Rosen is an anthropologist who visited the town of Sefrou, just south of Fez, off and on over the course of forty years. The book is divided into four biographies, which shed light on the changing culture of Morocco as Rosen hears firsthand from his subjects on how the country changed from a Sultanate, to a French colony, and finally to an independent nation. “Sefrou as their place, is experienced differently and indeed differentially by each, yet all recognize it as vital to who they are. Located fifteen miles south of Fez on the edge of the Middle Atlas Mountains, it has grown from a small city of 3,000 (half of them Jewish) before the turn of the twentieth century, to some 25,000 when [Rosen] arrived in the mid-1960s, to some 80,000 at present.” The first biography is of Haj Hamed Britel, who born in the late 19th century, had been raised under the Sultanate. The Sultan held his grip on power by moving his capital routinely between Fez, Marrakech, Meknes, and Rabat, while appointing caids to administer local affairs on his behalf. He had to balance a world of tribal intrigues and multiple discordant webs of characters. Moroccan history is defined not by events and the passage of time, but by personalities and connections. For Haj, “causation was always traced to some sentient being- to God, a person, an animal, or a spirit; things do not so much make things happen.” The Moroccan identity is composed of a man and his relationships. Moroccans see society as held together by a series of knots, like a loom, and disorder (fitna) occurs when these bonds of obligation break down. Members of different tribes would often seal agreements by trading one another their turbans in a show of trust and respect. There would also have to be a balance of power in society, modulated by an ever-changing web of alliances. An Arab saying is, “certitude divides, uncertainty unites.”
The next Arab in Rosen’s study is Yaghnik Driss, a man with one foot in Sefrou and one in Fez, where his father was born. “For Moroccans the place from which one originates conveys much more than mere geography: it says a great deal about the customs one employs in dealing with others, the expectations one harbors about others, and that whole complex of everyday habits- from the smallest item of politesse to the implications of a turn of phrase for one’s religious sensibilities.” Time is all relative, because “the Quran does not use time as the predominant vehicle for revealing truth. Instead we are shown aspects of things, facets of people, angles of situations…. The word for knowledge is the second most frequently used word in the Quran after the name of God.” Culture and religion are intimately tied. It is posited that bargaining is so important, because “the Prophet himself is said to have bargained with God as to the requisite number of daily prayers, ultimately getting Him down from fifty to just five.” Islam also creates an oral culture- the tradition is that, for the most learned, the Quran is memorized, recited, and inscribed in their heart. What is not explicitly forbidden by the Quran is not only permitted, but becomes an integral part of the whole culture of localized Islam. “The powerfully inclusive mentality of Islam allows local variation as Islam, not as something in contradistinction to it, a fact that has no doubt contributed to its spread into many parts of the world.”
The Berber described in the book is Hussein ou Muhammad Qadir, a merchant whose fortunes dramatically rose during the course of Rosen’s time with him. The Berbers saw themselves as the original Moroccans, maintained their own language, and tended to live in the rural areas of the Atlas Mountains. Today, even with intermarriage prevalent, over 45% of Moroccans speak Berber as well as Arabic. Berbers, although tribal, always maintained both social and business ties with Arabs and, particularly, Jews within their communities. A common Moroccan proverb is, “Your neighbor who is close is more important then your kinsman who is far away.” In Berber communities, ties and relationships are also paramount. Often times one has to travel far and wide up and down unfamiliar countryside selling sheep and other wares, so Berbers rely on trust and trade to make money and travel safely. “Corruption is the failure to share with those whom you have formed ties of dependence whatever largesse comes your way…. Corruption is our form of democracy…. If some big man says do such and such, but I can pay someone below him not to do it, is that not a check on the big man’s power? And isn’t democracy all about keeping big men from having too much power over you?”
Shimon Benizri is the Jew of Rosen’s study, a man who viewed himself equally as both Arab and Jew, even after the ramifications of the War of 1967 eventually forced him to abandon Morocco for a new home in Israel. Jews had lived in some numbers in Morocco since Phoenician times, another influx arriving with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, and yet many more immigrating after their expulsion from Andalusia in 1492. They tended to live on caravan routes and relied on a local Berber or Arab big man for protection within their community and in dealing with other traders. They survived and prospered, despite the occasional pogroms and the jizya tax they had to pay to the Sultan as unbelievers. Jews were allowed to elect their own internal leader, the Nagid, who dealt with local authorities and established internal security within each city’s Mellah, the ghetto. During World War II, Jews in Morocco were explicitly protected from both the Nazis and the Vichy French. The Sultan himself reportedly told the Axis powers, “I in no way approve of the new anti-Semitic laws and I refuse to be associated with any measure of which I disapprove. I wish to inform you that, as in the past, the Jews remain under my protection and I refuse to allow any distinction to be made among my subjects.” Eventually, however, after the creation of Israel, the numerous Arab wars, and Morocco’s own independence, 90% of Moroccan Jews fled to Israel and, by the time of Benizris’ arrival, one in every six Jews in Israel was actually from Morocco. Rosen’s book is an attempt to capture the history of Morocco by looking back from today’s time of increasing urbanization, modernization, and globalization. Today, “the urban corridor that runs from Kenitra through Rabat and Casablanca to El Jedida, [is] where 61 percent of the nation’s urban population, 80 percent of its permanent jobs, and 53 percent of its tourism are to be found.” With this massive internal migration social bonds are fraying and traditional mores are fading. “Moroccans…. commonly inquire as to one another’s asel, the place of one’s “origins,” that supplies both the sources of one’s knowledge and the conventions used to form attachments to others.” The book uses these four men as a lens to view different aspects of Moroccan culture that together form an intricately united web. Rosen seeks to hold dignity to the North African saying, “when an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.”
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