tahin al-ta hwun al-watani)!

As for sugar, oil, butter, chocolate, cheese, and similar wholesome foodstuffs (al-mawadd al-Zhidha’iyya al-nafi ‘a) , they are among what is selected by those in charge for themselves! (pp. 25 - 26).

Another example of al-Zamzami’s ability to condemn corruption by means of concrete and comical anecdotes goes as follows :

It is said that a king gave the prime minister a thousand dinars and told him to spend it on the illumination of the capital on a certain night. The prime minister took half the money for himself and gave the rest to the mayor (muhajidh) of the capital. The mayor kept half of this and gave the rest to the head of the muqaddims in charge of the city’s neighbourhoods. The head of the muqaddims kept all of this money for himself and told the inhabitants of the city that the king had ordered them to illuminate the capital on such and such a date.

O n the designated night, the king observed the city and saw that it was indeed illuminated as he had ordered by means of the money he had given to the prime thief (pp. 26- 27). (Al-Zamzami writes ra’is al-surraq instead of ra’is al-wuzara’, that is, literally, ‘the leader of the thieves’ instead of ‘the leader of the ministers.’)

Al-Zamzamj and his sons have repeatedly protested at specific policies of the Moroccan government, although they have never tried to overthrow it. In the 1980s, al-Zamzami protested at the fact that women were being forced to show their hair when photographed for a national identity card (bituqu wutuniyyu). According to his son Ubayy, the Fqih wrote to the Minister of the Interior demanding that this practice be terminated, and it was - at least in the province of Tangier.

Also in the 1980s, al-Zamzami’s sons led a campaign against the way the poor were treated at al-Qurtubi and other hospitals in Tangier. The Fqih’s son Ubayy cites the case of a woman who had been badly burned in an accident. At the hospital she went to her burned arm became stuck to her torso and she suffered terrible pain. Al-Zamzami himself condemns corruption at al-


Qurtuhi Hospital in Mawqif al-Islam min al-aghniya ’ wa’l-jiuqara ’ (pp. 28 - 29). Because of this criticism by al-Zamzami and his sons, Ubayy contends that the director of al-Qurtubi was dismissed (interview, 4 June 1988).

The governor of the province of Tangier once sent a representative to al-Zamzami’s house in the old city asking him to make a speech for the celebration of the anniversary of Muhammad V’s famous speech of 9 April 1947, in which the king stressed Morocco’s ties to the Arab and Islamic world while deleting the sentence praising France that had been included in the text distributed to the press. Al-Zamzami refused. O n another occasion, the governor ink-ited al-Zamzami to have dinner with him and some other guests. Al-Zamzami refused. According to his son Ubayy, the Fqih ‘does not eat the food of bureaucrats because it is derived from the sweat of the people’. (This is a classical motif in the myth of the righteous ‘alim who refuses to kowtow to the unjust sultan and his minions.) Such acts are about as close as al-Zamzami has come to open defiance of the Moroccan government.

Al-Fqih al-Zamzami is a revered folk hero in Tangier and the other towns of north-western Morocco and, as already noted, his cassette tapes and books are distributed all over Morocco. As has often happened in Moroccan history, the righteous Wahhabi-like ‘alim who condemned the popular veneration of saints has in effect become such a saint himself. (This was true even before he died in 1989.)

The most influential of al-Zamzami’s sons is ‘Abd al-Bari’ bin al-Siddiq, who used to preach in the mosque of the popular quarter of Hasnuna in Tangier. In 1983, ‘Abd al-Bari’ delivered a sermon which provoked the local authorities to arrest him. The day after the sermon, policemen surrounded the al-Zamzami home in Tangier’s old city. ‘Abd al-Bari’ was detained and, according to his brother Ubayy, spent one mynth blindfolded in a house in Casablanca. Soon after his release, Abd al-Bari’ began preaching in Casablanca, where he has gained quite a following. But he now avoids direct criticism of the government.

The Sunni movement represented by al-Zamzami (among others) appeals to pedlars, labourers, shop-keepers, and many blue-collar Moroccan workers who are employed in Europe and only return to Tangier for their summer vacations - until they retire. By the late 1980s, the impact of this Sunni tendency could be seen in all the cities of Morocco - in clothing, wedding styles, and rhetoric. But for most of the people involved, there is nothing


explicitly political about all of this. Nor do most of the people who call themselves ‘Sunnis’ (those who conform to the sunna, or customary practice, of the Prophet Muhammad) have any organizational link to al-Zamzami and his sons.

Even at the cultural level, the Sunni tendency does not always run very deep. I recall one evening in a popular quarter of Tangier when three young women who always wore Sunni garb outside their home complained because their mother would not let them watch a Moroccan rock-and-roll singer on television. There was, to say the least, nothing Islamic about the singer’s performance. (Al-Zamzami would never have allowed his family to watch such a programme.)

In short then, although al-Zamzami and his sons have criticized the government, they have never advocated revolution against it. And the Sunni movement with which they are identified is actually a diffuse religious and cultural tendency rather than an organized political movement.

‘ABD AS-SLAM YASIN AND THE MAINSTREAM ISLAMIC OPPOSITION

But if the Sunni movement associated with al-Zamzami and his sons does not directly challenge the regime of King Hassan 11, the same cannot be said of the mainstream Islamic opposition led by Abd as-Slam Yasin. This movement tends to appeal to educated

young people of the middle class - especially schoolteachers and students. It is also beginning to spread among some young workers who either dropped out of school after failing an exam, or were unable to find work commensurate with their e d ~ c a t i o n . ~

Yasin studied at the traditional Islamic al-Yusifiyya University in Marrakesh and became a teacher of Arabic and then an inspector in the Ministry of Education. He held the latter position at the time of what he calls Morocco’s ‘spurious independence’ in 1956. He remained a devout Muslim in the 1950s’ praying the five daily prayers and fasting during Ramadan. But his way of life was highly westernized. He sent his children to French schools. Then, in 1965, at the age of thirty-eight, he had what he calls a ‘spiritual crisis’ which some people who knew him could not distinguish from a nervous breakdown (interview, June 1987).

See Henry Munson, Jr, ‘The Social Base of Islamic Militancy in Morocco’, The Middle East Journal, Vol. 40, 1986, pp. 267 - 84.

MOROCCO’S FUNDAMENTALISTS 33 7

After reading a wide range of mystical texts, Yasin joined the Sufi brotherhood ,of the Butshishiyya, becoming follower of Shaykh al-Hajj al- Abbas. Six years later, al-Ha$ al- Abbas died. After his death, Yasin was dismayed by the materialism that prevailed in the brotherhood, and he left it. At about this same time (the early 1970s), Yasin read the writings of Hasan al- Banna, which transformed his zeal into more political directions. He decided to write an ‘open letter’ to King Hassan I1 explaining to him what he had to do to purify Morocco.

Yasin’s ‘open letter’ of 1974 was entitled al-Islam aw at-Tufan: risala maftuha ila malik al-Maghrib (Islam or the Deluge: an open letter to the King of Morocco). This text is 114 pages long, 114 also being the number of chapters in the Qur’an. Yasin had it printed privately in Marrakesh and sent copies to many prominent Moroccans before having it sent to the king. Yasin’s epistle does not contain any ideas that have not been expressed before by the Egyptian fundamentalists Hasan al-Banna or Sayyid Qutb. But its originality lies in the incredibly violent and patronizing language Yasin uses to address Morocco’s king. Yasin begins by saying: ‘My letter to you is not like all letters for it is a letter that demands an answer. . . ’ (p. 1). And he repeatedly addresses the king as ‘0 my brother’ ( j a &hi) or ‘0 my beloved one’ ( j a habibi), terms not usually employed by Moroccan functionaries in addressing their sovereign (pp. 1 1 , 16 - 17).

Yasin asks rhetorically:

Shall I tell the umma what everyone knows, namely that after the incident of Skhirat [the attempted coup of 19711 the king added a palace in France to his other palaces and sent to it his most valuable possessions and furniture so that he would be prepared in the event of an emergency? Or shall I inform the people that the king has sold and is selling his properties and lands that cover an important part of Morocco? (p. 11).

Yasin goes on to discuss a speech of the king’s in which he said that he did not like to see beggars.

Islam gives him who spends the night hungry the right to bear arms against him who has deprived him of the bounty of God (haramahu ritqahu) . . . . Your palaces, your properties, and the opulent class in the land all explain the presence of beggary and misery (p. 12).

Yasin notes that after the king had informed his subjects of his sentiments regarding mendicants, the police removed Morocco’s beggars from the streets so that ‘our Lord (mawlana) would not be vexed by a painful sight’. After elaborating further on the lamentable state of Morocco’s economy, which he says is


dominated by foreigners and ‘Zionist wealth’, Yasin assures His Majesty that ‘the solution to all these problems can be summed up in one word: Islam (p. 13).

Yasin contends that the king simply camouflages his Western ‘liberal’ ideas with Islam when he feels it is politically expedient to do so (p. 14). Yasin tells Hassan I1 that his ‘playing with Islam’ has convinced young Moroccans that religion is indeed ‘the opium of the people and mere trickery by means of which hypocritical rulers exploit the gullibility of the masses and enslave them’ (p. 18). You do not realize that you are the ally of communism in our country and that your senseless and deranged actions are manifest proof of the accuracy of what is claimed by the enemies of God! How will you face God you so and so? (Bi ayyi wajhin talqa Allahya hadha?) Tell me how you if you are [truly] a believer! (Quf li bi ayy wq’hin in kunta mu’minan!) (p. 18).

This epistle a,ppears to have displeased Hassan 11, who asked the late Abdallah Guennun, head of the league of Moroccan ‘ulama, how he should respond to it. When I interviewed Guennun in August 1987, he claimed that he had suggested that Yasin be put in a psychiatric hospital. He said only a lunatic could attack the king as harshly as Yasin had done. So Yasin spent three-and-a-half years (1974 - 77) in a psychiatric hospital. He observes that ‘they did to me what the communists do in Russia’ (interview, June 1987). But he may well have suggested this strategy to the king and Guennun in al-Islam aw al- Tufan, when he acknowledged that some people had mistaken his spiritual crisis of 1965 for a nervous breakdown. (It is interesting that leaflets handed out by Yasin’s followers refer only to his ‘imprisonment without trial’ from 1974 to 1977.)

Once released from the psychiatric hospital, Yasin resumed his campaign for a strictly Islamic policy in Morocco, but his language was now somewhat more circumspect - he no longer criticized the king directly. In 1979, he began publishing an Islamic review entitled al-Jama’a, ‘the group’, of which no more than 3,000 copies were ever published. The government had obstructed the publication of this review for at least a year before the first issue was published. Al-Jama’a was banned in 1983. The government also informed Yasin that he could no longer preach in mosques.

Then in December 1983, Yasin tried to publish another newspaper entitled al-Subh, ‘The Dawn’. But this was immediately banned, as was another newspaper Yasin tried to publish; and he was imprisoned just before the riots of January 1984. Yasin says


he remained in prison from December 1983 until January 1986 (interview, June 1987).

In the July 1982 issue of al-Jama‘a, Yasin had dismissed Moroccan elections as a farce. But in the last clandestine issue of 1983, he stressed that he wanted to establish an Islamic Party to participate in these very elections. He also stressed this point in talking with me in June 1987. But he said he doubted that the government would allow the creation of such a party. After his release from prison in 1986 until 1989, Yasin’s home in Sal6 became the centre of his movement, even though policemen always guarded it and often questioned visitors. Like al- Zamzami, Yasin the fundamentalist critic of the popular veneration of saints became somewhat of a saint himself, and his home became a shrine to which supporters from all over Morocco came on pilgrimage.

Despite his break with the Butshishiyya Sufi order, Yasin’s movement, now known as ‘Justice and Benevolence’ (al- ‘Ad1 wa’l-Zhsan) is remarkably reminiscent of a Sufi order. In 1981, Yasin told a terribly depressed young schoolteacher from Fez to read al-Fath ar-rabbani (The Divine Awakening), a classic collection of sermons by the twelfth-century Sufi ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani as well as a book by the twentieth-century Syrian fundamentalist Sa’id Hawwa.7 Like a Sufi shaykh, Yasin is regularly referred to as a murshid, or ‘guide’, by his followers. Like a Sufi shaykh, he stresses the importance of prayers involving ‘the remembrance of God (dhikr Allah). And like some Sufis, Yasin’s followers are expected to chant ‘there is no god but God’ 3,000 times a day and ‘God bless our Lord Muhammad’ 300 times a day.8 This Sufi (or Sufistic) aspect of Yasin’s movement is condemned by more radical fundamentalists.

In December 1989, the police stopped allowing visits to Yasin’s house in Sale. The following month, the government arrested six leaders of Yasin’s group al-‘Ad1 wa’l-Ihsan as well as other members. The trial of these six men sparked a huge demonstration of some 2,000 people in May 1990. The centre

6

‘ A schoolteacher arrested in January 1990 told the police: “Abd as-Slam Yasin is for me a saint. I prefer him to my father and even to my soul. I am devoted to him and his ideas and works body and soul’. This statement is from a ‘prods-verbal d’enquste prelirninaire’ prepared by the Gendarmerie Royale de la Region de Kenitra, 12 January 1990.

Procss-verbal, Kenitra, 12 Jan. 1990, p. 2 1 . ” ibid.. 13.

3 40 GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION

of Rabat was paralysed for about three hours before the police finally arrested and dispersed the protesters, most of whom were university students. The fact that this demonstration was Yasin's most dramatic political 'success' demonstrates just how unsuccessful his movement has been in transforming the Moroccan polity.

'ABD AL-KARIM AL-MUTI' AND THE SHABIBA AL-ISLAMIYYA

Much as Yasin dismisses al-Zamzami as a simpleton who either intentionally or unintentionally helps the government, there is a more radical wing of Morocco's Islamic movement that condemns Yasin for his lack of revolutionary zeal. This is al- Shabiba al-islamiyya, or :The Islamic Youth'. This organization was founded in 1969 by Abd al-Karim Muti' who like Yasin, was an inspector in the Ministry of Education.' Al-Zamzami's son Ubayy sees no difference between Yasin and Muti'. But Yasin, while stressing that he feels no hostility toward Muti', does note that the latter's methods differ from his own (interview, Yasin, 26 June 1987).

The following passage from an editorial in the first issue of a review published (in Belgium) by a faction of al-Shabiba in 1981 gives a good idea of the rhetoric favoured by the group's most radical wing: . . -our present and our future are caught between the hammer of American imperialism and the anvil of its agents represented by the corrupt monarchical regime and those who support i t . . .

Your review appears in these circumstances to be, God willing, in the vanguard of an authentic Islamic revolution in Morocco; a revolution that enlightens the horizons of this country and liberates its people to bring them back to the Islam of Muhammad and those of his people who have known how to follow him - not the Islam of the merchants of oil and the agents of the Americans."

'Abd al-Karim Muti', who has remained the dominant figure in al-Shabiba since its founding, was at one time active in

al-Amana al-'amma, al-Shabiba al-islamiyya al-maghribiyya, al-Mu 'amara 'ala al- Shabiba al-islamiyya al-mghnbiyya: khalfiyat ightiyal Bin Jallun bi'l-watha 'iq wa murafa 'at al- difa.', 1984, pp. 8, 51. This is a 151-page tract printed by al-Shabiba al-islamiyya in the Netherlands, to refute the Moroccan government's charge that the group was involved in the 1975 murder of the socialist 'Umar Ben Jelloun.

" Peuples Meh'itenanhu, No. 21, Oct. -Dec. 1982, p. 57.

MOROCCO'S FUNDAMENTALISTS 341

Morocco's teachers' union and in the Socialist Party, the Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires. He is reported to have undergone his transformation into an Islamic activist while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in the late 1960s, when he was in his thirties. Under his leadership, al-Shabiba al-islamiyya began to attract supporters in Morocco's high schools and universities in the early 1970s. Clashes with students of a secular leftist orientation were common in the 1970s.

Umar Ben Jelloun, editor of the Socialist Party's newspaper al-Muharrir and one of the most prominent of Morocco's Marxist intellectuals was assassinated. The government claimed that the murderers were members of al- Shabiba al-islamiyya. But this is denied by the group, which claims that the government planned the murder to get rid of both Ben Jelloun and Muti' at the same time." Muti' left Morocco three days after Ben Jelloun's murder, to attend a conference in C6rdoba according to some accounts, and he has not been back since. There are rumours that he was involved in the seizure of the Great Mosque of Mecca in 1979."

Wherever he has been since 1975, Muti' has tried to retain a high degree of control over al-Shabiba. In some cases, his followers could not travel or marry without his permission.L3 Resentment of his authoritarian leadership was one of the causes of the fragmentation of the movement into a number of mutually antagonistic groups in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One rebellious faction of al-Shabiba rejected Muti"s advocacy of the use of force against 'those members of the community who have been led astray'.14

Other factors that have contributed to the fragmentation and decreasing influence of al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya have been repression and cooptation by the Moroccan government. In 1984, 71 members of al-Shabiba received sentences ranging from four years' imprisonment to death. Even before this, a number of activists in the organization had decided that it was too dangerous to challenge the current regime. So some of them left al-Shabiba and established groups and publications that continued to

On 18 December 1975,

"

' I FranGois Burgat, L'zslamisme au Maghreb: La voix du Sud, Paris, Editions Karthala,

" Mohamed Tozy, 'Islam et etat au Maghreb', Maghrebhfachrek, No. 126, Oct. -Dec.

Mohamed Tozy, 'Champ et contre-champ', p. 351.

al-Mu'amara hla al-Shabiba al-islamiyya, pp. 16, 35.

1988, p. 141.

1989, p. 38. Similar control over his followers is exercised by Yasin. "


advocate a strictly Islamic polity, but refrained from any direct criticism of the government (interview with Yasin, 16 June 1987). The magazine aZ-Fulrqun and the newspaper al-lduh ?re both published by such former militants. Al-Zamzami’s son Abd al- Bari’ has close ties to some of these people, who, as Yasin observes rather sardonically, now serve the king’s purposes. Al- Shabiba d-islamiyya and its still militant offshoots remain significant in Morocco’s high schools and universities. But even here, these groups do not have mass support.

WHY SO WEAK?

The movements represented by al-Zamzami, Y a k , and Muti‘ , all challenge, in their very different ways, the regime of King Hassan 11. But they have been unable to do so with much success. This inability is partially due to the king’s Islamic legitimacy as Imam, as ‘Commander of the Faithful’ and as a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. I have heard an illiterate old woman telling a group of her relatives in Tangier that the King survived the coup attempts of 1971 and 1972 because of his baraka, or ‘sacredness’.

However, the argument that Morocco’s Islamic opposition is weak because of the popular belief in the king’s sanctity is not the whole story. University-educated Moroccans, including most of the fundamentalists, tend to ridicule such beliefs. Moreover, if the king were to be overthrown tomorrow, those who had believed in his buruku would simply say that he had lost it.

As for the government’s repression of the Islamic opposition, it is undoubtedly one reason for the latter’s weakness. Hundreds of young Moroccans have been imprisoned and tortured for even the slightest involvement in fundamentalist g r o u p ~ . ’ ~ Fear is a pillar of the Moroccan polity, as is true in much of the Third World. Beyond the fear of prison, torture and death, there is also widespread fear of what might occur if the monarchy were to be

I s The government’s use of torture has received a great deal of publicity since the publication of Gilles Perrault’s Notre ami le 702, Paris, Gallimard, 1990. It is also well- documented in the reports periodically issued by Amnesty International, Middle East Watch, and the French Comith de lutte cantre la r@ression au Maroc. A copy of a Kenitrapracis- verbal of January 1990 in my possession demonstrates the government’s ability to

apprehend members and sympathizers of‘Abd as-Slam Yasin’s movement. (I regret that I cannot publicly thank the individual who gave me this extremely revealing document.)


eliminated. This fear, which echoes classical Sunni Islamic political theory, is expressed even by Moroccans bitterly hostile to the present regime.

But beyond all these factors, the fact is that most of the ‘fundamentalist’ movements of the Sunni Islamic world have been quite weak when compared with the Shi‘i movement which overthrew the Shah in Iran. Admittedly, the fundamentalist movements of Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt are stronger than those of Morocco. But a Sunni Islamic ‘revolution’ does not appear imminent in any of these countries despite the major impact which their ‘fundamentalists’ have had on public discourse.

A major reason for the relative weakness of the revolutionary Sunni ‘fundamentalists’ generally is that their politicized version of Islam differs radically from the more strictly religious ways in which most Muslims understand their religion. The conventional wisdom that Islam does not distinguish between religion and politics does not reflect Islam as it is understood by most flesh- and-blood human beings. Islam is often the principal topic of discussion at family gatherings in the popular quarters and villages of Morocco, but the political implications of the religion are rarely discussed. That is not to say that Islam and politics are unrelated in Morocco. But the ideological Islam favoured by the more radical fundamentalists is far removed from the beliefs and values of ordinary Moroccan Muslims.

Khomeini and the Shi‘i ‘ulama of Iran were able to overcome this problem, which they too faced, in part because of the tremendous authority of the Shi‘i‘ulama even in popular Shi‘ism. In the Sunni world, especially the twentieth-century Sunni world, the ‘ulama lack this authority and do not have much impact on popular belief. Moreover, as has often been noted, Sunni ‘ulama have rarely led the Islamic movements of the twentieth century. l6

In Morocco, as in most predominantly Sunni countries, the ‘ulama have generally shied away from challenging the reigning regime. And the middle-class intellectuals (using the word loosely) who have generally led the radical or revolutionary Sunni ‘fundamentalist’ movements have had a hard time mobilizing large numbers of supporters outside the ranks of students and the educated middle class.

It is true that a man like al-Fqih al-Zamzami was closer to popular belief than are the more radical Islamic activists. But al- Zamzami and his sons never tried to mount a revolution. If his

I6See Munson, Islam and Revolulion in the Middle East.


sons were to join forces with Yasin and Muti' and their more educated supporters in a serious attempt to overthrow the Moroccan government, they might well pose a serious threat to the government of Hassan I1 - given Morocco's dire economic situation and the frustrations that sparked the riots of 1981, 1984, and 1990. But it is hard to imagine such a coalition taking place. And for the time being at any rate, the king has effectively muzzled those who seek to overthrow him in the name of Islam.

Documents

Morocco's Fundamentalists