Secret Politics of the Sufi: the Sultan And

Home , Abdal, Ahmad Zarruq, Almoravid dynasty, Baqaa, Dhawq, Doukkala

THE SECRET POLITICS OF THE SUFI: THE SULTAN AND

THE SAINT IN MODERN MOROCCO

Abdelilah Bouasria

Submitted to the

Faculty of the School of Public Affairs

of American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

the Requirements for the Degree

of Doctor of Philosophy

Political Science

Chair:

Mark Sedgwick

Dean of the School of Public Affairs

Date

2010

American University

Washington D.C. 20016

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Abdelilah Bouasria

2010

To my parents whose unconditional love and financing made me believe that I could do

To my wife Paula whose greatness, sweetness and love are so huge that no word could fit,

To my sister Leila whose chit chats and debates came to my blurring confusions as a split,

To Sidi Hamza, my Sufi master, who taught me that dreams are a school of olives without a pit,

To Michel Foucault, the archeologist, who befriended me in times of despair witch such abnormal wit. THE SECRET POLITICS OF THE SUFI: THE SULTAN AND

THE SAINT IN MODERN MOROCCO

Abdelilah Bouasria

This dissertation studies the relationship between Sufism, the mystical branch of

Islam, and political activism in Morocco. Its goal is to see if the Sufi saint, in his relation with the sultan, is apolitical, acquiescent, rebellious, or expert in retracing the boundaries of political dissent. This dissertation compared two Sufi Islamic movements in Morocco:

Al Adl Wal Ihsane (AWI) known for its disobedient political behavior towards the monarchy and its resentment of open political participation in general and the Boutchichi order, famous for its co-opted submissive attitude towards the Moroccan monarchy. The

Boutchichi order appears to be politically acquiescent when one looks at its deference towards the monarchy, a site known as public transcripts (appointments of its members to public positions, public marches, writings of the members, and public positions towards politics), and nonpolitical when one trusts its discourse to its disciples to avoid politics, assumed to be a dirty game. One needs to analyze the kryptopolitics of the Boutchichi order, its meta-hidden transcripts (rumors, dream narratives, silence, and songs), and mistrust its claim to political emptiness in order to conclude that the Sufi rituals are disguised daggers of silent insurgency.

ii Ill

Since the very politically prohibitive Boutchichi discourse needs to describe in detailed manner how politics corrupts the soul, it displays a political knowledge so big that it redefines it in its own occult and esoteric terms. Kryptopolitics goes beyond the informal

and hidden levels, since it argues that the height of political activism is achieved through

eloquent silence and lucid dreams. If the quantitative survey of 634 Sufi members randomly sampled reveals that AWI is the competitor of the Boutchichi order in the Sufi market, a six-year fieldwork participant observation approach unveils the great invisible

Boutchichi insurgency potential. Abdessalam Yassine, AWI's leader, is unveiled as the

avatar of Sidi Hamza, the head of the Boutchichi order, in the sphere of politics. The state

counteracts kryptopolitics not in its invisible realm but precisely by rendering its secret

too visible. PREFACE

The system of transcription and transliteration used in this dissertation has been chosen for its simplicity and accuracy to represent spoken Moroccan Arabic and Modern

Standard Arabic in readable form for an English speaking audience. The symbols used for vowels and consonants are an adaptation of the IJMES transliteration system with some variants. It goes as follows:

Transliterated English Arabic Th J Dh

5 glottal stop b kh C D T G K

H c

R J Z

IV t CJ

d J

z J t t gh t

f i_i

q J k S 1 J

m ? n u

h 0

w J

y c5 a 1

The long vowels were expressed by the letters a, i, and o for fatHa, kasra, and

Damma. When it is a long vowel, the letters are doubled (aa, ii, oo). When there is a

stress on a letter (chadda), I repeat that letter twice like hadd. Rather than use the

transliteration system for proper names, place names, and frequently translated Arabic

words, I have used their conventional spelling either in English or in French sources.

Sometimes a word is spelled in two ways because it was spelled that way in the original

Arabic name like Boutchichi and Boudchichi. However, I used Boutchichi in the entire

thesis except when it was a quote that I could not change. For the "ta" marbuta of

v femininity at the end of the word, I followed conventional of the words containing it like tariqa instead of tariqah, unless it is a quote. The definite article "al" was used for ease of visual recognition like al-kattani unless the name appears otherwise (Kettani) in quoted works. The challenge here was that many words and names were spelled in one way in

French sources, in another way in Spanish sources, and in a completely different way in

English sources. I spelled these names according to the context in which they occurred in my research like mawlay and moulay for "Sir." Being a Moroccan student in an

American university, I had to please the French, the Spanish, and the English people.

Whenever I used a word that was crossed, it meant the presence and absence of that word

simultaneously like with the word "politics" which means politics and non politics at the same time.

Pseudonyms are used for some individuals mentioned in connection to my

fieldwork to protect their privacy or fulfill their wishes. For other informants, only their

first names were kept, and I have used in few instances real names for public figures or informants that asked to be named. This book is neither an attempt to dump Sufis in an ocean of exoticism nor is it an appeal for a suspension of rational judgment. It is a

condemnation of the separation of "religion" and "politics" and a demonstration that

invisible Sufi practices are effective political instruments and not mere relics of the past.

VI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was conceived from an anthropological interest in contemporary

Moroccan society for Sufism. Three persons have been invaluable to me in course of writing this dissertation. For many years, my supervisor, Diane Singerman has guided my work with her advice and her supervision. I was then a Masters student when she fought for me so that I can get into the PhD program. Her mentoring is a debt that can never be paid back. Her push led me to rewrite my thesis in a creative way and come up with new concepts. Professor Abdulaziz Said had taught me how to remain positive in the face of adversity. His mentoring fed the Sufi flame inside me and showed me that an academic does not have to be at odds with Sufism. Mark Sedgwick has done an admiringly profound close reading of my thesis and had helped me- since our encounter in Montreal- craft the body of this thesis. I am indebted to all three of them.

From among the many other persons who have been of help, I wish to express my gratitude to Vincent Cornell, Mohamed Tozy, Mohamed Darif, Ahmed Taoufiq, Fatima

Ghoulaichi, Nadia Yassine, Abdullah Murshid, Kenneth Honerkamp, Alan Godlas, Taha

Abdurrahman, Jamal Tadlaoui, and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman. I would like to thank many professors who have impacted me at American University, McGill and Sussex and opened my eyes to the wonderful world of investigative scholarship. Dean William

vii VIII

Leogrande taught me about social movements and opened my appetite for research with his class on Cuba. Joe Soss enlightened me about the importance of qualitative research.

Nathan Dietz convinced me that econometric models are not a waste of time. Ruth Lane and Saul Newman taught me, in their own ways, that the 'first time' is not always the most romantic expression. Randolph Persaud allowed me to see how postmodernism and security studies could find a symbiosis. Eileen Findlay taught me how to delve into oral stories and historical narratives, and her course was one of the most memorable ones that

I took at American University. Joseph Greenberg taught me the value of Game theory at

McGill University and was the prototype of the charming extra-smart professor that one can have. Thomas Naylor taught me Underground economics and heightened my sensitivity for the invisible and the hidden while still an undergraduate student at McGill.

John MacLean, my cherished supervisor at Sussex University converted me from a staunch realist freshly coming out of economics to a postmodern being who hailed from poststructuralist hubs. His sentence "what people do does not explain what people do; what people do needs to be explained" took me a year to understand it. To all those professors, and others who chose to remain anonymous, I say: "Thank you for enlightening my journey to truth."

I would have liked to thank an institution or a university for a grant or a

scholarship but I guess that I have to proudly announce my virginity in this field. My five languages and several publications including two books did not seem to make me competitive enough for the juries that felt somehow discomforted by my foreign name. I am one of the few specimens who did not receive any merit or otherwise attributed IX

scholarship during my years at American University, but my solace is that I have made it without any debt. My acknowledgment will not be complete if it excluded those who filled my path with hurdles and obstacles out of their envious positioning. In their darkness, they have guided me into the intricate labyrinth of evil, a necessary component to 'make it' in the jungle of standing out. I am glad that Sufism had helped me stay calm and positive in moments of turbulence.

I am also indebted to Dean William Leogrande for having taught me how to analyze social movements and for nurturing the Cuban flame in me when I was a student in his class on Cuba. There are many other persons who have helped me overcome procrastination through their kind words such as my advisor Robert Briggs and professors such as Vincent Cornell and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman.

My wife Paula Villegas has supported me throughout this whole process, reading version after version and asking me questions that helped me refine my drafts. She went over the sordid details of Morocco's Sufis and the theories of comparative politics with which she was not familiar in order to make my work shine. Along with it, she had made my heart warm as I saw in her eyes silent words of encouragement when I was at the edge of losing hope. Paula was my muse and my editor. It is in this double capacity that I dedicate this work to her.

I can never give my parents their due thanks as they have worked very hard to

support me and they have sacrificed much of their monetary and moral comfort to see me X

become a doctor. After earning this 'distinction,' I can say that this work is the fruit of their help and devotion, and to them I dedicate this dissertation. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ii

PREFACE iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vii

LIST OF TABLES xi

LIST OF FIGURES xii

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION 1

2. THE MORROCAN SAINT AND HIS MASKS 36

3. FROM THE SAINTAN TO THE SATAN:

THE SAINT AND THE SULTAN IN PRE-MODERN MOROCCO 69

4. THE MOROCCAN SULTAN: ADLI OR BOUTCHICHI? 108

5. THE 'COMING OUT'OF A BOUTCHICHI SAINT:

SIDIHAMZA AND KRYPTOPOLITICS 164

6. ABDESSALAM YASSINE: A BOUTCHICHI AVATAR? 218

7. THE MOROCCAN ANTI-SAINT AND ITS MASKS

ANTI-SUFI DISCOURSE AND THEIR POLICY IMPLICATIONS 252

8. CONCLUSION 277

APPENDICES 295

REFERENCES 336

x xi

TABLE PAGE NUMBER

1: Total variance 113

2: Superfluous variables 115

3: Age distribution 118

4: Boutchichi age distribution 119

5: Adli age distribution 122

6: Religious practices correlation 125

7: Gender issues in AWI and the Boutchichi order 128

8: Satisfaction correlation 138

9: Political implication correlation 140

10: Protest correlation 140

11: Percentage of participation in protest events 141

12: Homosexuality correlation table 142

13: King vs. Sheikh 143

14: Comparison of the politics of the Boutchichi and AWI 251 xii

FIGURE PAGE NUMBER

1: Participation from outside Morocco 118

2: Boutchichi Gender Distribution 119

3: Boutchichi Popularity (in general) 120

4: Boutchichi Popularity according to Adlis 121

5: Adlis Gender Repartition 121

6: Adl Popularity (In general) 123

7: Adlis Popularity according to Boutchichis 123

8: Recruitment Behavior 136

9: Boutchichi and Democracy 139

10: King's Position 143

11: Previous organization of the Ministry of Religious Affairs 158

12: Restructuring the Ministry of Islamic Affairs 159

13: Jihad for Boutchichis 160

14: Jihad for Adlis 160 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

In the last decade, the Moroccan public scene has witnessed the emergence of

Islamic movements that are primarily of spiritual nature in that they invite people gently to reconnect with their inner self rather than their outward manifestations of religiosity.

This dissertation aims at describing the main actors of this new spirituality, Sufi orders, which have been and remain central actors in political change in Morocco today.

The two largest and most popular Sufi movements in Morocco are the Qadiri

Boutchichi Sufi order, led by sheikh Hamza, which is politically conformist towards the

Moroccan regime, and the movement of Justice and Charity or Al Adl wal Ihssane (AWI), headed by Abdessalam Yassine, an ex-member of the Boutchichi order, who left it due to its lack of political involvement and went on creating his own politically motivated movement showing clear anti-establishment tendencies. Both movements and their leaders adhere to a Sufi paradigm, but their political behaviors are different. This dissertation identifies the ways in which AWI and the Boutchichi order create the politics of obedience and protest in Morocco. I compare these two social movements in Morocco to see why Sufism in the Boutchichi order produced a submissive model while it produced a revolutionary model in AWI, with the hope of erasing the stereotype among some critics of Sufism that make Sufism the cultural foundation of docile submission to authoritarianism (Hammoudi 1997). 1 2

The Boutchichi brotherhood has historically enjoyed an amicable relationship with the Moroccan monarchy. It has grown to become the single most formally organized

Sufi movement in Morocco. The monarchy does not react to Yassine's group as amicably as it does with the Boutchichi movement. The latter does not openly support political activism. In fact, its recurrent discourse asks its members not to get involved in politics because it is 'dirty.' However, the current minister of Islamic affairs Ahmed Taoufiq is a member of the Boutchichi order, an appointment that proves that this Sufi order lends its elites to the political arm of the state. On the other hand, AWI and its members never participated in the official political sphere, and instead operate as a movement of opposition, criticizing the king and the political game.

In order to understand the relationship between Sufism and politics in Morocco one needs to analyze the political ways in which Sufi orders or lodges expresses themselves. The central questions that this dissertation tries to answer are: Is Sufism apolitical or does it practice alternative ways of political activism? Does Sufism produce docile or rebellious agents? What are the points of intersection between Sufi saints and kings in Moroccan pre-modern and modern politics? My dissertation discusses the link between Sufis in Morocco and the practice of Moroccan politics. A combination of changed religious policies on the part of the Moroccan monarchy and an adaptation to market politics by AWI and the Boutchichi order led to the revival of the political importance of Sufism in Morocco.

This project identifies the role of the Sufi saints in modern political life in

Morocco by looking at the role of AWI and the Boutchichi order after the country's 3

independence in 1956 to show that Sufism regained saliency in Moroccan politics due to an international change that raised the awareness of policy makers as to the role that

Sufism can play as a counterweight to radical Islam. Both the monarchy and the Sufi orders, in their mutual exploitation of each others, borrow from a historical Sufi repertoire that dates back to the pre-modern period. This is not a case of the survival of a pre-modern political Sufism, however, as its importance declined during the early part of the twentieth century, to recover only towards the end of that century.

Exploring the linkages between these two movements is justified by the fact that "the only true master that Abdessalam Yassine mentions as a direct influence is 'Abbas al-

Qadiri, sheikh of the Budshishiyya" (Zeghal 2008, 87). In fact, as Malika Zeghal argues,

"sheikh Abdessalam Yassine and his followers use a repertoire that blends messianism and mysticism with political resistance" (2008, 145). As Zakia Salime puts it, the "Sufi inspiration of al-adl w-al-ihsane makes up the main difference between this movement and the 'mainstream' political Islam, which remains suspicious of the Sufi tradition because of its alleged deviance from the pure teachings of the Quran and Sunna" (2005,

11).

Sufism in the Boutchichi order produced a submissive model while it produced a revolutionary model in AWI. However, upon deeper analysis, one finds out that the

Boutchichi order practices resistance at an informal level. The lack of formal politicization in this Sufi movement is not a sign of its political apathy. I argue that the

Boutchichi order maintains a public discourse of "staying away from politics" on the basis of keeping moral purity but the real goal is to reassure an always skeptic 4

monarchical monitor that the order means 'no harm' in its social activism. Using Sufi symbolism, I found that the Boutchichi order practices what I call kryptopolitics. The latter comes from the Greek word Kryptos which means "hidden" and refers to esoteric politics. Understanding the relation between politics and Sufism requires widening our understanding of the locus of politics to include the paranormal register. This register that I called kryptopolitics mixes the politics of time with that of eternity and blurs the line between earthly transcripts and godly ones. Kryptopolitics deconstructs the claim, held by Sufis as well, that Sufi orders are politically apathetic or bedfellows of the state. Because the occult and the paranormal are not considered by mainstream political scientists as political categories, one should not jump to the conclusion -encouraged by Sufis themselves- that Sufis are not engaged in politics. Kryptopolitics is too symbolic ant too occult to attract the attention of analysts schooled in the secular traditions of their own fields. My argument is relevant to places where Sufis are important and is not limited to Morocco, even if it applies primarily to the Moroccan case that I know more than other places.

Sufis are ignored by reigning typologies of politics, and even when the latter include a dimension of informal politics in which the Sufis engage they discount divine and paranormal

events as occurrences beyond the control of the state. The few works that have looked at the occult either did not link it to politics or simply portrayed it as site of hegemony rather than resistance. While informal politics corrected the realpolitik understanding of politics as related to state sanctioned institutions such as elections and political parties, it still recognizes citizens politically active if they engage in power struggles in the real world of visible collective action

and does not shed light on the occult as a locus of politics. It is true that "society manifests 5

political activity in different ways, depending on an ever-changing variety of factors, and political scientists need to be more aware and sensitive to the creative mechanism people use to further their aim" (Singerman 1995, 4).

Looking at the Boutchichi order from a cultural perspective allows us to understand its rhetoric of dissent in invisible occult realms, outside of the contours of classical political corridors. I argue that members of the Boutchichi order, contrary to what they claim, engage in political action either visibly through recruiting for the group, purchasing products (rosary, portraits of the saint), participating in Sufi ceremonies, publicly displaying symbols of the order in their houses such as hanging the portrait of the

Guru on their walls and displaying pictures of them with him, or invisibly by communicating with each other via dreams and other paranormal ways.

My main argument is that the Boutchichi Sufi order appears to be politically quiescent when one looks at the official, open and observed interaction between the Sufi order and the political monarchy, a site known as political public transcripts

(appointments of its members to public positions, public marches, writings of the members, and public positions towards politics), but when one analyzes the apparently nonpolitical offstage texts and subtexts of the Boutchichi order (dreams, coded songs and occult rituals), one finds that the order has potential for invisible political dissent or kryptopolitics. Dreams were used in my analysis as sites of resistance, as "hidden transcripts" that inform us about an inner dream-world "out there" that becomes a repertoire of contention by all dreamers who share the same dream language. Another purpose of the dreams is to prove the spiritual master's status through showing that he 6

maintains intimate relations with the prophets and dead saints as he is the center of most

dreams of his disciples. By telling and living their dreams, the followers participate in

constructing the guru's saintly status.

I also argue that the Moroccan monarchy does not stay idle in front of the

paranormal register of the Sufi orders. It defeats the purpose of kryptopolitics not by

fighting it in its own terrain but rather by injecting it with the antidote: visibility. Through

diluting the Boutchichi order in the logic of visible marketability, it pushes it to be

grounded in the reality of market capitalism that will ultimately destroy it precisely by

killing the invisibility that characterizes kryptopolitics. The anti-Boutchichi tactic that the

Moroccan state uses is operated through two mechanisms: privatization (Sufism becomes

an individual choice) and branding (Sufism becomes a logo). In the Boutchichi order

privatization is manifest in shifting the order's frame to people's private lives (spiritual

development, family matters, moral education). Branding can be seen in the order's

selling of the saint's relics and artifacts. Does kryptopolitics represent the essence of

entrepreneurial market-oriented capitalism or is it a return to traditional and pre-modern forms

of religiosity?

This dissertation explores the impact of Sufism on Moroccan politics, and it does

so through extensive open-ended interviews, participant observation, and by reliance on

both primary data from archives and unpublished manuscripts, as well as through a

quantitative survey of members of both movements. The famous sociologist of religion,

Peter Berger, told me in a Boston University seminar about religion and US foreign policy in

which I participated on June 2009, a true story pinpointing the importance of being an insider 7

for researchers. Nina Khrushev, a Russian economist and a daughter of a famous Soviet leader, told a group of American economists who kept suggesting, in a meeting with her, viable economic models for Russia the following sarcastic words: "there is something Russian about Russia." I say to my fellow foreign scholars of Sufism that there is something

Moroccan about Morocco. I might also inform them that there is something Sufi about

Sufism.

Definitions of Sufism

Sufism has been defined as a vehicle for the spread of Islam (Trimingham 1971), an ascetic piety (Lings 1994), an organizational basis of resistance against colonialism

(Evans-Pritchard 1949), a means of psychiatric treatment (Crapanzano 1973), and a force of reform (Gilsenan 1973). The organizational structures that follow Sufism are called tariqa; meaning 'way', 'order' or 'path', and the sites where the Sufi gatherings take place are known as zawiya.

The prime goal of Sufism, the mystical and esoteric branch of Islam, is the spiritual development of Muslims and their internal religious nourishment. A Sufi can be anybody who is willing to purify his/her soul, under the guidance of a teacher known as master, guru, sheikh or Pir. Practitioners of Sufism are known as Sufis, though some senior practitioners reserve this term for those who have already attained the goals of the tradition, preferring thus to call themselves mutasawwifs (Sufis in the making).

In order to answer the question "What is Sufism?" one can Google the word, describe Sufi practices, interview Sufis and anti-Sufis, experts, read about Sufism, or join a Sufi group and let the experience generate the answer. During my dissertation research 8

I have followed all these paths. I submitted the concept (Sufism) to the gaze of Google, without putting much weight on the fact that academia might discredit it as a non- academic, non-credible source of information. I read many works of Sufi writers talking to those who claim to be Sufis as well as the ones who attack them about how they defined the Sufi practice. My dissertation refers to these interviews throughout, referencing and quoting many of the people I interviewed but at other times just describing the practices that the interviewees analyzed without directly quoting them. I have also talked extensively to religious scholars, who have given me an expert opinion, viewing from afar a religious experience that claims impenetrability to all those who have not 'tasted' the experience. I have myself been, and still am a Sufi disciple, although my spiritual affiliation has been weakened by too much mental contortion and academic skepticism.

The saint

The sheikh gets generally his knowledge from a living master, who in turn took his knowledge from another master in an unbroken chain of initiation involving masters reaching as far back as Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. This chain, known as silsila, is essential in legitimizing the master's teaching in most Sufi orders. This master is generally considered a saint, a friend of God, or a wali, reputed for having paranormal powers and charisma summed up in what is called Baraka, translated as divine blessing.

The saint can be a religious scholar or an illiterate pious person. S/He has the ability to produce supernatural miracles {karamai) such as reading people's minds, having premonitory dreams, and curing the sick by touching them or praying for them. 9

For each gathering or group in a town or a city, the saint picks a delegate

(muqaddam) to represent him. The representatives are selected based on qualities such as sincerity, knowledge of the rituals of the order, ability to create harmony in the group, but also based on seniority in the order. It is often a tradition to pick people from the saint's family as delegates, a position that is voluntary and unpaid, but bestows upon its bearer symbolic prestige and proximity to the saint in the sense that his/her voice becomes authoritative. Saints come from all social classes and all regions of the country and some of them live in caves or remote forests, isolated from people, but most of them are normal members in society who live and work in urban settings, a diversity that should make

Sufism immune to being reduced to a tribal or economic reaction to modernity.

The sheikh is a spiritual father for the disciples of the spiritual order who love him and venerate him. This love is manifest in obedience and imitation of the master. "While most Sufis will kiss the hand of their sheikh, some will also kiss his feet; some will not turn their backs until they have left his presence, walking backwards as if from a medieval king" (Sedgwick 2000, 33). The parallel between the king and the saint regarding the rituals of both the zawiya, abode of the tariqa, and the medieval court is striking: "twenty to a hundred or more men sitting around waiting for the sheikh to appear, filling their time with stories of what he has just said or done, or with rumors of what he might be about to do. The sheikh appears, and everyone rises" (Sedgwick 2000,

34). 10

The zawiya: the place of the saint

The lodge in which saints choose to live is a building named lodge, zawiya

(Arabic), Tekke (Turkish) or Khanaqah (FarsiJ. Etymologically, zawiya means 'corner', already alluding to the 'marginal' (in the sense of being physically in the margin) nature of these institutions, meaning that most Sufi lodges were originally located in physically remote areas. Mohamed Kably, a contemporary Moroccan historian, defines the Sufi brotherhood as a complex institution with three levels of organizations: first, the dogmatic level or tariqa, referring to the set of rituals set by the master for the disciples to perform; second, the organizational level or taifa, referring to the set of relationships between the master and the disciples and among the disciples themselves; and third, the pragmatic field or zawiya, referring to the materialization in time and space of the first

and second levels of organization (1986, 307).

Sufi orders are brotherhoods overseeing the progression of the disciple under the wing of the head of the order, known as master or sheikh. Sufi orders started in the tenth

century and played a major role in the expansion of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa as well

as central and southern Asia because they often did not use violence to invite the

indigenous people to convert to Islam but used rather the method of emulation, which meant that they 'bewitched' the indigenous with their fine moral character and became thus a model to be followed. Most often, Sufi orders are named after their founders.

Among the existing orders one finds the Qadiriyya (Iraq, Africa), the Naqshbandiyya

(Central Asia), the Nimatullahiyya (Iran), the Rifaiyya (Egypt and Mesopotamia), the 11

Shadhiliyya (North Africa, Arabia), and the Tijaniyya (Northern and Western Africa).

Sufi orders developed from home-based centers of teaching to a more institutional form:

Prior to the existence of the tariqah, the shaykh would sit and instruct his followers in any available corner: his home, a garden, a courtyard, a mosque or a cave. When the tariqahs became more institutionalized they moved into a purpose-built meeting-house known as a zawiyah (literally 'corner'), khanaqah in Persian and tekke in Turkish. Whereas the purpose of the zawiyah was instruction in the path (the esoteric aspect of Islam), the Law (the exoteric aspect) was taught in religious schools known as madrasahs. (Baldock 2004, 68-69)

Like any other movement, orders will merge and secede from each other following the combination of an array of factors: spiritual, political, economic, tribal or geographical. This dynamic nature of mystical brotherhoods is expressed eloquently by the Sufi master al-Arabi Darqawi (d.1823) in a letter written to his disciples:

In these days, no one is able to say to the multitude of believers: 'reduce your worldly activities and increase your religious activities; God will replace you (in your business) as He has done for others.' Today nobody will listen to you-and God knows best-unless you say: 'cultivate (your fields), earn, trade and so forth. But if you say: 'leave it, abstain (from the world) and be content,' there are very few, even among the elect who will listen to you-the others even less. (Darqawi 1998,31-32)

The founder of the Qadiri order, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d.l 165), pronounced also

Djilani or Kilani was originally from Iran but lived in Bagdad during the Abbasid rule.

The fact that even Ibn Taymiyya, one of the staunchest adversaries of Sufism, held him in high esteem proves that the Qadiri order did not engage in practices contrary to the way of life of the Prophet Muhammad, and that it followed orthodox or sober Sufism (a type of Sufism that does not engage in activities or sayings that are contrary to Islamic law as 12

opposed to 'drunk' Sufism). In fact, Djilani condemned some practices that are today the currency of Sufi movements such as samaa (Sufi chanting and music) and raqs

(dancing). When Djilani died, he left a school to be administered by his son. Soon, the school was transformed into a Sufi lodge, and his ideas were spread all over the Middle

East. The Qadiri order was introduced in Morocco by two of the children of Djilani from

Spain to the city of Fes. Many Qadiri orders in Morocco did not respect the original teachings of the founder of the order regarding Sufi chanting and dancing, and they even dropped the Qadiri name for another name. An example of this change is the Qadiri

Boutchichi order that became only the Boutchichi order, dropping thus its first name that pointed to its Qadiri affiliation. According to H.A.R. Gibb, "The Qadiri order is, on the whole, amongst the most tolerant and progressive orders, not far removed from orthodoxy, distinguished by philanthropy, piety and humility and averse to fanaticism, whether religious or political" (Zakaria 1988, 105). The Boutchichi order (also spelled in the literature as Boudchichi, Bushishi or Butshishi order), an offshoot of the Qadiri order, is the most active Sufi order in Morocco.

The Sufi rituals

There are many Sufi rituals in which mystics engage. There is the individual litany (dhikr) that a disciple makes, and a collective one. There is also the service of a disciple performed in the physical site of a Sufi lodge. One finds also panegyric poems chanted in all the collective rituals of Sufi orders, where the prophet of Islam is praised.

Dreams are an important component of the Sufi tradition since they are believed to be the vehicle used by the spiritual master to convey messages and teachings to his disciples. I 13

explored fully this dimension in both chapters about the Boutchichi order and AWL The ziyara (visit) or almsgiving is another ritual that Sufis consider very important for the

seeker's spiritual development. In fact, each time that a disciple visits the spiritual master, he donates some amount of money that some spiritual orders specify while others leave open to the ability of the disciple. Finally, visiting the spiritual master is an important

component in a spiritual path since it reinforces the trustful bond between the disciple and the master, believed to be an emanation of the divine. Ellipsis is the mode of speech that

Sufis use amongst them to convey messages.

The Sufi relationship to God finds a rich expression in the symbols and metaphors

of the Sufi discourse. For instance, the metaphor of a drop in the ocean is used to describe

the journey of the human soul back to its source. Furthermore, the wine metaphor is used

to express altered states of consciousness such as spiritual ecstasy, while the spiritual

guide is called the "cup bearer" or "wine-seller." Famous stories of lover and beloved

such as Leila and Majnun or Joseph and the wife of al-Aziz (Zulaykha) describe the

divine essence in feminine terms, and define the closeness and intimacy with God as

love. Even biographies of saints become anecdotes full of wisdom, hence bridging the

methodological gap between theory and practice. Clearly it cannot be the goal of a Sufi

hagiographer to struggle for establishing the veracity of these stories. Rather, as John

Baldock argues, one needs to search for deeper truths:

The Sufis' experience is very different from that of most of us. Because of their self-abandonment to the Divine Unity they are no longer governed by their ego- centered will, and so they experience life from within a universal rather than a personal context. This is one reason why the personal anecdotes they tell, and the stories that are told about them, have such a universal appeal: they remind us- 14

consciously or unconsciously- of our own profound connection with a greater, transpersonal reality. (2004, 88)

The Sufi practice includes extended meditation known as remembrance or dhikr, which is a repetition of Allah's names using rosary beads, and madih or Samaa, musical chanting performed with or without musical instruments that leads to ecstatic dancing known as hadra, a trance. Participants generally gather in a circle standing and chanting liturgies and poems praising the prophet of Islam.

Plan of the dissertation

This dissertation is divided into eight chapters. The introduction (chapter one) defines the scope of my dissertation and explores the methodology of my research. I will also explain in it my ontology and lay out some important concepts used in the Sufi tradition.

The second chapter, "The Moroccan saint and his masks," will define the theoretical framework of my dissertation and show how it will be applied, implicitly at times, in subsequent chapters. I will first define what Sufism and mysticism mean and cite some famous historical figures of Sufism that my two movements compared here refer to. I will argue that Sufism is a form of esoteric politics that rests heavily on symbols that pertain to the occult, paranormal register. I base my work on James Scott's concept of "hidden transcripts" and I take it a step higher to what I call kryptopolitics, meta-hidden politics, or politics. 15

In order to understand the role of Sufism in Moroccan politics today, one needs to know how it started and changed throughout Moroccan history in order to craft a

'genealogy' of Sufi politics. Hence, a historical approach seems necessary to show how

Sufism has always been used by Moroccan sultans but its use varied from period to period and dynasty to dynasty. The third chapter, "From the saitan to the satan: The saint

and the sultan in pre-modern Morocco," studies the interaction of the state with Sufi

saints throughout Moroccan history until the advent of French colonialism in 1912, and

shows how this interaction is called upon as a repertoire of contention by current Sufi

orders. This chapter dispels the myth of the monolithic Sufi nonviolent docile mystic and

argues that even if it were presented as a peaceful way, Sufism had its instances of

violence especially when it inscribes itself in movements of resistance against colonizers.

The role that Sufis play in politics varies greatly over time. We need to understand the history of Sufi politics in order to construct a comprehensive analysis of modern Sufi political participation. The central question of this chapter was: when does the saint become a rebel against the sultan, and when does he become his ally?

The historical archiving of the relationship between the saint and the sultan is necessary to understand the political genealogy of Moroccan sainthood today, by tracing

a set of discourses, in which saints emerge as either allies or enemies of the state. My research aims to find an answer to such a question as to how Morocco's historical

cyclically manifests itself in the sultan/saint opposition. The time frame covered by this

chapter starts with the Almoravid dynasty and stops at colonialism, since the monarchy in

Morocco, with its modern overtones, started with Mohamed V who changed, in 1965, the title of sultan to that of malik (king). I will argue in this chapter that Sufis have 16

sometimes helped the Moroccan monarchs, and at others rebelled against them. This chapter will set the taxonomy of these instances of cooperation and conflict in order to understand the case of the Boutchichi order and that of AWI, both of whom borrow from this vast historical reservoir.

The fourth chapter, "The Moroccan sultan: Adli or Boutchichi?" looks at the role of the Moroccan monarchy in its relationship with Sufism by specifying how each of the three Moroccan kings in the period from 1956-2009 (Mohamed V, Hassan II, and

Mohamed VI) incorporated Sufism in Morocco's politics, using Sufi tactics in his political frames. Sufism was marginalized in the era of Mohammed V but it was used

softly by Hassan II and overtly by Mohammed VI. This chapter is based on a quantitative

survey of 634 members of both AWI and the Boutchichi order randomly sampled. The

results of this survey are discussed in this fourth chapter.

In Morocco, religion is the king's principal basis of political legitimacy, since the

monarchy is "the key institution in the Moroccan religious system" (Leveau 1981, 271-

280). Hence, one cannot ignore the role of the Moroccan monarch as a link between

religion and politics. In general, the king followed two major policies in dealing with

Islamists in Morocco: cooperation or confrontation. This study attempted to figure out

whether contemporary Morocco is on a confrontational or cooperative course as far as

religious policy is concerned. Is Sufism on the rise in the political agenda of Morocco's

rulers? And if so, what are the reasons behind its popularity? The different reaction of the

monarchy towards the two largest Sufi movements - repression of Yassine's movement

and implicit encouragement of the Boutchichi order -sets these two groups apart in their 17

political practice. We see, then, that a combination of changed policies on the part of the makhzan (Appendix A) and an adaption to market politics by the two movements examined has resulted in a revival of the political importance of Moroccan Sufism though at some cost to older established conceptions of the sirr. Although at first sight one movement supports the makhzan and the other one opposes it, we find that what might seem as docile submission is in fact a resistance at the level of the hidden transcript.

The fifth chapter, "The coming out of a Boutchichi saint" will give an historical and theoretical overview of the Boutchichi Qadiri order, located in Oujda, a city in the

North East of Morocco. I happen to belong to this particular order, and my own personal experience forms much of the background to this dissertation. In this chapter, I cite the conditions of the order's emergence and that of its leader Sidi Hamza, for the sake of linking the order's behavior in Moroccan politics to the personal life of its leaders since it is highly personalized. I will argue here that while the Boutchichi order is not very active in the classical visible political realm (elections, marches, and parliamentary politics), invisibility does not mean that the order is apolitical. The Boutchichi order has become lately very visible in the public space and at the same time engaged in what I call visible silence, where silence becomes a political act. Kryptopolitics is the term that I use to refer to this invisible politics below the informal and hidden levels.

The Boutchichi order is described in many writings as "the country's most important brotherhood." According to Mohamed Darif, the Moroccan expert on Islamic movements, this mystical order is a representative of an apolitical Sufi Islam, and "a de facto official brotherhood of the Moroccan monarchy." (Interview with the author, July 18

2006) The French expert on Moroccan affairs Ignace Dalle also thinks that "in the current moment, the Boutchichi order is without doubt the biggest Moroccan Sufi order." (2007,

146) In an interview that I had on January 13, 2007 with Ahmed, 24 years, a Boutchichi member from Casablanca, he told me that "our order is the biggest one in Morocco."

Is the Boutchichi order important in number or in visibility? Its disciples claim that there are one hundred thousand members of the group, while scholars find that number highly exaggerated, considering the absence of both real demographics of the movement and the fact that there have been no recent surveys that counted membership to Sufi orders since French colonialism. An example of such a survey is reported in detail by George Dragues (1951). There is an absence of real data and statistics with regards to the numbers and size of Sufi orders and their followers, an absence that I modestly compensate with this sociological survey that asked 634 members from both AWI and the Boutchichi order. However, my dissertation is qualitative in nature and claims that what the quantitative study reveals is shallow and captured better by a case study that digs deeper into the internal ontological tools of the Sufis in order to understand them.

The Boutchichi order is commonly seen as apolitical, a tag that does not make the leaders of the order unhappy. Sidi Mounir, the grandson of the current spiritual master of the Boutchichi order, clearly separates between the order and the political party (interview with the author, summer 2003). Karim Ben Driss, a Moroccan Boutchichi sociologist and a Boutchichi disciple wrote a dissertation in sociology arguing that his order is not politicized: 19

It is interesting to notice that the renewal of religious identity is not expressed through political demands. Faithful to its tradition, Sunni Sufism permeates its typical space: symbolism. This symbolic function gets its legitimacy paradoxically from its neutrality toward political power. (2002, 17, my translation)

The Boutchichi order is also seen as a new religious movement that reflects the expansion of the city. Sidi Hamza's group was described by Mohamed Tozy, in an interview with the author, August 2000, as the "only urban spiritual brotherhood in

Morocco." The famous Arab sociologist Ibn Khaldun, writer of the famous

Muqaddimah, is known for his theory of state formation. For him, tribes face harsh conditions in the arid desert and hence develop warrior qualities such as courage and endurance, which will allow them in turn to take over cities. At that moment, softened by the luxurious urban dwelling, the conquerors lose their collective solidarity. In this vein, one primary reason the Moroccan government supported the Boutchichi order was the fact that this order is mainly urban. Thus, it does not have the inherent potential of 'taking over' the city based on rural collective solidarity. One should not question here the link between Sufism and Ibn Khaldun's leadership theory as he was a Sufi himself. In fact, As

Lawrence Rosen argues, "five years before he wrote the Muqaddimah he wrote a book on

Sufism. The story is even told of him dancing on the rooftop when the Ouija board he was consulting gave the correct response to the question he posed" (2008, 127).

Sidi Mounir, Sidi Hamza's grandson was a guest in my house in Rabat. He deconstructed in front of me the theory of the support of the state for the Boutchichi order. In response to those who continually accuse the saint Sidi Hamza of maintaining privileged relations with the palace, Sidi Mounir told me that his grandfather receives 20

certain royalties of the regime as a Moroccan citizen and not as a special treatment of the head of a Sufi order: "his Majesty the king took care of the health of various personalities

of the artistic or sporting world. Isn't the sheikh, on the same basis, a Moroccan citizen?

There is no financial support, except a royal donation of 50.000 DH destined to the order

every year like the other orders. Do not forget that the family was a huge land owner

(1600 hectares) which were taken away at the time of the French protectorate and who

never were entirely restored, and many projects of the extension of the order are currently

suspended."

The Boutchichi Sufi order appears to be politically quiescent when one looks at

the official, open and observed interaction between the Sufi order and the political

monarchy, a site known as public transcripts (appointments of its members to public

positions, public marches, writings of the members, and public positions towards

politics), but when one analyzes the apparently nonpolitical offstage texts and subtexts of

the Boutchichi order, known as hidden transcripts (rumors, dreams, festivals, tales, songs

and jokes), one finds that the order has potential for political dissent. Once the hidden

ways of insubordination are unveiled, the Boutchichi order starts revealing its disguised

political symbols. The often defined apolitical conduct of the Boutchichi order is in fact a

political tactic turning our gaze into the Sufi religious rituals of the movement, the

Boutchichi order appears to be either nonpolitical or sides with the state, but in fact it

continually inscribes its resistance in a "hidden transcript" that can only be decoded

following Sufi symbolism. The Boutchichi order, then, is potentially a less reliable ally of 21

the makhzan than the makhzan thinks, because its dissidence is inscribed in a hidden register of paranormal acts and discourses.

The Sixth chapter "Abdessalam Yassine: A Boutchichi Avatar?" will study the

Justice and Charity movement (AWI), an offshoot of the Boutchichi order, and will analyze the actions and writings of its sheikh Abdessalam Yassine. Sociologists of religion have found that peoples' religious motivations can be traced back to their biographies (Christiano et al 2002, 46) as well as to the social, cultural and ethnic embeddings of the religious institutions (Ellison and Sherkat 1995, 100). I will discuss

Yassine's relation with the Boutchichi order and the reasons for his separation from that order in order to create his own movement due to what he considered the lack of politicization in the order. I argue that Yassine did not fully comprehend the concept of kryptopolitics and ended up relying more on visible resistance. This statement does not contradict the one I make in chapter six about Yassine being the avatar of Sidi Hamza, because Yassine is not aware of being the avatar. I also argue that contrary to what is said, AWI should not be seen as the competitor of the Boutchichi order but rather as an extension of the Boutchichi order in the paranormal register. Abdessalam Yassine becomes Sidi Hamza's avatar in a world of political hyper-real events. If AWI practices politics, the Boutchichi order engages in politics.

AWI defines itself as the opposition to the government but does not participate in elections, thus maintaining itself as the true voice of opposition, in contrast to movements like the PJD that have, by agreeing to participate in existing political structures, compromised their positions in the eyes of many. Yassine's Islamic movement functions 22

as a Sufi brotherhood with a hierarchical structure and uses increasingly mystical rituals

(dhikr, dreams and trance). Dreams are sites of resistance, as "hidden transcripts" that inform us about both agency of the dreamers and the structure of the dream-world. The difference between the Boutchichi dreams and AWI's ones is that the latter are taken out from their original invisible occult realm to that of visible politics.

Chapter seven "The Moroccan anti-saint and his masks" analyzed the types of anti-Sufi discourses and the three types of Salafi reasoning in Morocco (Wahabi, Nahda, and nationalism) in order to see what type of rationale does the state use in order to mitigate the influence of Sufi orders. This chapter is not limited to Morocco but draws on three other cases (Algeria, Egypt, and Iraq) in order to establish the claim that Sufism is not a monolithic reality. I also presented in this chapter the major view of US foreign policy circles regarding the promotion of Sufism to contain radical Islam.

After the conclusion that cited the limitations of my study, I devoted a glossary at the end of the dissertation to clarifying some major Sufi concepts although I defined the most important ones in my text. The concepts that I use in this dissertation to describe

Sufi realities belong sometimes to the terminological field of other faiths such as

Christianity, Judaism or New Age spirituality. Hence, the use of the word "mantra" or

"guru" to describe Sufi meditation (wird) or saint (sheikh) will be frowned upon by scholars whose methodology is to clearly draw boundaries between faiths. In a similar vein, Michel Chodkiewicz, a notorious French scholar of Sufism, criticizes the "abusive

Christianization" of Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), the mystic, by the Spanish orientalist Asin

Palacios and that of Hallaj by Louis Massignon (Palacios 1995, 13). The reason for which 23

these scholars refrain from using interchangeably Christian vocabulary to describe Sufi practices is their refusal to see a minimum parallel between Sufism and Christian mysticism. It is for this reason that Julian Baldick prefers to use the concept of "friends of

God" rather than saints (Baldick 1989, 8).

I do not adhere to this methodological apartheid for I consider Sufism a parallel to other mystical paths, and I do not see any major differences between a figure like Padre

Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968), the Italian saint known for the stigmata on his body, and that of Ahmed Tijani (1735-1815), the Algerian saint who founded the Tijani order. Thus, in this work, I use at times the word guru to refer to the spiritual master of a Sufi order or a saint. I also use mantra to describe wird. It is true that the majority of members of the groups that I studied here do not use such terms, but the educated ones- especially those that were exposed to Yoga before their conversion to Sufism- do not see a problem with interfaith terminology. Hence, my interfaith terminology is grounded in the Sufi practices that I studied.

Ontology

The reader of this dissertation will experience two main feelings that will make him rejoice at the discovery, in my manuscript, of arguments not pushed to their end and scribbled instances of 'unfinished business' when in fact these arguments are no more than legitimate manifestations of an ontology rooted in the Sufi philosophy of emptiness.

Let me first lay out for you what these two feelings are before showing that they are 24

grounded in the Sufi knowledge claim that kills agency while- the oxymoron not withstanding- preserving it.

The first feeling that many of my family members who read my dissertation experienced was to notice in it a striking absence of agency and a predominant presence of structure. While I do not agree with the fact that I fully negate agency in my work, I do concede to my readers my bias for structure. This bias is dictated fully by my Sufi theoretical framework as well as my long Boutchichi experience, both known for their

erasure of agency to the extent that Sufis are reputed to say that the disciple is in front of his/her Sufi master like a dead body in front of his washer. The Sufi disciple who had

spent a long time in the path becomes disciplined into attributing every major or minor

event in his life, be it positive or negative, to the will of the Sufi Master. Thus, the lack of

agency in my thesis is an ontic choice sparked by the faithfulness to the Sufi station of

annihilation (Fana'), which is the highest spiritual station where the individuality of the

disciple is completely washed off to leave room for the transcendental presence of the

divine. Extinction of the disciples does not mean that their consciousness is erased but it points to the fact that their consciousness of themselves (self-consciousness) ends only to hold God (Smith 2001, 83). The famous Sufi poet Mansur Hallaj (d.922) expressed

clearly the feeling of selflessness required by the Sufi path in the following poem quoted by A. Jamal (2009, 19):

Kill me, O my trusted friends, For in my death is my life. To destroy all trace of my existence Is the highest goal of my life. 25

And to dwell in my ego Is an unrepented sin! My Self has wrecked my life And left me broken in desolation. So kill me, friends, and burn My wretched bones.

I do not offer a theory of agency, but I rather stress the fact that the agency of Sufi disciples has to be studied using the concepts within which it resides: the realm of the saint. I do not argue that the disciples' activities are purely the result of their will, but they are rather the product of authoritative discursive traditions the power of which exceeds their consciousness. Agency is highly visible at the level of the spiritual Master.

As I recall from my friendship with Chakib, a Boutchichi disciple from Montreal, he used to describe his Sufi sheikh Sidi Hamza in the following words: "when he comes out of his room, everyone else shuts down (kayatfd)^ This metaphor shows that the agency of the disciples, symbolized by their light, is erased by the presence of their master. This ambiguous agency in the Sufi ontology is best understood through the following case.

Let us take the example of a sentence uttered by me and also by a Sufi saint to illustrate how ambiguity balances out agency and structure in my work. The same sentence acquires multiple meanings according to the conditions of its utterance and the identity of its uttering subject. The sentence at stake here is the following: "if we remove the king with whom will we replace him?" 26

This sentence, if uttered by me, a Moroccan average Joe, will mean that the monarchical system in Morocco is the best option that we have, and that it is the lesser of the two evils: monarchy vs. republic. The same sentence uttered by the Sufi saint, while

still holding the previous structural meaning, has a higher hermeneutical reach: the power

and ability of the saint to remove kings. The "we" in the uttered sentence becomes the master signifier when uttered by the Sufi Master. My utterance is structure-driven in the

sense that it concentrates its emphasis on the process of keeping the monarchy as opposed to getting rid of it (if we remove the king with whom will we replace him?). On the other hand, the second utterance is agency-driven because it highlights the paranormal powers

of the saint and his ability to be an agent of change and alter worldly events such as removing political figures (if we remove the king with whom will we replace him?).

Dreams, a famous Sufi ritual, are another example of ambiguous agency in Sufi

ontology. From an agency perspective, a dream seen by a disciple uncovers the latent hidden wishes and desires of the dreamer. Moreover, the interpretation of the dream

carries the subjectivity of this dreamer who is engaged in self-interpretation. From a

structure perspective, a dream gives us access to an inner dream-world "out there" that becomes a repertoire of symbols accessed by all dreamers who share the same dream

language and can thus attribute meanings to their nightly images.

The second feeling that my reader will experience is that I seem at times like

stopping my reasoning short of reaching its epistemological end, an operation that I call

Interpretative abortion. What might be criticized as a premature and impatient conclusion

on my behalf is in fact grounded in the Sufi knowledge system that makes utterances, be 27

they oral or written (Maqaal), the product of a state of being (Haal), an experience lived by the uttering subject at the moment of his speech act. Thus, if I stop short of taking an

argument to its end, it is not due to my ontological cowardice or my methodological

censorship but it is due to a sincere expression of the nature my experience at the moment

of writing or speaking. For example, if I make an argument about the fact that the saint

will ultimately replace the sultan in the symbolic realm through eroding his legitimacy,

but my argument stops short of saying whether this replacement is a positive or a

negative thing for Morocco, I am not delivering an unfinished argument or an incomplete

idea garbed in a censored conclusion. On the contrary, I am merely expressing an internal

state felt at the moment of writing this argument: I knew that Sufism was eroding the

religious legitimacy of the king, but I did not know whether this takeover by the saint

would have brought prosperity to Morocco or, on the contrary, it would have laid a curse

on it by sending it back to medieval dark ages. Not knowing whether Morocco is better

off with or without a monarch can be due to my spiritual immaturity but it can also be

grounded in the Sufi judgment of all things as equal. In fact, Fariduddin Attar (1145-

1221), the Sufi Persian poet, describes the effects of mystical passion in the following

words quoted by A. Jamal (2009, 81):

In Love young and old are the same. In Love loss and gain are the same. In Love the worlds are the same. In Love autumn and spring are the same. 28

I only hope that Morocco will prosper no matter who leads it. This view of

'empty neutrality' that I hold manifests as the seemingly unfinished and impatient

argument made about the replacement of the sultan by the saint, but I prefer to hold on to my sincere zero prescription mode than to be forced into politely answering an academic

call for a therapeutic solution. This zero prescription mode is grounded in Sufi poetry as

one can see from the following verses of the Iranian mystic Sadi Shirazi (1207-73)

quoted by A. Jamal:

In Love there are no days or nights, For Lovers it is all the same. The musicians have gone, yet the Sufis listen; In Love there is a beginning but no end. Each has a name for his Beloved, But for me my Beloved is nameless. (2009 164)

Methodology

The main components of my methodology are based on Grotty's research model

(1998). I will ask three main questions: What knowledge claim do I make? What

strategies of inquiry will inform my research procedures? What methods of data

collection and analysis will be used in my dissertation? 29

Knowledge claims: social constructivism

The main idea of social constructivism is that knowledge is a social construct.

Social constructivism originated with Berger and Luckmann's The Social Construction of

Reality (1967) and Lincoln and Guba's Naturalistic Inquiry (1985). These works argue that individuals develop multiple subjective and varied meanings of their experiences.

The goal of my research is to rely on the participants' views of the situation analyzed.

Meanings are created by interaction with others, and by the cultural and historical norms

operating in the participants' lives. My research process is inductive, which means that I

developed my theory of meaning from the data that I collected in my fieldwork rather than starting with a theory and searching for data to support it.

Strategies of inquiry: mixed methods

My research combines mainly qualitative methods such as participant observation

and qualitative interviews with a quantitative survey. The belief that any one method

could neutralize the biases of other methods led me to develop a sequential procedure,

since I began my work with a qualitative approach (comparative case study of AWI and the Boutchichi order based on participant observation) followed by a survey utilizing a

larger sample of 634 members.

This dissertation is qualitative, inductive, and critical in approach. First, as

Thomas Lindlof and Bryan Taylor argue, qualitative research is "known for being primarily

inductive, emergent, and—well, somewhat unruly. Very little is linear about it. Very little

of it can be controlled in the strict sense" (Lindlof and Taylor 2002, 66). Second, 30

regarding the inductive nature of my dissertation, I believe to be engaging in a grounded approach with one caveat: I do not subscribe to the idea that a pure grounded approach is possible, because any critic has assumptions that influence the frame of reference when exploring texts (Glaser and Strauss 1967, italics in original). As Philip Wander and

Steven Jenkins point out, the result of not including one's personal involvement with the text results in criticism that is "quietly engaged with the socially insignificant" (1972

444).

The issue of politicization of Sufism in Morocco needed to be studied because it had not been examined in areas other than history, anthropology or sociology. There are only few works that touch on the issue of political Sufism in Morocco such as Master and

Disciple by Abdullah Hammoudi did not look at modern Sufi orders in Morocco and restricted their research to archival readings of one pre-modern Sufi order (1997). My dissertation, on the other hand, looks at both pre-modern and modern Morocco and does so through a comparison of two of the biggest Sufi orders in the country today rather than a reliance on one historical document. In this regard, JM Morse says the following:

Characteristics of a qualitative research problem are: (a) the concept is 'immature' due to a conspicuous lack of theory and previous research; (b) a notion that the available theory may be inaccurate, inappropriate, incorrect, or biased; (c) a need exists to explore and describe the phenomena and to develop theory; or (d) the nature of the phenomenon may not be suited to quantitative measures. (1991, 120)

In her prominent book, Paradigms and Sand Castles, Barbara Geddes provides an adpopulum justification of using case studies in politics by arguing the following:

In a review of the contents of the main comparative journals, Adrian Hull (1999) finds that 53.8 per cent of articles published between 1983 and 1997 focus on 31

single countries and another 15.7 percent on two to three countries. Case studies remain the primary way that arguments are suggested and evidence collected in the subfield. (2003, 133)

After pointing to the problem of having more hypotheses than cases, Geddes offers the solution of increasing the number of observations within the cases studied. This number can be increased, Geddes argues, by "looking at states or regions within a country, decisions within an agency, time periods within almost anything, individuals within an organization" (2003 137).

My dissertation uses the explanatory comparative case study method of two Sufi movements. The target of analysis is the Sufi order or zawiya, in its internal understanding and practice of the concept of power. The comparative method, a most dissimilar systems design, would compare two social movements who are representative of two dissimilar extremes, cooperation with the government and overt resistance. I am comparing two Sufi movements which both have a Sufi structure, but which differ in other regards: one is politically conformist towards the Moroccan regime (the Boutchichi order) while the other movement (AWI) shows rebellious tendencies.

Methods of data collection

The dominant research method used in my dissertation is the participant observation (P.O.) method that is "exceptional for studying processes, relationships among people and events, the organizations of people and events, continuities over time, and patterns, as well as the immediate socio-cultural contexts in which human existence unfolds" (Jorgensen 1989, 12). As a member of a mystical brotherhood, I used participant 32

observation to understand the process of Sufi obedience in Morocco even before the idea of this project blossomed in my head. I have been a disciple of the Boutchichi order for more than fourteen years, and after I chose this topic for my dissertation, I paid more attention to details that had become ingrained in my routine. The advantages of this type of data collection are many. First, as a participant observer of the Boutchichi order I had first-hand experience with other participants. Second, I was able to witness and observe unusual aspects and territories that are closed to outsiders. Third, I could record information about the Boutchichi order as it was revealed. However, this way of gathering data did not come without limitations. Sometimes I felt that I was either intrusive or that I was betraying my group by giving out "classified" information. While I cite some of my informants, I mainly keep the others anonymous out of respect for their privacy and also not to jeopardize or embarrass those who opened their hearts, before their houses, to me.

I have also observed for a year members of Yassine's group, the other Sufi order that is the subject of my dissertation, openly admitting that I was a member of the group they happen to view as a competitor. In other words, with AWI, I used complete observation (observing without participating). Participant observation and interviewing are especially effective for exploring everyday practices within social movements, not simply the literature and theories of Sufism. John Pezzullo notes the following about using participant observation as a critical tool: 33

It helps critics to consider the rhetorical force of counter publics and of cultural performances, and to consider that the ways in which we interact with and engage specific publics can influence our judgments. It reminds us that publics are not phenomena that exist 'out there,' involving other people and affecting bodies other than our own. (2003, 361)

The complexity of the Sufi institution made my task harder, given the limited

nature of the research tools that I had, and I often saw myself swinging from one level of

the Sufi brotherhood to the other. In this context, participant observation proved to be more than a helpful approach. I grounded my analysis in localized texts, local participation,

observation of the Boutchichi order's rituals, and interviewing its members and leaders. As

certain patterns emerged, I cataloged them in a 'notes section' at the end of each entry of

my field notes. After reaching saturation point in the field, I read through these field

notes, looking for salient topics that repeated themselves in the data. I analyzed my data

inductively, and at each step I asked myself what was going on in the discourse in an effort

to develop topical codes. I then read through the topical codes and looked for emergent

patterns within each code. In addition to participant observation, I used in-depth

interviews with representative members and leaders of the two movements like Nadia

Yassine, sheikh Hamza and Omar Aharshane (Appendix E) to name just a few. I also

included life histories of leaders and members, content analysis of written texts and the

way in which they are used in the rituals of the two movements.

I also conducted interviews with members of the two groups by phone, e-mail and

in person. However, the data collected thus may have its limitations, considering that my

presence may have biased some responses. Moreover, the data was not gathered in a

formal setting. I have also consulted public and private documents (newspapers, letters, 34

and e-mail discussions) as well as videos and pictures. A quantitative survey is discussed in details in chapter four and its main questionnaire inserted in Appendix B. My designs are valid and reliable. While in the process of evaluating these surveys, I always asked myself if they were measuring what I intended to measure, and whether the same measurement protocol yielded similar results.

Reliability requires stability and consistency, and I achieved both by different methods. First, I asked the same question many times in my pre-tests and always received the same answer. Second, I used multiple items to measure a single concept, and these measures were associated with one another. Finally, I emailed experts and professors studying mystical movements to see if they would have used the same measures to address the issue at hand. The majority of the experts asked came up with the assessment tools that I used to look at the interaction between Sufism and politics.

Validity satisfies four criteria: face validity, content validity, criterion-related validity, and construct validity (Boix and Stokes 2007, 137). The first criterion, face validity, is an assessment of whether a variable appears to measure the concept it is intended to measure. For example, group belonging is an indicator of Sufism, and the degree of involvement was addressed in my survey by years of membership, making sure that mere membership would not be read as data of actual spiritual involvement. The second criterion, content validity, refers to the extent to which a measure adequately represents all facets of a concept. Among the series of questions that serve as indicators of politicization I used all that Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, expert and citizen interviews as well as previous studies used (talking about political issues, political change, political 35

participation, belief in democracy). The third criterion, criterion-related validity, applies to those useful instruments that have been developed as indicators of a specific trait or behavior such as an individual's political knowledge as a correlate with politicization.

Finally, construct validity in my research came from the relationship that previous research established between politicization and mysticism in other religions that I tried to transpose to Sufism. CHAPTER TWO

THE MOROCCAN SAINT AND HIS MASKS

Conceptual clarifications

Sufism and mysticism

Sufism designates the inner, experiential aspects of Islam known as Islamic mysticism. Since Sufism is known as the esoteric or the mystical path of Islam, a definition of mysticism becomes an important way to understand Islamic mysticism by looking up the definition of 'mysticism' in the dictionary, we get three "hits." First, mysticism is defined as the doctrine or belief that direct knowledge of God is attainable through immediate insight rather than logical reasons. Second, mysticism is described as any type of theory asserting the possibility of attaining knowledge through faith. The third definition equals mysticism with vague speculation. All three definitions share the idea that experience should be favored over theoretical insight in the experience of looking for God. As for mystical experience, the American philosopher William James wrote the following passage in his classic book, The Varieties of Religious Experience

(1898):

Our normal waking consciousness [...] is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens; there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different. We may go through life without suspecting their existence; but apply the requisite stimulus, and at a touch they are all there in all their completeness, definite types of mentality which probably

36 37

somewhere have their field of application and adaptation. No account of the universe in its totality can be final which leaves these other forms of consciousness quite disregarded. How to regard them is the question, for they are so discontinuous with ordinary consciousness. Yet they may determine attitudes though they cannot furnish formulas, and open a region though they fail to give a map. At any rate, they forbid a premature closing of our accounts with reality. (James 1898, 378-379)

Most scholars of mysticism agree that the full-blown mystical experience is the

same across the world, throughout history and in all cultures and religions (Smith 2001).

Mysticism, according to Jack David Eller is defined as a contact between people and the

paranormal:

The person may see a vision, hear a voice, feel the pressure of the sacred, or sense a unity between him / herself and divinity or the universe. Commonly, the mystic describes the experience as a loss of self, as a collapse of the boundary of individuality and an 'oceanic feeling in which he or she is one with the cosmos.' (2007, 121)

There are two distinct groups of mystics depending on how they interpret mystical

states. One group attributes the source of their mystical experience to God, the other to

the self. Hence, two spiritual orientations derive from the mystical experience: the theistic

and the non-theistic. The former considers God to be the source distinct from the self,

while the latter posits the self as source. A non-theistic theology involves a concept of

self as source of devotion, whereas theism involves a concept of God as an authoritarian judge capable of both kindness and rage, which we obey and fear. Sufism provides a

home for both extremes of mysticism and everything in between. Sufism is an umbrella

term for the mystical movements within Islam, encompassing a diverse range of beliefs

and practices dedicated to divine love. 38

The organizational structures that follow Sufism are called tariqa, meaning

'ways' or 'paths,' and the sites where the Sufi gatherings take place are known as zawiyas or lodges, as mentioned in the introduction. There are three possible etymological roots for the word "Sufism". One view derives the word from sufi Arabic for 'wool', referring to the simple cloaks worn by the early Muslim mystics. Another view considers the

Arabic word safa' meaning "pure" to be the root word for "Sufism." A third view traces the origin of "Sufism" to "ahl al-suffa", 'People of the Veranda', a group of Muslims during the time of the Prophet Muhammad, who spent much of their time praying and meditating on the veranda of Muhammad's mosque. Al-Bairuni, a tenth century Arab author, suggests a less accepted etymology, linking Sufism to the Greek term Sophia meaning 'wisdom'.

In his book, Kashf al Mahjub (Revelation of the Veiled), Ali Hujwiri (d.1074) divides the practitioners of mystical Islam into three distinct types: First, the Mutasawwif, who aims at becoming an achieved Sufi through modeling a Guru; second, the Mustaswif, who takes from the Sufis only an external appearance for the sake of worldly advantage, be it power or money; and third, the Sufi who breaks free from his egotistical desires to reach a union with the divine. According to Hujwiri, at times people use the name of

Sufism without really clinging to its teachings: "this name did not exist, but its reality was in everyone. Now the name exists without the reality" (1976, 44). Let me engage here in a simple meta-definition of Sufism, springing from the comparison of three elementary books on Islam that caught my attention, one afternoon, while sipping a Latte in a coastal American cafe: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Islam, the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, and Islam for Dummies. I will compare how these three manuals define Sufism. 39

According to the Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Sufis "strive to constantly be aware of God's presence, stressing contemplation over action, spiritual development over legalism, and cultivation of the soul over social interaction. In contrast to the academic exercises of theology and jurisprudence, which depend on reason, Sufism depends on emotion and imagination in the divine-human relationship" (Esposito 2003, 302). In

Yahiya Emerick's book Understanding Islam, Sufism is summarized in the following ideas:

1-Faith in God can be experienced by the devoted believer through a program consisting of meditation, chanting, selfless love for others, and self-denial. 2- Worldly possessions, if not kept to a minimum, can corrupt a person's soul. Frugality is the key to spiritual wealth. 3- The Path of Sufism requires its followers to develop patience, thankfulness to God, and a complete reliance on God's knowledge of the future. 4- In addition to the Koran and Hadiths, another body of wisdom is contained in the teachings of the great Sufi masters. These consist of poems and wisdom stories that have hidden meanings. (2004, 369)

Malcolm Clark's Islam for Dummies has a very structured way of explaining

Sufism and its practices. Let us quote from a part of his book that clarifies the bonding between a disciple and her master:

The initiate took an oath of allegiance while clasping the sheikh's hand. The handclasp transmitted the sheikh's power (Baraka) to the student. The Sheikh gave him his patched cloak (khirqa), which was the typical garment of the Sufi, and a cap whose design varied among orders. He also received a document, like a graduation diploma, that attested to his initiation and traced his silsila. (Clark 2003, 224)

After defining Sufism, and clarifying what mysticism means, it is worth exploring the linkages between Sufism and Politics. 40

Sufism and politics

A brief history

It is believed, in the Muslim world as well as elsewhere, that power corrupts.

Hence, the general expectation in society is that mystics and Sufis abstain from political action because they should be more concerned with the pure afterlife than the current life.

The Sufi argument is that spiritual progress is not best found in the company of kings and princes, who are obsessed with preserving their earthly kingdoms. However, a detailed analysis of the lives of Sufis renders a more nuanced reality: some are orthodox and others heretics, some are politically active and others stay away from politics, some are elitists while others are populists, and some claim to be apolitical while practicing politics by other means. Among the Sufi saints who adopt an apolitical position, some were allies of the kings and others were their enemies.

The most famous Sufi archetype that saints who adopt an apolitical position often cite is that of the eigth century saint Ibrahim Ibn Adham who was a king of the region of

Balkh, in Northern Afghanistan, before he stepped down from his throne to dedicate himself to a life of meditation and worship. An opposite archetype of a Sufi becoming king is Mohamed Idris Sanusi, a Libyan Sufi of the Sanusiya order who became the first king of Independent Libya, after building a political capital due to his resistance against the Italian colonizer. There were Sufi Kings, some of them were kings before embracing

Sufism and others were Sufis that became kings.

History tells us about Kings who were also Sufis. The Javanese people attribute the coming of Islam in their land to nine saints among whom two were kings. One of the 41

two kings, Sunan Gunung Jati, founder of the two dynasties Banten and Cirebon, became a disciple of the Chadhili and Naqshabandi Sufi orders while in pilgrimage in Mecca.

History tells us too about Sufi allies and enemies of the kings. In terms of alliances, kings and Sultans have used Sufis to legitimize their rule or to seek their counsel in matters of the future, believing in their psychic abilities. The Sufis, in turn, drew from this alliance fame, power and moral legitimacy. An example of Sufis who counseled Kings was narrated to me by an old informant that I interviewed in my fieldwork. Yusuf Makassar was the right arm of the Malaysian Sultan Agen Tirtayasa. Makassar studied in Arabia and returned to Banten where he married a princess. When the son of Sultan Agen took over, the latter made a truce with the Dutch, a peace to which Yusuf Makassar was opposed, the latter went to the mountains to start a guerilla war against the regime. He was captured and exiled, and upon his request, his remains were buried in Gowa.

In terms of resistance against the kings, Sufis provide many examples. One is significantly meaningful. In 1638-1639, the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV conducted a military offensive to win Baghdad and levied high taxes to finance his operation. The

Naqshabandi Sufi saint Urmawi welcomed him with gifts and predicted his victory in the battle, but asked him to reduce the taxes that had generated the wrath of the population.

Mahmud Urmawi, originally from Diyarbakir, was executed by the Ottoman Sultan

Murad IV in 1639 for being the robin hood of the poor. After showing the linkages between Sufism and politics, I start building the ground for my argument throughout this book, an argument built on a concept of invisible politics that I name kryptopolitics. 42

Kryptopolitics: A grounded theory

Sufi orders are often criticized by Moroccan political parties, political experts and

Islamic movements for not engaging in political activism or for being co-opted by the monarchy. I argue in what follows that Sufis develop informal, hidden and invisible ways of political dissent that are to be located outside of the formal, visible and real political realm. Kryptos is a Greek word for hidden. Kryptopolitics is a concept of unseen and esoteric politics that involves three layers of meaning (informal, hidden, and unseen), two borrowed -with some difference- from scholars of comparative politics (Diane

Singerman and James Scott), and the third claimed by me. All the three layers of meaning are outside of the formal sphere. Before clarifying in detail these three layers of meaning, let me illustrate these layers through a historical example that all of us know, that of nativity. The formal level would go as follows: the son Jesus is born in a public hospital and receives a birth certificate. The first layer of meaning, the informal register, would give us something like: Jesus is born in the stable of a private family house, and the roman emperor is trying to locate the house to kill the newborn. The second layer of meaning, the hidden transcript, specifies that Mary tells those who slander her regarding the paternity of her child that Jesus was born out of a virgin mother. Finally, the register of kryptopolitics would have Mary confront the slander of the malicious ladies of the village through silence and a finger pointing to the newborn baby who manages to speak by god's miracle. While kryptopolitics recalls the miraculous and the unsaid realms, lower layers focus more on the real and the said. As I argued, kryptopolitics is a political practice based on an informal level, a hidden dimension, and a meta-hidden register. 43

Informal politics

The first layer of meaning is that of informal politics used by Diane Singerman and it refers to activities "that escape licensing, regulation, and even enumeration by the state" (Singerman 1995, 3). The difference between invisible politics and informal politics lies in two points. First, the actors of invisible politics do not have "an illegal or quasi-legal status" (Singerman 1995, 3). In their legality, they use registers that the public

surveillance mechanism ignores, or is simply not well equipped to monitor. Rather than operating in an illegal zone, invisible politicians operate in a no-zone. Second, unlike informal institutions, invisible Sufis "do not seek to avoid the notice of the state"

(Singerman 1995, 3). Their invisibility is no more that of a trickster whose performance is not based on hiding things from the sight of the spectators but precisely on its contrary:

convincing them that what they see is what there is. Third, the realm of invisible politics that I describe is not incorporated into the public realm, but on the contrary stays parallel

to it, somehow like what Vaclav Havel called "parallel polis." Fourth, in kryptopolitics, the intention of the agents is very important, since Sufi saints aim at changing not only,

and not mainly, the actions of their followers, but their intentions as well. A scene from

the movie Break Up explains well the importance of intentionality:

Vince Vaughn angrily reproaches Jennifer Aniston: 'You wanted me to wash the dishes, and I will wash the dishes -what's the problem?' She replies: T don't want you to wash the dishes -I want you to want to wash the dishes!" This is the minimal reflexivity of desire, its 'terrorist' demand: I want you to do not only what I want, but to do it as if you really want to do it - I want to regulate not only what you do, but also your desires. (Zizek 2008, 18) 44

Looking only at behaviors without explaining their motives fails to establish the

alternative ways in which Sufi orders practice politics. In fact, Sufism requires more than just doing the right thing; the right thing also has to be done with the right intentions. The

Sufi paradigm that requires the right intention for forbidding evil leaves Sufis unwilling

to interfere if they perceive that the satisfaction of their ego (nafs) is part of the transformative act they were about to perform. The right and sincere intention to advise

the ruler out of love for him, not out of a desire to dethrone him, is a necessary condition

for carrying on the act of advising. One Sufi anecdote explains this matter.

The medieval Sufi scholar Abul-Hasan al-Nuri (d. 907) one day saw a boat with

suspicious cargo of thirty amphorae. When he realized that the cargo was a load of wine

that belonged to the caliph of his time, he broke all the amphorae except one. When the

caliph asked why he spared that one bottle, Abul-Hasan al-Nuri said that as he was in the

middle of preventing the wrongdoing the forbidden alcohol represented, his state of

consciousness changed, and he was no longer motivated by his desire to honor God's

rules. Once he realized that his original motivation changed, he was no longer preventing

wrong, but actually doing wrong by lacking the right intention so he stopped preventing

the wrongdoing. The point of this story is that Sufis tend to stay away from forbidding

evil and inciting change, one of the cornerstones of Islamic politics, because they

perpetually question the sincere intentions behind their actions. Thus, purifying one's

intentions becomes a prerequisite of transformative activism in Sufi thought. What Sufis

argue then is not that getting involved in politics is bad but rather that the majority of

political activists do not run an intention check before engaging in social action and most

often their intention to reform society is for selfish and materialistic reasons. 45

Hidden transcripts

The second layer of meaning is the concept of "hidden transcripts" coined by

James Scott. In Domination and the Arts of Resistance (1990), Scott refers to the open, public interactions between the oppressed and the oppressors as the "public transcript" while he defines the "hidden transcript" as the abode of offstage power which the elite does not hear or see such as rituals, gestures and songs. According to Scott, the powerless

slaves adopt a defensive posture of deference and subservience in the presence of their masters, while resisting them behind their backs: "Every subordinate group creates...a hidden transcript that represents a critique of power spoken behind the back of the

dominant" (1990 xii) James Scott uses the way in which subordinated people utilize rumors, gossip and gestures to signal their wrath against a hegemonic system behind the back of the members of dominant group. The latter also develops a hidden transcript representing their most secret and secretive claims. The hidden transcript has three

characteristics: it is particular to a specific site or a set of actors, it contains both speech

and other acts, and the frontier between public and private transcripts is not a solid wall, but one of constant struggle (Scott 1990, 14).

My concept of kryptopolitics shares with James Scott the theory that weak people have their own weapons against hegemony. In his prominent work Weapons of the Weak

(1985), Scott draws on his fieldwork in Malaysia to craft an alternative theory of

subordinate resistance by showing that ruling groups do not always dominate

ideologically subordinate groups in class relations since the weak resist their well off

neighbors in private settings. He showed how the poor men, while being deferential in their interactions with the rich men in public settings, attacked the reputations of these 46

affluent masters in private settings by calling them stingy and unfriendly. Even when there is no overt rebellious activity, class relations, Scott argues, are contested by the weak people. I look in the chapter about the Boutchichi order at the hidden transcripts that this order uses to argue that under the calm surface of the order's political apathy lies dormant a political transcript of songs and stories.

Paying close attention to the order's offstage politics helps us to map its possible avenues of dissent. Looking at acts of deference performed by the Boutchichi order- praying publicly for the king- is not enough for us to infer its quiescent posture. Every inference about a Sufi act of deference towards political figures, I argue, needs to be based on evidence external to the act of deference itself. Rituals of insubordination, as

Scott argues, "may be deployed both for purposes of manipulation and concealment"

(1990, 35). He adds that "most of the political life of subordinate groups is to be found neither in overt collective defiance of power holders nor in complete hegemonic

compliance, but in the vast territory between these two polar opposites" (Scott 1990,

136). Thus, we need to go beyond the domain of written and spoken politics (news

stories, declarations, lawsuits) and move to the realm of "infra-politics" by looking at rituals performed by the order.

A public ritual performed by the Boutchichi order, such as the celebration of the night of the nativity of the prophet of Islam, might be read differently as a spectacle of

enthronement of the spiritual master, thus creating a hidden transcript that is only read

accurately by the members of the group. In such ceremonies, the saint sits in the center of

the stage, and all the participants see him as the only link joining them. It is customary in 47

these spectacles to see the saint accompanied by some "crazy" mystics known as majdub.

The saint's exposition of "crazy" homeless beggars reflects his desire to tell all those who came to pay tribute to him that not only does he control sound, rational crowds, but he also tames the -otherwise wild- untamable crazy disciples. The saint shows thus his power through a display of control over uncontrollable subjects. Thus, "the social sites of the hidden transcript are those locations in which the unspoken riposte, stifled anger, and bitten tongues created by relations of domination find a vehement, full throated expression" (Scott 1990, 120). I devote a whole section in chapter five to a visit that I made to the Boutchichi lodge for the celebration of mawlid.

Kryptopolitics also shares with J. Scott the need to go beyond the public realm because "so long as we confine our conception of the political to activity that is openly declared we are driven to conclude that subordinate groups essentially lack a political life or that what political life they do have is restricted to those exceptional moments of popular explosion" (Scott 1990, 199). The Boutchichi Sufi order appears to be politically quiescent when one looks at the official, open and observed interaction between the Sufi order and the political monarchy, a site known as public transcripts (appointments of its members to public positions, public marches, writings of the members, and public positions towards politics), but when one analyzes the apparently nonpolitical offstage texts and subtexts of the Boutchichi order, known as hidden transcripts (rumors, dreams, festivals, tales, songs and jokes), one finds that the order has potential for political dissent. 48

However, my concept departs from that of Scott's "hidden transcripts" in that it does not put its emphasis on class struggles or "bread-and-butter" issues as one can see from the following paragraph:

To require of lower -class resistance that it somehow be 'principle' or 'selfless' is not only Utopian and a slander on the moral status of fundamental material needs; it is, more fundamentally, a misconstruction of the basis of class struggle. (Scott 1985,295-296)

Krvptopolitics

The third layer of meaning is more hidden that the "hidden transcript" of James

Scott because it involves God and the esoteric, paranormal, occult realm. This layer of meaning takes the concept of "hidden transcripts" deeper. Kryptopolitics in this sense is not only an informal and hidden transcript. It is meta-informal and meta-hidden, and it includes mainly dreams and silence as a political action. This transcript is more hidden than Scott's hidden register in the sense that it is beyond words and beyond matter. Let us take a set of examples from my fieldwork to show how the tag of politicization is so ambiguous and transcript-sensitive.

The Boutchichi saint might say in a press interview that he is fully supporting the king in his role as commander in chief. This is the formal visible register. In a family gathering, the saint might say that politics is dirty. This is political apathy expressed in an informal register. In another instance, a member of the Boutchichi order might hear a rumor saying that the Moroccan king is gay. This is political critique (in the Moroccan

context where the king is also the commander of the faithful) at the level of the hidden 49

transcript as understood by James Scott. Now let us look at the case of Samir, a

Boutchichi member, who shared a dream that he saw with me:

I was in a deep sleep when I saw Sidi Hamza riding a white lion. I got so scared when he invited me to ride with him. I told him that I am not good at lion riding, but he ordered me to listen to his advice without much questioning. I was offered a black lion that was not allowing me to ride it. Sidi Hamza put his hand on the beast and tamed it to the point that it became like a docile dog for me to ride it without a minor problem. I was at times even beating the lion in order to run more quickly, but the saint was preventing me from doing it by telling me to be kind to the animal. Days later, I went to visit Sidi Hamza with a group of disciples and we were talking about the economic situation in Morocco. The saint was silent for a while. While still debating whether to tell him about my dream in front of the others or keep it for myself, Sidi Hamza looked at me profoundly and out of the blue told me while pointing to the picture of King Mohammed VI: "Sidi Samir! Here is your lion."

This dream represents the meta-hidden register that I call kryptopolitics or the

politics of politics. The political message of the Boutchichi saint is not only outside of the

control of the state (the informal dimension), and not only outside of the public realm (the

hidden transcript), but it is also in the paranormal virtual realm (the kryptopolitics

dimension). Political protest is manifest here at the level of the unsaid said. The Sufi

saint Sidi Hamza asserts, in a very subtle way, his primacy over the king. One needs to

enter the realm of dreams in order to be able to decipher the Boutchichi rebellion. While

still making visible and audible his claim, which might be understood by the other

disciples who did not have the dream as an assertion of the power of the king, the

dreamer understands the opposite of this message by virtue of his dream shared with the

saint. An utterance that at a visible realm means submission becomes an act of rebellion

at an occult site. 50

One might argue here that this dream is not real, and does not have any

consequences for the reality of the king's power. However, for Samir, whose reverence

for his Sufi master is unconditional, the king comes now only in a second position after the saint. The king, in the eyes of Samir, a Moroccan citizen, is stripped of all power.

What the Sufi master achieved, in the dream world but also in the cognitive reality of

Samir, is dethroning the king. In fact, the kryptopolitical transcript is particular to the members of the order who can decode the allegorical fine language of Sufism. I argue

that dismissing dreams, and ridiculing them as unimportant sites of political action leads

to the hasty conclusion that the Boutchichi order is non political or co-opted by the state.

These dreams are indeed very important sites of political contestation, in the context of

Sufi symbolism which creates a language that uses euphemisms and double meanings

that can be interpreted, I argue, as backdoors of political insurgency. For example, when

the Sufi disciples speak of their master as the saint of saints or the "owner of time" (mul

Iwaqi), they indirectly give lead to their saint over the king of the country.

The Moroccan state does not stay inactive against the insurgent dreamers as I call

them, but it uses its own tactic of stripping the kryptopolitical voice of its main essence

that is invisibility. By rendering the invisible visible, the Moroccan monarchy engages in

its own act of writing a public transcript. Comparisons "of the hidden transcript of the

weak with that of the powerful and of both hidden transcripts to the public transcript of power relations offer a substantial new way of understanding resistance to domination"

(Scott 1990, xii; original italics). 51

Silence, in addition to dreams, is another feature of Kryptopolitics. James Scott emphasizes in his work the role of silence when he says that "each of the forms of disguised resistance, of infra-politics, is the silent partner of a loud form of public resistance. Thus, piecemeal squatting is the infra-political equivalent of an open land invasion: both are aimed at resisting the appropriation of land" (1990, 199). In line with this thinking, a Middle Eastern proverb says: "An enemy is someone whose story you have not heard" (Zizek 2008, 11). Hence, silence is an unheard story that carries with it the seeds of potential enmity. Thus, I am engaging in the chapter of the Boutchichi order in a sort of psychoanalysis of the Boutchichi discourse, by distrusting its discourse (what it says it is doing) and examining the subconscious foundations of its public claims by suggesting that the Boutchichi claim that it "does not do politics" is a fake discourse, a trompe-l'oeil, a screen whose function is to render palpable and visible its political apathy (Appendix D). The critical dismissal by the Boutchichi order of politics as a morally polluting task is in fact a political resistance feigned -as - politics- free- act. This acceptance -through- denial is a silent expression of avoidance of politics as a traumatic event. Hence, it was important for me to locate political events in the past lives of the

Sufis, as I do on the chapter on pre-modern Morocco.

The silence of the Boutchichi order is not a passive refusal of confronting the state and resisting it. It is fighting the state power "by withdrawing from its scope, subtracting oneself from it, creating new spaces outside its control" (Zizek 2008, 339). The

Boutchichi order struggle is in fact a disturbance of the monarchy's attempt to set itself into a sacred whole, through the creation of a productive force endowed with spiritual enlightenment, a force that I call the Sufitariat to refer to a Sufi proletariat threatening the 52

system not by directly confronting it but by gradually undermining it "through the subterranean digging of the mole" and focusing on "directly transforming the very texture of social life, everyday practices which sustain the entire social structure" (Zizek 2008,

372).

Foucault and Sufi micro politics

In his book Discipline and Punish (1976), the French philosopher Michel

Foucault showed, in quite a revolutionary manner, how the prison as an institution - with its famous panoptical institution - produced disciplined docile bodies. In this book,

Foucault argued that political power shifted from an issue of sovereignty of the ruler to that of disciplining the soul. The prison, along with other similar institutions such as hospitals, schools or universities participate in weaving the web of a disciplinary and normalizing society. For Foucault, a disciplinary society is one that rests on power technologies that focus on life (Foucault 1976, 365). Hence, one can apply Foucault's

framework to the Sufi order and argue that it is an arm through which the state disciplines its subjects (Hammoudi 1997). One can clearly and justifiably set such a parallel but

Foucault can be used to study Sufism beyond the framework of Discipline and Punish. In

fact, Foucault defined brilliantly in the last three years of his life a system of thought that described the politics of truth including three processes (confession, parrhesia, and care of the self) of producing the subject in front of truth. In fact, after his Iranian experience,

Foucault shifted to the care of self. Below, I will define confession, parrhesia, and care of the self to show how they relate to the two social movements that I studied in my 53

thesis. Since Sufism aims to reach a truth, I argue that Foucault's model of the politics of truth helps us better understand the mechanisms of Sufi politics.

Confession

Michel Foucault unmasked the historical evolution of the Christian ritual of confession in monasteries or churches. In this process, the subjects themselves produce a discourse of truth about themselves for others be they priests or psychoanalysts. Foucault argued that the real motive of confession is, more than seeking forgiveness for one's sins, is to find one's "real self." This quest needs to borrow the path of surrendering the soul to the priest or the confessed-to. Finding our true selves—an exercise that presupposes the existence of a self "out there"—comes through our submission to an authority figure that witnesses our confession, in the sense that our attempt to answer the question "who are we?" is only a reaction to a question asked by others: "who are you?" This question serves a double purpose. One goal is to make us examine ourselves and another one pushes us to submit to another person that we trust for confession.

The main element of confession is that it rests on two pillars: one has a "secret" to unveil; one has to talk about this secret without stripping the confession from its secretive nature. A secret is hissed and communicated precisely as a secret. Foucault diagnosed such tendency in modern societies while studying sexual practices. For instance, Foucault argues that "what is exclusive to modern societies is not the fact that they keep sex in the closet, but that they always mention it while packaging it as the secret" (Foucault 1976,

48-49; my translation; original italics). The same can be said about the recent promotion 54

of Sufism in Morocco because one can see it and hear about its practices on television and other public forums while its marketers keep talking about the secret (sirr) that it entails.

Since 1215, confession has become a major ritual by which European societies produced truth, according to Foucault. The authentication of someone shifted from springing from his links to others (family, feudal protection, allegiance) to the result of a self portrait that the person draws. Confession became an important link in the chain of producing truth. It started in church but it permeated other institutions such as schools, hospitals, and households. From confessing one's sins to confessing one's love to the beloved, the history of the "aveu" (confession) penetrated the most mundane of people's lives: sicknesses, dreams, and hidden desires, past events, future wishes, and current mistakes. Doctors, priests, magicians, professors, journalists, and lawyers became the receivers of our confessions. We became, as modern men, confessing beasts. The process of confession witnessed a major change from medieval times to modern ages: the elimination of torture.

In medieval times, torture was the Siamese twin of confession. Subjects were forced to confess even by being physically abused. The elimination of torture with the advent of a discourse of human rights did not mean an elimination of confession. The latter was in fact normalized as a procedure of legitimization in what Foucault calls the

"microphysics of power." For example, a good patient has to confess his illness to his physician. Similarly, a good client has to "lay out" the bare truth to his judge or lawyer.

Moreover, a good student is supposed to confess his research findings to his professor. 55

Finally, a good citizen is required by law to confess his annual earnings to tax authorities.

The demise of torture made it necessary for the governing power to resort to other ways of making the subjects confess. In Morocco, the shift towards the promotion of human rights under the current king Mohamed VI manifested as a general public confession of all those who were victims of what came to be known as the 'years of lead.' Once the process of confession starts, especially in a context of human rights abuses, it is difficult to put it on a leash so that it does not translate into criminal sentencing of the culprits.

Hence, the Moroccan monarchy needed a safety valve for the confession process so that the monarchy will never become suspect, and this exit strategy is best served by an alliance of the monarchy with Sufism. The reason for this merger is the fact that the monarchy needed to beat confession by confession. In other words, the aim of the monarchy, eager to save its throne, was to make competitive confession claims even out.

Opposed to the human rights confession claim, which might undermine the roots of the monarchy in the long run, is the Sufi self transformation claim. The two competing claims differ in several ways.

The human rights claim is made by human rights groups and liberal forces in the country and is accepted by the monarchy. However, the hidden goal of these human rights group, most of who came from a socialist party struggle, is to reduce the power of the Moroccan monarch. The Sufi claim, on the other hand, serves the purpose of giving religious legitimacy to the monarchy, as the latter thinks, by orienting the struggle of its members towards the purification of the self and the ego rather than towards fighting

social injustice. A second difference between the two claims is that the human rights one takes as its object of inquiry the body by displaying the numerous techniques of torturing 56

political prisoners, meanwhile the Sufi claim makes the soul its object of study. A third difference is that the person making a human rights confession is a former victim whose words target an oppressor and a watching audience, while the Sufi confession is spoken

to the saint, a higher authority, for the purpose of purification and spiritual penitence.

Furthermore, the confessions about human rights abuses look at the past while the Sufi utterances gaze at the present. Finally, the two claims do not seek the same change. The human rights claim aims at changing the legal system while the Sufi claim is geared

towards self-transformation. The Moroccan monarchy was in need of a discourse that has

confession as its main ritual, where the disciple tells his spiritual master everything, in

order to make it the counter-power of the human rights confession as if one was putting

the benign confession (soul based, private setting, individual change, present-oriented) in

charge of the potentially maligning/dangerous/unsettling confession (body based, public

setting, social change, past-oriented). Rather than eliminating confession, the Moroccan

monarchy saw it fit to replace it with a less threatening confession, one that strives to

renounce worldly things and require from the confessor to "die" before dying, i.e.

Sufism.

Parrhesia

The Greek concept of parrhesia, whose Latin equivalent is Libertas, means

speaking the truth in a courageous and transparent manner that disturbs the status quo

without flattery or rhetoric. Etymologically, it means "telling all." The goal of the speaker

of truth here is to dissipate the false image of the speaker. The major characteristic of

parrhesia is the risk that the speaker takes in uttering frank words to a ruler or a receiver 57

who is so embedded in self-idolatry that he might take out the life of the parrhesia speaker as punishment. Tension and scandal are the arcane of this courageous speech

since the speaker irritates the addressee by his subversive cynicism. The famous example that philosophers always give in order to show parrhesia is Diogenes whether it is in his unusual encounter with the ruler Alexander or his public masturbation in the Agora. One day, the ruler Alexander was passing by and a naked homeless looking man asked him to move away because he was hiding the sunlight that he was enjoying. That man was

Diogenes, the hedonist philosopher who showed an act of parrhesia in front of a ruler used only to acts of deference.

Flattery is a way in which the inferior gains the sympathy of the superior in the

same way anger is the superior's abuse of power vis-a-vis the inferior. The flatterer is

someone "who gets what he wants from the superior by making him think that he is the most handsome, the wealthiest, the most powerful" than he is (Ewald and Fontana 2005,

376). Parrhesia is anti-flattery in the sense that it tells the ruler who he really is. Its

objective is to guarantee the other's autonomy in the sense that the "person to whom one

is speaking finds himself in a situation in which he no longer needs the other's discourse"

(Ewald and Fontana 2005, 379). Parrhesia is not content-based but is context-based. It

aims at pushing the listener to care for himself:

It is a specific, particular practice of true discourse defined by rules of prudence, skill, and the conditions that require one to say the truth at this moment, in this form, under these conditions, and to this individual inasmuch, and only inasmuch as he is capable of receiving it, and receiving it best, at this moment in time. (Ewald and Fontana 2005, 384) 58

I argue in the chapter about Yassine that the latter engages in an act of parrhesia, which is the corollary of al amr bil ma'rouf'm the Islamic culture. This act of parrhesia manifested itself, in the case of Yassine, in two letters of advice that he sent to both King

Hassan II and his son Mohammed VI.

Care of the self

In his study about "the care of the self, Michel Foucault analyzed ancient Greek texts from prominent as well as less known authors (Plato, Seneca, and Marc Aurele) to show how that culture produced a model for building the self and knowing it. This process, as Foucault argues, shifts our identity quest from answering the question "who are you" mentioned above to that of responding to the call made by Socrates to Calicles in Gorgas "How do you lead your life?" Shaping one's life and giving it form replaces, as a goal, finding one's hidden self. The metaphysics of existence leaves its place to the aesthetics of life. This care of the self relies primarily on the concept of visibility in the sense that a person shows, through his spiritual actions, that he is a model to follow. For example, Socrates took it upon himself to show to others the true meaning of Justice through his actions as if he were a Just walking model. Hence, the Greek subject did not construct its relation to truth through an interior and psychological self-reflection but rather built it on an external construction of a just self. The Greek subject did not try, as it is the case with confession rituals, to match his existing self with his true self. He tried, instead to match his actions with his words. 59

Taking care of one's self (heautou epiameleisthai) was a Greek imperative that

any researcher could witness in their texts such as the Alcibiades. In that text, Socrates teaches a young man full of ambition that one cannot venture to change society and fight

Spartan kings if he did not learn how to care for himself. In Apology, Socrates clearly tells his judges that God sent him to remind people that their care should primarily be

about their self. Care of the self is not, as it is sometimes believed, a solitary practice. It is

a social exercise in the sense that it is an art that is taught in a community setting. When young, the self is cared for through sport, and when old through meditation. Smaller

discourses are embedded in the major rhetoric of the care of the self: fear of excess,

dieting, and attention to sicknesses. Indeed, the care of the self constructs a subject that

sees himself as imperfect, sick, and in need of healing by a competent person like the

saint. The head of the Boutchichi order always likes to repeat the following mantra: "We

are all sick here and the Sufi order is our hospital." While the medical discourse

addresses apparent sicknesses whose signs quickly manifest on the body, the Sufi paradigm points to hidden diseases of the soul that are hardly noticeable by the "patient."

The Moroccan monarchy needed to give weight to such a discourse to create a permanent

sense of sickness in the population because this sense shifts away people's attention to the task of finding a healer whose presence becomes necessary for survival. It is no shock then to see the Moroccan monarchy constantly repeating the idea that without it the

country will know a civil war and an unbearable chaos. 60

The Moroccan monarchy

The Moroccan monarchy, with this very old dynasty, based its power on sharifism

(a noble heritage descending from the Prophet of Islam) to counteract the existing competitors that were mainly religious rebels. Abdullah Laroui, a Moroccan historian, in his L'Histoire du Maghreb, shows how the current Moroccan dynasty strengthened its rule: "The foundation of the Alawi power was not of a Sufi origin like that of the Saadian dynasty (...) the new regime is not indebted to the maraboutic movement: it derives its strength from a strong army and a religious prestige" (1970, 253). In fact, the Moroccan monarch is so powerful that he holds three very important positions. He is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, he is the imam or religious leader of Moroccan

Muslims and he is the head of state and the symbol of the sovereign nation of Morocco.

The king is "the center of the most important rituals of the faith" according to Combs-

Schilling (1989, 21). The king's name has to be mentioned during Friday ceremonies or other collective prayers during Ramadan or other religious feasts.

Article 19 of the Moroccan constitution gives the king the title and power of the head of religious institutions and supreme leader in the name of Islam. The main function of the Commander of the Faithful is to protect Islam even by issuing fatwa. Moroccan former king Hassan II wrote in his book, Le Deft that "it was the monarchy that made

Morocco, and it is hard to understand our country without knowing the history of [its] kings" (1976, 135, my translation). Today, the monarchy is at the center of political and religious life and continues to draw its legitimacy by invoking its respect of Islamic tradition and its longevity, evidenced by the fact that the monarchy lasted for three centuries. To 61

be at the top of the religious hierarchy allows the king to define the content of the political lexicon and create an exclusive system of meanings.

The most significant Moroccan cultural concept is the sacredness of the king. The

Moroccan constitution prohibits any critique or questioning of the monarch. Surrounding the king is the makhzan, or the metaphorical storehouse of political, economic and religious power. The Makhzan model is an arrangement where political power and religious authority are in the hands of a governing king who controls the tribes by controlling taxes. But any territories that do not fall under the command of this authority were called bled siba (ungoverned territory). This schema is not exclusive to Morocco as

Ibn Khaldun argued that Arabs "can obtain royal authority only by making use of some religious coloring, such as prophecy, or sainthood, or some great religious events in general" (1958, 305).

The monarchy is a political institution overseeing all subservient entities, deriving its legitimacy from different registers including that of religion. We will study this institution not only in terms of its rituals and protocols, but also in terms of the dynamic changes the institution went through in terms of its relations with Sufism under the leadership of the three kings of independent Morocco: Mohamed V, Hassan II, and

Mohamed VI in chapter four. I will investigate and compare the different features of rule in the three eras of King Mohamed V (1956-1961), King Hassan II (1961- 1999) and his

successor, Mohamed VI (1999-present), with a focus on the monarchy's use of Islam and

Sufism in particular. 62

The Moroccan monarchy was depicted by Clifford Geertz as "the key institution

in the Moroccan religious system" (1973, 75). The current ruling Alawi dynasty in

Morocco is the oldest ruling hereditary family in the world, since it emerged in 1668 and went through a shift from a traditional sultanate to a modern kingdom with the first king

of independent Morocco, Mohamed V (1927-1961). Portrayed by John Entelis as a

"culturally authentic" institution, the Moroccan monarchy has showed incredible

resilience due to its power of adaptation (1989, 12). The use of religion was not minimal

in that quest for legitimacy and survival. Rom Landau, an expert on Morocco, highlighted

the religious role of Moroccan kings when he wrote that the divine right of kings "was

rooted in the deepest religious feelings of the people" (1956, 35). An important concept

related to the monarchy is that ofBaraka (blessing). King Hassan II was reputed to wear

a ring of Baraka, a charismatic gift that won him several miraculous escapes from

military coups. The ring disappeared after his death to be found days later. In After the

Fact (1995), Clifford Geertz said that Hassan II had always given the image of a "strong

king," which is associated with his grandfather Hassan I, meanwhile Mohamed VI is

portrayed as a "humanistic king," which is associated with Mohammed V. There are two

rituals that the monarchy is based upon: the institution of the commander of the faithful

and that of the allegiance.

The preliminary base of the Moroccan monarchy is its legitimacy stemming from

its role as the symbol of the Independence. Mohammad V was that symbol for the French

Protectorate, and it was promoted by the National Movement in the times Morocco

strived for independence. Hence the symbol and the function of the king as Amir al-

Muminin (The Commander of the Faithful) became synonymous with Muhammad V. The 63

major consequence of the religious tainting of the Moroccan monarchy is its heavy

presence in the daily lives of Moroccans as if it were some form of prayer that never left

the lips of the devoted hearts. M.E. Combs-Schilling makes an anthropological rendering

of such a relation since for her the Moroccan monarchy pertains to the realm of the

encoded metaphysical culture that draws the contours of Morocco's politics:

In Morocco, the monarchy is intrinsic to the definition of self, including the sexual self, the definition of power in the world, and the basic understanding of how one can be released from worldly constraints and conjoined to the truth of the universe. (1989, 25)

The first constitution of Morocco after Independence was declared in 1962. The

king was defined as Amir al-Muminin and the supreme representative of the Nation and

the defender of the faith (article 19). The most significant role given to the king by the

Moroccan constitution might be the right of intervention in the case of emergency (article

35). In the case of crisis, the king may exercise all power in order to bring "the

constitutional institutions back to their normal operations" (article 35).

Religion and the monarchy in Morocco constitute two inseparable entities. "The

Moroccan king is considered to be a descendant of the prophet and, as Amir al Muminin,

or Commander of the Faithful, the supreme religious authority in the country" (Ottaway

and Choucair-Vizoso 2008, 163). In fact, the seminal work on the Moroccan monarchy

was written by the American political scientist John Waterbury, The Commander of the

Faithful (1970), a book that was banned in Morocco for many years. In his book,

Waterbury argues that the elite members in Morocco are segmented, in the sense that a

group of people with access to political resources strengthen their decision making 64

through patronage. Since the Moroccan elite is always in a state of balanced opposition between the monarchy and other factions be they Islamists or leftists, one political actor's identity depends on the group to which he belongs.

The Moroccan monarchy rests on the act of bey'a (allegiance) as a consolidating ritual. The act of allegiance has two faces: ceremonial and textual. The ceremonial allegiance is a collection of complex rituals where the subjects of the king annually show their loyalty by coming to his palace. The textual allegiance is a text written in Arabic

and signed by religious scholars and Morocco's elite upon the enthronement of a new king. In fact, Mohamed Tozy finds three bases for obedience to the king in the Moroccan

order: "Acts of obedience to his authority are bolstered by the constitution, by fiqh and hagiography. [The system thus glorifies] a triple basis of obedience: civic by reference to the law; canonical by reference to sharia; and mystical- for obedience to the king is a

source of blessing" (1989, 32).

The bey 'a is a very symbolic ritual that reminds us of the Sufi rituals such as the

celebration of the night of the prophet's birth, where the saint also occupies a central place. All the notables of the country, from members of the government to the small

municipal heads, as well as foreign diplomats, come once a year to participate in a feast

named hafl el walae (ceremony of allegiance). They wait for the sultan's appearance,

standing for many hours, under the scorching sun, until his majesty the king waves to

them. The latter appears riding his horse, escorted by slaves who continue holding the

umbrella that blocks the sun from scorching royal heads. While everyone is standing on

their feet, the king, quite literally, does not touch the earth, as if the symbolic message is 65

that 'his majesty' is above the dimension of space. Each region, led by its governor, comes to bow in front of the King while shouting to His life "God blesses my master."

Only the famous Hassan II's minister of interior, Driss Basri, could come out of the filed rank to greet the king, a privilege that only reinforces the primacy of the security apparatus. The Moroccan political scientist Mohamed Tozy sees this ritual as a "main strategy of political legitimization" in the same way that it used to "distinguish between the abode of anarchy and that of order" (Interview with the author, August 2008).

The traditional investiture of a king or sultan follows ancient Arab custom and

Muslim traditions. The act of allegiance is a contract between the king and his subjects, whereby the former pledges to provide security and to defend Islam and the latter swears they will remain faithful and submitted to the sovereign. In all the texts that describe this act of allegiance, the parallel is set with the allegiance that the Prophet Muhammad received from the Muslims in Medina. Three basic steps are involved in the more or less contractual agreement between the sultan and the people. The first step involves the selection process traditionally carried out by the religious scholars. The ulama were the best qualified to judge a candidate's fitness based on a host of Islamic virtues. Some of the desirable traits were wisdom, bravery and good judgment. In Morocco, since the seventeenth century, it has also been prudent for the religious scholars to select a member of the Alawi family because the family had the power to enforce its claim to the sultanate. It became traditional that the incumbent would suggest a successor, but the final selection still remained at the hands of the religious scholars. 66

In terms of modern texts, the allegiance relies on two main written documents: the allegiance texts of 1979 and that of 1999. Both texts use religious verses from the Koran or the sayings of the prophet of Islam, but they differ in one important point. In the 1979 text, the different signatories set the parallel with the Islamic allegiance presented to the prophet Muhammad under a tree, and the signatories refer to themselves as "we":

We, nobles, scholars, notables, men and women, young and old, decided unanimously to renew our oath of allegiance to the commander of the faithful, protector of the faith and the nation, His Majesty King Hassan II, in the same way that our fathers and ancestors did it to her Alawi Kings. (Bencheikh 2008, 47)

On the contrary, the Bey'a of 1999, while still referring to religious precedents, refers to the signatories as "they":

Their Highness the princes, the scholars and the counselors of the nation, the heads of political parties and the superior officers of the army (...) present their legal allegiance to the hereditary heir and successor, His Majesty Commander of the Faithful, Sidi Mohammed Ben Al Hassan. (Bencheikh 2008, 47)

There was really no way to enforce the keeping of the allegiance and, as mentioned earlier, removal of a leader seldom occurred in traditional Islamic culture.

There is one recent example of impeachment in Morocco, however. Moulay Abdelhafid urged the religious scholars to impeach his brother Abdul-Aziz in 1908 for failing in protecting Morocco against a foreign invader. The argument that I study in detail in chapter three shows that sultan Abdul-Aziz had exceeded his authority by giving up some of the country's sovereignty in the Treaty of Algeciras, which gave some rights in

Morocco to France and Germany. 67

The reintroduction of the oath of allegiance, as an essential part of political power, has reduced the law to an institutional expression, a ritual, as it were, deriving its legitimacy only from the past. However, this act of allegiance was originally a written declaration of allegiance from the religious scholars to the Sultan, but it has now come to include leaders throughout the country. The scholars' role in appointing a sultan has become even less important than it used to be. When Mohammad V died, it was the government, not the religious scholars who proclaimed Hassan II King. Of course there had never been a crown prince before. In 1957, at the height of his tremendous power and popularity,

Mohammad V named his son Hassan II crown prince without consulting the religious scholars. This act generally went unopposed and may well become part of the tradition of naming one's son as successor to the Moroccan throne. When Hassan II died in 1999, his son excluded the religious authorities from the process of allegiance. The irony of this ritual is that while it is originally a religious ceremony adapted by the sultan for religious legitimization, it came to change faces so as to become a civil ritual where religious scholars are absent.

Not all Moroccan politicians or citizens approve of this act of allegiance, as some of them see in it a relic of medieval authoritarian era. For example, Abdurrahman

Youssoufi, the ex-prime minister in the last years of Hassan II's reign and a previous opponent of the regime, wrote, during his years of exile, a violent critique of the

Moroccan ritual of allegiance as an antique artifact of despotism only to participate in it when he became the confidant of the king Hassan:

The key to the makhzan system is the sultan, a hereditary, dynastic autocrat...whose enthronement is accompanied by a ceremony of allegiance in 68

which tame dignitaries act out their submission. This absolute power is aggravated by the pseudo-function of [the king as] 'representative of God on earth', which has been instituted and handed down by generations of oriental despots but has no real religious or legal basis. (1976, 45, my translation) CHAPTER THREE

FROM THE SAINTAN TO THE SATAN:

THE SAINT AND THE SULTAN IN PRE-MODERN MOROCCO

The history of Islam in Morocco goes back to the year 683 when Uqba bin Nafi', the commander of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus conquered the region. Many indigenous Moroccans fought the Arab conquerors that taxed them heavily and enslaved them. It was only in 788, with the arrival of Idris bin Abdullah, known as Moulay Idris, the founder of the Idrisid dynasty that Sharifi tradition spread throughout the country. He established the Sharifi tradition in Morocco, by which the claim of descent from the

Prophet was the basic tenet for monarchic rule. According to Combs-Shilling, "At the height of its power, Morocco extended its dominion over much of the western

Mediterranean; it ruled into Spain and Iberia in the north, Mauretania in the south, and the Libyan desert in the east" (1991, 661). The Idrisid dynasty ruled Morocco until 985, losing power for short periods (922-25 and 927-37) to the Miknasa who were Ismaili

Muslims. Morocco was re-united once again by the Almoravid dynasty (1062-1145), who were followed by the Almohades (1145-1248), the Merinides (1248-1554), the Saadians

(1554-1660), and, finally, the Alaouites (1660-present).

Historiographers of Moroccan sainthood attributed to saints several powers that are beyond the reach of the common people, ranging from foretelling future calamities to

69 70

curing the sick (al-Bazaz, 1992; Attadili, 1984). The relationship between saints and sultans in this discourse is of crucial interest to my work. At times, the Moroccan saint was perceived like a sultan and in other instances; the king came out as a loser from his battle against the mystic. Submission to the saint is a common practice among Moroccan saint goers. This submission process is naturalized and normalized through myth and ritual in the sense that the Sufi institution disciplines its members into becoming docile subjects who believe that social change happens gradually at the level of the person first, then in society at large. The Sufi discourse (all discursive practices taking place at the

Sufi lodge) is always linked to politics, as we will see, whether it is in cooperation or in conflict with the political rulers. At times, some Sufi orders were manipulated by the powers that be, but these instances were more isolated than the by-an-large militant views embraced by most Sufis who believed that it was their destiny to follow their saints in wresting Moroccan sovereignty from the colonial hands.

This chapter explores the interconnection between Sufism and political rulers during the period ranging from the Almoravid dynasty (year 1040) until the time of the current ruling dynasty, the Alaouites. It discusses the causes that lead Sufism to be co- opted by the state and how it was accomplished in Morocco's history, and it analyzes the conditions that pushed the Sufis to be opposed to the state. I argue that there was, in

Moroccan history, a mindset that has combined mystical Islam with militant views when it came to foreign occupiers. In this regard, Schwartz argues that, "There are pious and sober Sufis, and rebellious, ecstatic Sufis. Although most advocate for peace, they do not preach surrender to aggression" (2003, 37). 71

The central questions of this chapter are: When does the Saint become a rebel against the Sultan, admonishing and defying him while coveting his throne? When does he become his ally, the saintan, a saint and a sultan? The saint and the sultan had their interactions throughout Moroccan's history, with its waxing and waning moments, at times resulting in a "joint venture" (saintan) while at other times, the saint, through his rebellion, was seen by the sultan as a "Satan". This maneuver is known in critical discourse analysis as bricolage (Kress 1990; Simpson 1993). It "involves the rearrangement juxtaposition of previously unconnected signifying objects to produce new meanings in fresh contexts" (Barker and Galasinki, 2001, 6). Hence, Politics and Sufism become signifiers of a new relationship where both mysticism and politics are re-defined.

I explore this bricolage in my description of the Saintan, a term that I coined as a mixture of saints and sultans, resembling Haraway's Cyborg which mixes elements of humans and those of machines.

The main goal of this chapter is to dispel the myth of the monolithic Sufi, or that of the nonviolent docile mystic. As it will be shown below, Sufis can also kill with brutality and seek power and fight for self-interest. At other times, Sufis are peace loving selfless creatures that are ready to sacrifice their own interests to preserve the common good. An early Western observer of Sufism in Morocco emphasizes the importance and mystical practices of saints in the Sufi religion: "The cult of these saints has given rise to two of those unpleasant fraternities, under which are united almost all the low classes of

Morocco -taifas- madmen and neurotic persons, who work themselves into a frenzy by a succession of songs, dances, and religious cries, ending in a paroxysm of religious ardor, 72

which enables the Aissaoua to eat all sorts of horrible things, the Hamadsha to receive the heaviest weights on their heads, and Droughiyin to slash their skulls with hatchets"

(Aubin 1906, 346). I divided this chapter into two sets: cases of political cooperation and instances of conflict between Saints and Sultans. I call these instances quiescent and rebellious Sufism.

Acquiescent Sufism and the rise of the saintan

In this section, I will address the instances of cooperation between the saint and

the sultan throughout Moroccan history, with the aim of understanding its rationale and

its secrets. What one needs to keep in mind is the importance of these early events for an

accurate analysis of Modern day Moroccan Sufism, in light of Morocco's historical

cyclically. Before starting to look at particular examples of saints who cooperated with

their political leaders, one needs to know the reasons behind such a submission.

One might turn to a political economy aspect of the zawiya in order to understand

why it puts its hand some times in those of the rulers. How did mystical brotherhoods

make profit in their trade with political leaders to preserve their social status? Mostly,

these institutions relied on gifts (hadiyas) from the Palace and from rich people, tributes

(zyaras) from disciples and donations (hibas) such as mortmain lands (awqaaf) from

sultans. Moreover, they were exempt from taxes:

Individuals and tribes took their zyara to a particular zawiya in the hope that its saint would endow th§m with his Baraka by either chasing away a sickness, or malediction, evoking rain, or solving any other social problem. In the past, zyara took an institutional form in some regions. That led to the organization of mawsims during which the tribes brought their zyaras to the zawiya to which they 73

were supposed to pay their annual tribute. Sometimes it was the muqaddem of the zawiya who toured the tribes and collected the zyara by pressure. (Maarouf 2007, 30)

It has been a tradition in Moroccan history to see Sufis fervently seeking the blessing, especially the financial one, of kings and sultans. Omar al-Naqar, who studied

the pilgrimage migrations from West Africa, said that the Sudanese Sufis of the

nineteenth century always made a stop in Morocco before heading towards Mecca during

the same trip to pay allegiance to Moroccan kings and to praise them in poems (1972,

96). For instance, H.T. Norris gave the example of the sultan Abdurrahman Ben Hicham

who invited in 1859 the scholar Ahmed son of the little bird of paradise to construct a

Sufi order in Marrakech as a bridge between the two parties (1977 125). Even rebellious

Sufis argued that Muslims should submit to their political leaders in principle. For

example, Al Hassan al Yusi, one saint among the political adversaries of Moulay Ismail,

the second Alaoui sultan (1672-1727), argued that the rulers should listen to their

religious scholars because of their command of God's laws (Munson, 1993, 38). The

notion of obedience to the sultans and those in authority positions has been a historical

fact, which most political theorists said that an unjust ruler was better than a state of

anarchy. This idea acquired more credence by the famous verse of the Holy Koran: "O

believers obey Allah and obey the messenger and those entrusted with authority from

among you" (4:59). The submission of Sufis to courtly society came to be understood, in

extreme cases, in hegemonic terms. By a process of inversion, as the oral Sufi legend

goes, the docile Sufis, in serving their court masters, are none other than "demons"

haunting the ladies of the palace Harem. Submission in visible realms is in fact control in 74

the invisible world. E. Michaux-Bellaire gives the example of the life of Gnawa Sufis behind the walls in the Moroccan city of Fez and shows how black slaves, belonging to the Sufi brotherhood of Gnawa, had a strong influence on Fassi women:

Women in particular come under the influence of the Gnawa and in Fez there are few women of the most renowned families, who are not associated with the Gnawa and who, by the same token suffer the ascendancy of their Negresses. The ritual practices of 'gnawism' being coupled with those of Lesbos, something which is very widespread not only in all the cities of Morocco but also among the mountain tribes, lead to a situation in which there is hardly any Moroccan woman who is not possessed by some demon. (Bellaire 1910, 426)

The Spiritual order as a protector of Islam: The Naciri order (1642-1914)

The Naciri order became really famous with its leader, the saint Muhammad Ben

Naser in 1645 and witnessed the height of its fame in the eighteenth century. This order refused to utter the name of the sultan Moulay Rachid and that of Moulay Ismail during the Friday prayers, not because it adopted a rebellious posture against the king's religious legitimacy, but simply because the Naciri order considered pronouncing the name of the ruler in the prayer, from a legal point of view, a non Islamic practice.

The headquarters of the Sufi Naciri order, Tamegrout, in southern Morocco, became important as a political center in 1642 when the leader of the order, Ahmed

Benbrahim, was assassinated to be replaced with the famous Sufi saint Mohamed bin

Naser who launched the Naciri order throughout Morocco and other countries becoming thus the major Moroccan Sufi order of its time (Dahbi 1997, 123). The relationship between the state and the Naciri order witnessed many ebbs and flows. Mohammed Ben 75

Naser was reputed for his distant rapport with the political authorities and his commanding good and forbidding evil. He never pronounced a prayer for a king nor did he see it fit for religious scholars to knock on the doors of kings (Dahbi 1997, 124).

When it came to the Alaoui king Moulay Rachid's knowledge that the Sufi saint Ben

Naser refused to pronounce a prayer for him in his Friday sermons, he summoned him harshly to come meet him menacing with serious consequences in case he persevered in his obstinate refusal to pronounce his names in his prayers. The Sufi saint sent him a written answer: "Do what you wish since this life is just a transitory one" (Dahbi 1997,

128 my translation). There are two oral stories about the unfolding of this tension between Ben Naser and the Moroccan king. One of them states that the king sent an army to discipline the rebellious saint but after two days of taking the decision, his wrath cooled down and he put a halt to his intended aggression. Another story states that while the Moroccan king was preparing to leave Marrakech to attack Tamegrout, he died and the Saint was saved.

When the king Moulay Ismail took over the leadership of Morocco, he was the first one to make the gesture of rapprochement towards the Sufi Saint Ben Naser. A Sufi professor of history told me the following story about Moulay Ismail. The latter sent him a letter showing him his appreciation and asking for his prayers. The Sufi saint responded kindly. However, the Sufi saint continued refusing to say prayers for the king in his

Friday sermons, which generated the anger of one of the king's ministers Ghazi bin

Chakra, who disliked Ben Naser. Ghazi bin Chakra went holding a sword to the mosque 76

where Ben Naser was preaching with the intention of attacking him if he fails to pray over the king.

The minister fell asleep during the preaching until it was over and became aware that God wanted to protect his saint, so he became his disciple and the legend tells the story of this minister asking the saint to cure his womanizing addiction, after which Ben

Naser gave him his pants. The minister was cured, and the king stopped bothering the

saint for a while. Soon after this incident, Moulay Ismail forbade the saint from going to pilgrimage for two years (1707 and 1708). The Moroccan king pressured the Sufi saint by ending tax exemptions from which the Naciri order benefited. The Sufi saint accepted to refrain from pilgrimages until 1709.

Another round of interactions between the state and the Sufi saint is the intervention of the king to solve problems over the order's spiritual inheritance following the death of Ben Naser. The king Mohammed Ben Abdullah (1757-1790) who was a

disciple of the Naciri order left the order to remove any doubt about his neutrality in

solving the conflict between two aspiring leaders of the order. The Moroccan king chose

to ask the elite of the tribe where the order was located to elect their saint. Once the

elite's decision was made, the Sultan sent a letter approving their choice and asking the

defeated man to leave the region. Hence, even if the Naciri order had its moments of rebellion against the monarchy, its predominant attitude was to engage in a passive form

of Sufism. 77

The Darqawi order: An active engagement in the rural zones

Another example of a non-conflictive relationship between the Moroccan crown

and the Sufi brotherhoods is the Darqawi Sufi order. This order is famous for producing

strong resistance against colonial forces, to the extent that the nineteenth century was named "the century of the Darqawi brotherhood" in the same way the eighteenth century was named that of the Nasiriyya brotherhood (Drague 1951, 267). The Darqawi order was founded by Ahmed Hassan al Fassi (1728-1785) but its fame came at the hands of

Moulay Larbi Darqawi (1760-1823) who succeeded in mobilizing more than forty thousand disciples from all over Morocco, with the order reaching its climax on the nineteenth century.

According to Seyyed Hussein Nasr (1997), at the end of the twelfth/ eighteenth

century, a powerful spiritual rebirth took place in Morocco under yet another branch of

the ShadhilTs, the Darqawa, founded by Moulay Larbi al-DarqawT (d. 1239/ 1823). This

new branch sought to restore the purity of early Shadhilism through a return to an

equilibrated view of the Islamic law and the Sufi Path which was what characterized the

first teachers. David Westerlund adds in the same vein:

For the development of Sufism among European converts, the Darqawi branch of the Shadhili tree, which was founded by Ahmad al-Darqawi (d. 1823), has been important. A further ramification, which has been of even greater significance for this development, is the Shadhili-Darqawi-Alawi or Alawiyya, which was initiated by Abu al-Abbas al-Alawi (d. 1934). Like Shadhiliyya, both Darqawiyya and Alawiyya have a North African origin. (2004, 19) 78

The Darqawi order clashed with the Moroccan Alawi sultan Slimane (1792-1822) because the latter wanted a state with defined borders, meanwhile the Sufi order wanted an Islamic state across borders. Hence, when the king Slimane turned down the allegiance of the people of the Algerian city Tlemcen in 1806, the Darqawi order considered this refusal contrary to the spirit of Islam. However, Slimane's successor

Abdurrahman Ben Hicham embraced the Darqawi order and championed its causes. After the insurrection of Ben Cherif Darqawi against the Turks in Algeria in the 19th century, the Ottomans called the king Moulay Slimane for his mediation and he sent the Sufi Saint

Moulay Larbi Darqawi who managed through his reputation to solve the conflict. The

Moroccan authorities had used Sheikh Larbi Darqawi to resolve a conflict in Algeria when a disciple from the Darqawi order was killed by the Turks (Drague 1951, 252-255).

The interpretation of this relationship between the state and the order as an endorsement of authoritarianism is not historically accurate when one is knowledgeable about the organizational philosophy of the Darqawi order of that era: the mother zawiya did not impose on its branches one unified policy toward the Moroccan regime. There was no general policy, in the Darqawi order, of submitting to the rulers. In that sense, the decisions of the brotherhood were not centralized, and each decision of helping the ruler was made locally.

The king as a mediator between the saint and society: Moulay Slimane

The Mauritanian scholar Ahmed ibn al-Qadi criticizes the customary ritual of asking for the intercession of the deceased saint, and an important element among the 79

seven patron saints of Marrakech, Abulabbas Sebti, reputed to have control over the

winds: "Know also that what seamen do, like throwing money, oil, or sheep in the sea as

a gift to Sebti, or calling him three times "o Abulabbas" whenever the wind is strong is

Haram, although it is not an apostasy, because of the wasting of money that it involves"

(El Mansour and Harrak 1994, 96 my translation). In his letter to the sultan, the

Mauritanian scholar thanked him for forbidding tobacco eight years prior to his arrival

and urged him to intervene in the polytheistic affairs in Morocco:

Know, o noble prince, that I heard about your outlawing of Tobacco, By God you have done Good and He will reward you as you have only forbidden the illicit, and the prayers of the believers will reach you, but you need to do more, and follow up with your people, since the repentance of the smoker is like that of the wolf vis-a-vis sheep. Know majesty that the outlawing of dridba and similar polytheistic practices is more urgent than outlawing smoking for the latter is a sin but the former is a heresy." (El Mansour and Harrak 1994, 106, my translation)

Hence, Sufis cooperated with sultans in legal matters when the kings issued

religious fatwa that pleased the saints, and not all Sufis approved of the saintly worship

that was typical of Moroccan mystics in general.

Rebellious Sufism in Moroccan chronologies

In this section, I will address the instances of conflict between the saint and the

sultan throughout Moroccan history, with the aim of understanding its reasons, and the

ways in which they were resolved. I argue that due to Moroccan cyclical politics, the

modern ways in which Sufi dissidents mobilize people and their cultural frames are

drawn from a repertoire of Sufi contention to be found in pre-modern Morocco. 80

The Almoravid dynasty (1042-1147)

The Almoravids were a Berber dynasty that ruled Morocco from 1060 through

1150. They emerged from a puritanical Sunni revivalist movement as a result of what they perceived to be a decadent Muslim community. They insisted on conformity with a strict interpretation of Islamic law embraced the idea that a caliph should be from Prophet

Mohamed's Banou Hashim tribe (Munson 1993, 44). The Almoravids' genuine concern about keeping the succession within the prophet's genealogical lineage was symbolized by Yusuf ben Tachfin's refusal of the title "Commander of the Faithful" on the grounds that it belonged to the Abbasids because of their ancestral relationship with the prophet.

Yusuf ben Tachfin led an exemplary life and was reputed for being just and very pious.

When he died, a scholar named Mohamed Ibn Tumart challenged the Almoravids whom he accused of straying away from the right teachings of Islam.

Ibn Tumart denounced as infidels all who disagreed with him. His revivalist approach emphasized a return to a rigorous Islam all life's aspects. Ibn Tumart defied the

Almoravids' Sultan Ali ben Yusuf ben Tachfin directly when he was brought to appear before him to answer for his destructive behavior on the streets of Marrakech where he

spilled jars of wine and destroyed musical instruments. Ibn Tumart told the sultan:

I am but a poor man who thinks of the hereafter and not at all of this world, where I have nothing to do but command good and forbid evil; is that not what you should be doing? You who are, on the contrary, the cause of evil, whereas it is your duty to implement the precepts of the Sunna and you have the power to make others implement them as well. Crime and heresy appear everywhere in your domain, and this is contrary to the orders of God....Do your duty, for if you neglect it, you will have to account to God for all the wrongs done in your empire. (Munson 1993, 47) 81

Ibn Tumart followed this direct confrontation with a long and more daring letter where he criticized the sultan's shortcomings as a leader, blaming him for all the moral degradation that bedeviled society. Ibn Tumart concluded his letter by threatening the sultan: "He who ignores one order of the Sunna is like one who ignores it in its entirety.

Thus it is permitted to shed your blood" (Munson 1993, 48). Finally, Ibn Tumart managed to defeat the Almoravids and conquer a large part of northwest Africa and

Spain. But, as soon as Ibn Tumart secured his power base, he began to promote himself as a sinless and infallible imam and asked his followers to venerate him. He went even further by claiming he was the long-awaited messiah (Mahdi al mountadar) who would rid society of its ills. He spoke in the following terms:

May God bless our lord Mohamed, the messenger of God, who predicted the coming of the mahdi to make fairness and justice prevail on earth after it had been full of tyranny and injustice...the tyranny of the princes exists, corruption reigns on earth, the consummation of the centuries is for today." (Agnouche 1987, 154 my translation)

This Berber dynasty was not typically fond of Sufi ideas, especially those coming from Andalusia. Sufi scholars were disseminating the teachings of the famous mystic

Ghazali (1058-1111) who was criticizing the Almoravid sultans for their anthropomorphism and wasteful profligate way of life. The Almoravid rulers reacted violently to this critique by publicly burning the books of Ghazali in Marrakech and censoring them as we will see below. 82

The Merinid dynasty (1215-1465)

The Merinid dynasty made the Moroccan city of Fes their capital. This dynasty is reputed for the series of religious schools (Medrasd) that were constructed in order to spread the Maliki School of Islamic jurisprudence. The first sultan of this dynasty, Abou

Yusuf Yakoub (1269-1285) was known to protect Sufi saints, but the last Merinid sultan,

Abdullah ben Abu Said (1423-1464), sided with the Sharif families to oppose the Sufi orders. In fact "the lack of central power pushes the orders and marabouts to become influential. Scared by their progress, the Merinid kings did not know how to treat them.

At times, they persecute them, close their lodges and count their members, resulting in nothing than conferring upon them a status of martyr; at other times, they cooperate with them" (Drague 1951, 47, my translation). The main Saint of this period worthy of studying is Mohammed Ben Abdurrahman Ben Sliman el Jazouli, the writer of the widely read book of prayers Dalail el Khairat which is an important component of the

Boutchichi meditation.

After studying in Fes the teachings of the Shadili order, Jazouli went to pilgrimage in Mecca then stayed for some time in Cairo before picking the Moroccan port of Safi to settle. He was kicked out of Safi by the Merinid rulers to find refuge in

Afourhal, 35 kilometers away from the city of Mogador (Essaouira). Jazouli saw the prophet of Islam one day in a vision, and the latter told him: "I am the most handsome of prophets on earth, and you are the most handsome of saints" (Drague 1951, 52, my translation). His popularity (about 12000 followers) created many jealous people, either as Sufi opponents fearful for their disciples, or rulers anxious to stop the ascent of his 83

political symbolism. Jazouli dies in his Afourhal retreat poisoned between 1465 and

1470. In his discourse, Jazouli made sure to pinpoint his noble lineage and to show his way in a polished garb: "I am cherif; my origin is noble, my ancestor is the prophet of

God peace be upon him. I am closer to him than any other creature. My glory precedes me by far, and is coated in gold and silver. Whoever you are, follow us! Whoever follows us will have the nicest abode in this life and in the afterlife" (Archives Marocaines,

Vol.XIX: 279, my translation). Abdessalam Yasine used the same rhetoric against the king Hassan II as we saw in Chapter six.

Ribat Tit

The institution of the Ribat (the fort) was one of the early manifestations of organized Sufism. Ribat Tit was the most famous of these forts or community centers where Sufis came to gather. The building of the Ribat was done during the Almoravid era with the goal of rallying the Berbers of Tamesna behind a unified Islamic orthodoxy under the leadership of the famous saint Abdullah Amghar and his family. This fort expanded under the Almohad dynasty until its heyday in the Merinid period under the banner of the saint Mohammed Ben Slimane El Jazouli. The latter will be studied individually below. The Ribat has undergone a major transformation on the thirteenth century from being a Sufi intellectual center to becoming a political and economic institution. There are many reasons for this shift of the Ribat Tit.

First, the Merinid dynasty followed a general policy of promoting and co-opting

Sufi families by granting them tax exemptions and pure lineage (Sharif) status, giving them money, and nominating their leaders in political functions such as those of Judge. 84

Second, there is also the demographic change in the Doukkala region where the Ribat is located. In fact, the outnumbering of the Berber Sanhaja tribe by Arabs stripped the

Amghar family, leader of the Tit Ribat, of the support of one of its major allies. The demographic change pushed the leaders of the Ribat to expand their call outside the

Doukkala region and to renew some of their teachings to accommodate Arab ethnicities.

In order to better grasp the complexity of the Ribat of Tit, one needs to explore its relations with the state in different times of its existence.

During the Almoravid era, there were two categories of interaction with the state: cold war, and honeymoon. When the Almoravid sultan AH Ben Yusuf invited the religious scholars to come to Marrakech for consultation, the religious saint of Ribat Tit did not answer the call. The reason for this absence was that the Almoravid Sultan Ben

Yusuf had issued a religious Fatwa of burning the book Revival of Islam of the mystic

Ghazali and making people swear that they did not possess the book. This book, which was banned for containing heretical ideas, was one of the books that were read in the

Ribat. Many Sufi scholars such as Ibn Nahwi, whose poem al Munfarija is read routinely by the Boutchichi disciples, reprinted Ghazali's book and copied it despite the official ban.

The honeymoon between the state and the Sufis of Ribat Tit started with a consultation by Ali Ben Yusuf with the saint Abdullah Ben Amghar. The object of the consultation was building a wall around the capital of the Almoravid state. The Sufi saint sent his donation to the Almoravid sultan and prayed for the success of the operation.

This consultation was the inauguration of an alliance between the Almoravid state, which 85

was facing the threat of the emerging competing dynasty the Almohad dynasty, and the leaders of Ribat Tit. This alliance resulted in the region of Doukkala being the hub of resistance against the nascent Almohad dynasty.

During the Almohad dynasty, one finds again the leaders of the Ribat involved with the state. Once the Almohad leaders became aware of the importance of the leaders of Tit, they tried to co-opt them as well. In the fight for the throne between two Almohad leaders to be, al Mutasim in Marrakech and al Mamoun in Seville, the latter sent a letter to the leader of the Ribat Tit to seek his support. The Sufi leader gave his blessing to al

Mamoun and advised him to relocate to Marrakech and fight for his rightful throne. The destruction of the Ribat Tit came during the Wattasi era with the leader Mohammed known as the Portuguese who relocated the inhabitants of the Ribat to Fes and destroyed it for fear that the Portuguese colonizer would use it as a fort for its expansionary attacks.

The Saadian dynasty (1511-1660)

By the fifteenth century, the tribal system in Morocco had ended and "Sufi sheikhs and sharifs came to the fore as the symbols of disenchantment with tribal leadership." (Abun-Nasr 1971, 202). The Saadians were a dynasty that ruled Morocco for almost a century before they were replaced by the current ruling dynasty, the Alawi dynasty in 1668. The post-Saadian era witnessed the empowerment of religious brotherhoods because the latter was the source of legitimacy of the Saadian dynasty. In fact, by the late 1620s, three important religious brotherhoods emerged as sites of opposition to a dismembered Saadian Empire: The Dala'iyya in the Middle Atlas, the 86

Semlaliyya in the Sous valley and the Arab tribesmen in the Atlantic littoral led by al-

"Ayyashi.

The Dala'iyya Sufi brotherhood was composed of Berbers from Sanhaja who took their name from the zawiya of Dala' founded by their ancestor Abu Bakr in the 1560s in the Middle Atlas mountains. The Moroccan historian, Mohammad Hajji, argues that the

Dala'iyya's sheikhs owed their popularity as well as their power to the social services which they performed in the Middle Atlas region. Its founder, Abu Bakr, "founded.his zawiya upon the suggestion of his Sufi teacher al-Qastali of Marrakech for the purposes of propagating the Shadhiliyya-Jazuliyya doctrine and feeding the poor" (Abun-Nasr

1971, 219). Hostels for the students were built near the site of the brotherhood and arbitration centers between Berbers were constructed. Abu Bakr's son, Muhammad, constructed a new Zawiya 12 Kilometers from the old one feeding 7000 people a day

(Hajji 1964, 105). In 1636, the Saadi Sultan Muhammad al-Sheikh dispatched artisans to construct a mausoleum for Muhammad al-Hajji's father and urged the new Sufi leader to recognize his authority.

After the failure of this initial attempt, the sultan offered to allocate a part of the tribute of the Middle Atlas to the upkeep of the Zawiya if the Sufi leader agreed to submit threatening him with force in the opposite case. The battle between the two fighting entities took place in 1638 and the army sent by the sultan was vanquished. The end of the Dala'iyya Sufi order/State had to wait until 1678 when a sultan from the Alawite dynasty named Moulay Ismail- probably the toughest sultan in this dynasty- defeated 87

Ahmad al-Dala'i (the grandson of the brotherhood's last chief Muhammad al hajji) in a battle that pushed him to remain at large until his mysterious death in 1680.

The Andalusian Muslims expelled from Spain between 1609 and 1614 settled in

Morocco to found the republic of Bu Ragrag, named after the river which divides two of their main cities Rabat and Sale. Soon, the latter became one of the most famous bases for piracy in the Atlantic Ocean giving a wide publicity to its corsairs. In the late 1620s the Andalusian Muslims established an alliance with a wholly warrior named al-'Ayyashi who was the opponent of the Saadian sultan. This Arab man began his career as a governor for the Saadian sultan Zaidan, where he used to attack the Spanish fort in the city of Mazagan until the latter persuaded the sultan that his governor was becoming a threat to him as well.

An army was sent by the sultan to remove al-'Ayyashi who went north to found an alliance with the Andalusian Moroccans. He was defeated and killed by the disciples of the Sufi Dila 'iyya in April 1641. His defeat allowed the Dala'iyya to occupy Sale and build a Berber state with a complete governing apparatus. In foreign affairs, the most intimate of the Dala'iyya relations was with the Dutch who "were ready to recognize the right of the Sale corsairs to attack the ships of their common Christian enemies, the

Spaniards, while obtaining the promise that their own ships would not be molested"

(Abun-Nasr 1971, 222). 88

The spiritual order as an institution that elects rulers: The case of the Jazouli order

The First Moroccan Sufi order is the Jazouli order, founded by Muhammad Ben

Slimane Jazouli. The Jazouli order was behind the advent of the Saadian dynasty in

Morocco, in the sense that it created a culture of Sharifism, which will become the basis for the Saadian legitimacy.

The Moroccan historian Ahmed Naciri wrote eloquently, in his famous treatise,

Kitab el istiqca, about the fear that the Saadian sultan Mohammed Cheikh el Mahdi had from the growing importance of Sufi orders which led him to wage a war without mercy against them: "In the year 958, the Sultan Cheikh orders a persecution operation against the heads of Sufi orders and all the people who aspired to become Sufi leaders because they threatened his emerging kingdom. The laity had, in fact, a great faith in these saints, and befriended them, paying attention to a minor signal from their part and taking as a sacred command the utterances of these saints as they were interpreted by them" (Naciri

Vol.5, 41, my translation). The persecution of the Sufi lodges by the Saadian sultan

Mohammed Cheikh was performed under the cover that some of their funds were remnants from the previous dynasty, the Merinid kingdom. The sultan ordered the Sufis to pay new taxes and closed some of their lodges such as the lodge of Moulay Abdullah el Kouch in Marrakech.

The Saadian sultan used then the Jazouli order to counteract the Qadiri order which was no more than a puppet of the Turkish establishment in Algeria and in Morocco

(Drague 1951, 64). In fact, Drague adds: "The Qadiri order, fought by the disciples of 89

the Chadili-Jazouli order and scorned by the Saadian princes because of their closeness to the Algerian Turks, did not create a new branch in Morocco" (1951, 77, my translation).

The Alawi dynasty (1666-present)

The Kattani order: The Sufi rebellious martyr (1853-1956)

The Kattaniyya started with its founder Abdelkebir Kattani at the end of the

nineteenth century. After the growth of this brotherhood which originated in the city of

Fez, the scientific capital of Morocco, the assembly of religious scholars in Fez asked

from the ruling monarch to stop its activities. Hence, a debate was organized by the

brotherhood's leader Abdelkebir Kattani and the scholars. Kattani won the debate and his

order regained more credibility. After this incident, Kattani led the campaign, along the

sides of the Sultan, against the dissident mystic Bouhmara. Mohamed Tozy divided

Kattani's life into three stages: Mahdism, cooperation with the regime and competition

with the regime over the symbolic capital (1983, 43). As a matter of fact, Kattani was

among the scholars who enthroned the Sultan Abdelhafid instead of his brother Abdul-

Aziz, and urged for constitutional reforms. When the king Abdelhafid took over, he did

not implement the reforms upon which the scholars had insisted. Kattani shifted then to

the opposition, and the king Abdelhafid used Salafi ideology as an excuse to kill Kattani

and shut down his brotherhood. This opposition between the sultan and the Sufi does not

represent an opposition between two ideologies (Salafism and Sufism) but a

confrontation between a Sufi order willing to use the Monarchy for constitutional

consolidation and resistance against colonialism on the one hand, and the regime with its 90

hegemonic expansion on the other (Tozy 1983, 379). Once I have given examples here

about how Sufi orders were not homogeneous in their interaction with the regime and/or their perpetuation of an authoritarian order, I will show how the Moroccan elite looked at

Sufi orders.

Muhammad bin Abdelkebir al-Kattani (1873-1909) was a prominent mystic who was born in Fez and he became sheikh of the Kattani order in Fez, Morocco. As the head

of a famous Sufi order, he was strategically situated as a member of the religious and political elite. His life shows how the Saint-Sultan relation is varied and dynamic. It can

go from a nice and peaceful alliance to a tumultuous and bloody confrontation. The good relations between the sultan and saint were present with the Kattani order since the king

Abdurrahman Alawi (1839-1856). The latter initiated the visitation of the tomb of a

famous Kattani saint, Moulay al-Tayyib ben Muhammad al-Kattani (d. 1838) where the

sultan would pray and offer a sheep as sacrifice. Under the Alawi sultan Muhammad Ben

Abdullah (1859-1873) financed the expansion of the building of the Kattani order.

Kattani's challenge to the sultan Abdelhafid in 1907 was different from his challenge to

the sultan Abdul-Aziz in 1896. In what follows, I will sketch the development of this

changing relationship.

Al-Kattani vs. Abdul-Aziz

Muhammad al-Kattani's holiness was expressed through frequent references to

the prophet of Islam as "my ancestor" in the same way as Abdessalam Yassine did in his

letter to the king in order to confer some legitimacy on his persona. Al-Kattani's 91

sainthood was also established through his experience of waking visions of the prophet of

Islam, which was a way of sanctifying the seer. This sanctification was based on the fact that the presence of the prophet Muhammad in dreams and visions is true based on the following hadith: "Whoever has seen me has seen me truly and Satan cannot impersonate me" (Lewis and Issawi 1992, 86).

Around 1894, the Jurists of Fez initiated an investigation against al-Kattani for telling his disciples that recitation of the litany of special prayers of his order would bring them closer to God than sixty recitations of the Quran (Bazzaz 2002, 74). This controversial statement is a familiar trope in Sufism since Ahmed Tijani also declared that one recitation of his prayer, Salat al Fatih, was better than six thousand recitations of the Quran. On June 30th 1896, al-Kattani was accused of harboring heretical ideas by the powerful chamberlain, and de facto ruler of Morocco, Ahmad Bin Musa who closed the

Kattani order in Fes and forbade the recitation of their special prayers for being doctrinally corrupt. This incident would later be known as the heresy crisis. One of the reasons why the chamberlain felt threatened by the saint al-Kattani is the fact that twenty years earlier, in 1873, an uprising known as the tanners' rebellion broke out in Fez under the approving eyes of the Kattani order. However, the chamberlain condemned al-Kattani for some unorthodox practices such as dancing, the use of instruments and other ecstatic activities. The sultan's decree of closing the Kattani order in the city of Fes only indicates that the Moroccan state was concerned about al Kattani's influence in Fez rather than its influence outside of that city. 92

The heresy crisis erupted in the city of Fez, and Muhammad al-Kattani fled to

Marrakesh where the sultan Abdul-Aziz had taken up residence. Al-Kattani had a meeting with the powerful minister Ahmad Bin Musa and the latter encouraged him to establish a zawiya in the city providing him with a royal property for that purpose. The invitation to be the guest of the sultan was not a genuine act of hospitality but rather a way to keep the saint under the watchful eye of the sultan. The fact that only the Kattani branch in Fez was closed while it was encouraged in Marrakesh proves that the Moroccan sultan was concerned about the influence of the saint in Fez. The Marrakesh sojourn started a ten years alliance between al-Kattani and the sultan Abdul-Aziz, and both parties benefited from this truce. From the perspective of the monarch, drawing on the

saint's growing spiritual authority meant bolstering its waning legitimacy. From the perspective of al-Kattani, showing up with the sultan meant elevating his status in the

eyes of his followers. This alliance involved military help as well since al-Kattani participated with the sultan in a harka (military campaign) against the Sharqawi Sufi

order in 1898 because the sultan believed that his presence in the battle would bring

Baraka for the army. The sultan also wanted to promote the Kattani order in the region

where the Sharqawi order was operating as a way of undermining the latter and breaking

its resistance to the authority of the monarch. Furthermore, when the rebellion of

Bouhmara rose in 1902, al-Kattani led a campaign against the rebellion and issued a

declaration against the rebel on the basis that the lack of allegiance to the sultan leads to

anarchy. 93

During the reign of Moulay Abdel Aziz (1894-1908) the scholars approved of everything the sultan initiated. One man challenged this trend courageously: Abdelkebir al-Kattani, who was seen as possessing the gift of Baraka. The other scholars tried to have him executed by the sultan because they accused him of heresy for having claimed to have direct contact with the Prophet Mohamed. They despised him because he personified the ideal religious scholar more than any of the other scholars. He was a Sufi who led a simple life, rejecting luxury and he moved into the political realm when he denounced Morocco's subjugation to Christians when France was preparing to colonize

Morocco. He complained of the mosques being empty, and blamed scholars for not attending prayers (al-Kattani, 1962, 38).

He dared to defy the sultan but changed his attitude and became his protege for several years during which he offered his advice and counsel to the court. In 1904 al-

Kattani was adamantly opposed to French attempts at reforms that would have given them control of Morocco's military and its economy. In 1906, he urged the sultan to reject the Algeciras Act, which would have given the Europeans more control of Morocco on the basis that it was an affront to the dignity of Islam. The use of religion by al-Kattani to argue against colonization provided a very effective way to draw support from Muslims.

It was through the king's system of patronage through donations to the Kattan order that the latter's influence increased. The sultan and the saint met in the town of Zerhoun near

Fez in May 1900 but after the European encroachment in Moroccan affairs, al-Kattani became militant and started distancing himself from sultan Abdul-Aziz. The sultan had 94

accepted previously Al-Kattani's request to attend his son's wedding ceremony in July

1905.

Another symptom of al-Kattani's influence was his conflict mediation. Hence, in

July 1902, a group of people seeking to meet the sultan for some problems presented themselves at the saint's feet asking him to speak on their behalf, which he did. By 1905, al-Kattani began to link himself with critics of the state who condemned the sultan

Abdul-Aziz for his weak position towards France.

The Sultan Abdul-Aziz and the clash with the 'Ulama

The famous anthropologist Edmund Burke argued that Muslim scholars in

Morocco represented a threat for the monarchy:

The Moroccan 'Ulama never occupied the formal positions of power that their Middle Eastern cousins enjoyed in the state apparatus. Their traditional privileges and immunities did give them a powerful set of vested interests which stood athwart the path of reform, and they were thus well placed to threaten governmental plans." (1976, 150)

One era in Moroccan politics where religious scholars were involved in the major political movements is the 1900-1912 period. Five historical moments will allow us to grasp this importance.

First, the French incursion into the Touat oasis in 1899-1900 along Morocco's eastern frontier with Algeria undermined the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of many

Moroccans especially when the 'Ulama of Fez responded harshly to the fall of part of

Moroccan Muslim land into the hands of a "Christian" power (France), and the inability 95

of their government to protect it. The anonymous author of the Halal al-Bahia voiced the position of most religious scholars in Fez vis-a-vis this Touat crisis. In fact, he said that a real sultan should have been ashamed to appeal to Christian powers. (Burke 1976, 45)

Second, there is the reaction of religious scholars to the regime's efforts to abolish the right of sanctuary in 1902. In fact, what became known as the "Cooper affair" took place in October 1902. Ignorant of the Arabic language and of Moroccan customs, the

British missionary David J. Cooper passed by the sanctuary of Moulay Idris, the founder of the city of Fez and a venerated saint. There, Cooper was killed by a tribesman who was appalled by the presence of a Christian man close to a holy shrine, an act that he saw as a desecration of a dear sanctuary. After the murder, the killer took refuge inside the shrine thus refusing to surrender. It is important to recall here the inviolability of the

Moroccan custom of horm which makes it imperative to grant "asylum" to all those who entered the shrine asking to be protected by its sanctity. The tribesman was convinced to come out of the sanctuary on condition that they let him explain himself in the presence of the man in charge of the shrine. After hearing the man's case, King Abd al-Aziz

(1894-1908) consulted with his advisors and convened that the man be killed as an example. The overseer of the shrine was present at the execution, and shortly after, many religious scholars of Fez voiced their opposition against the royal challenge to the sacredness of one of the holiest shrines in Morocco (Pinon 1904, 153-57). The "Cooper affair," coupled with other incidents by the sultan Abd al-Aziz such as when he showed up several hours late for Eid al adha, the Muslim feast of lamb sacrifice, produced more resentment toward Abd al-Aziz as a ruler since one cannot "imagine a sacrilege which 96

could have been a more direct challenge to traditional religious vested interests." (Burke

1976,61)

Third, there was a strong collective action on the part of the religious elite of Fez to challenge the French reforms of 1904-1905. In September 1904, high French officials met in Paris to discuss the program of reforms to be presented to Morocco's king Abd al-

Aziz the following year. In October of the same year, the Moroccan sultan convened many religious scholars of Fez to seek their advice concerning the French reform proposals. The scholars refused these proposals on the ground that they were attempts to interfere in Morocco's domestic affairs. Among the scholars, one could find Muhammad ben al-Kabir al-Kattani, the head of an important religious brotherhood, the Kattani order, and the religious scholars were pushed by the grand vizier Gharnit as a counterbalance to the pro-French faction within the royal court. In December, the king Abd al-Aziz requested afatwa (a formal Islamic ruling) from the religious scholars of Fez regarding the issue of relying on European advisors. The latter recommended the firing of all

European advisors while writing: "It seems to us that foreigners are the original cause of our misfortunes. It is to them that our decadence, our anarchy, our internal strife, the disappearance of our independence and our downfall must be imputed" (Affaires du

Maroc 1908, 141-43). On December 17, all European employees of the Moroccan government were let go. On December 22, a delegation of Moroccan religious scholars called upon the Moroccan sultan warning him not to intervene in this crisis and asking him to replace all foreign military instructors with Turks as well as to break Morocco's relations with France. 97

Fourth, the main role of the religious scholars in Moroccan history was the deposition of Sultan Abd al-Aziz in January 1908 in favor of his brother Abd al-Hafiz after a cold war between the two sultans, known as the crisis of 1907-1908. Upon the death of his regent Ba-Ahmad in 1900, the sultan Abd al-Aziz was only nineteen years old, and he tried his best to rule the country democratically and open it to modern technology even if the official image that Moroccans have of him is that of a careless king playing with the latest toys bought from abroad with the country's budget. When

Abd al-Aziz came to power, he appointed a new government geared towards reform. He appointed Muhammad Gharnit, an official of Andalusian descent, grand vizier and al

Mahdi al Munabbhi the minister of war who counted among his friends many British politicians. In June and July 1901, the Moroccan king Abd al-Aziz dispatched to Europe two diplomatic missions to seek financial backing for his reforms. While al Mahdi al

Munabbhi, who headed one of the missions, was in London and Berlin, the anti-reform movement in the royal court, headed by Gharnit, tried to persuade the king to abandon the reform program. These efforts did not succeed as a new Council for reform was constituted by the king two months after al Munabbhi's return.

The reform program backed by the Moroccan sultan Abd al-Aziz had two parts.

The first one was the substitution of the tartib, a new tax on agriculture and livestock, for the old Islamic taxes. The traditional taxes (Ushr and Zakat) were abolished and an assessment, by financial officials, of individual property was made to determine the amount of tax to pay. The purpose of such a reform was to cut down on rural rebellion by eliminating its main cause, tax-gouging. The second part of the reform plan was the 98

prevention of the abuses of the rural qaids (governors of cities or tribes) in tax collection through the appointment of public agents who would serve under them. Under this reform, governors were forbidden from according tax exemptions to some groups like religious brotherhoods or sharifs (descendants of the prophet Muhammad). On August 18

1907, after Sultan Abd al-Aziz and his brother, the pretender to the throne Moulay Abd al-Hafiz started fighting for power, the former caused the religious scholars of Fez to issue a fatwa in which they recognized him as the legitimate king of Morocco and denounced the plots of his brother {Affaires du Maroc 1908, 34-35). The text of the formal allegiance of Abd al-Hafiz was signed by the religious scholars of the city of

Marrakech on September 4th 1907. On December 30 of the same year, Idris al-Fasi (we find always this family name intertwined with major decisions in Moroccan history) was sent with a secret message from king Abd al-Aziz to the religious scholars of Fez. After the rumor spread that the message was a request to the Ulama to issue a fatwa allowing the sultan to contract another foreign loan, the envoy was surrounded by an angry mob commanding him to read publicly the letter. Religious scholars accompanied the twenty thousand people crowd to the Qarawiyin mosque showing them the letter that turned out to be no more than a thank you note from king Abd al-Aziz to the religious noblemen of

Fez. The angry populace asked the religious scholars then if sultan Abd al-Aziz was fit to rule Morocco, a question that waited one day before finding an answer. The chief judge of Fez pronounced the unanimous verdict of the religious scholars of Fez in front of

40000 people: "This man, Abd al-Aziz, must be deposed right away" {Affaires du Maroc

1908, 36). The formal proclamation {bay 'a) of Abdelhafid took place at the Moulay

Driss shrine (like the proclamation of Mohammed VI in modern Morocco) on January 3 99

1908. It was a conditional proclamation summoning the new sultan to restore the practice of Islam and cooperate with Muslim powers such as the Ottoman Empire. Abdelhafid

"rejected the conditional bay 'a by which the Ulama at Fez had proclaimed him sultan, and demanded one without conditions attached." (Burke 1976, 121) Once in power, King

Abdelhafid kept some officials who were serving his brother but instituted many changes to appease his demanding subjects. For example, the grave of Abd al-Aziz's foreign minister Ibn Suleiman (who died poisoned in 1909) was profaned and his head was hung over one of the gates of the city of Fez to deter any potential collaborators with the

Christians.

Fifth, the religious scholars gave their support to the resistance movement of the

Sahara-born charismatic leader El Hiba, the son of another religious leader, in Southern

Morocco and it is the opposition of the religious scholars of Marrakech (a famous

Moroccan city) to this movement that led to its eventual defeat. El Hiba is a famous

Moroccan resistance figure who inherited land territories from his father Ma al-Aynayn ibn Muhammad Fadil who had been received at the court of the Moroccan king Moulay

al-Hassan as a thank you note for his resistance activities against the French colonizer in

Southern Morocco, and who died in October 1910 as a legend.

Ma al-Aynayn made several visits to the royal court and lodges of his Sufi brotherhood, the Aynayniya, were opened at Marrakech and Fez. "One of the claims of

legitimacy which Abd al-Aziz retained to the end of his reign was his support of resistance in the South" (Burke 1976, 48). El Hiba started a radical Islamic resistance movement against the French in Southern Morocco, and soon reports of his miracles 100

(karamat) started spreading such as the turning of his enemies into frogs. He "was reported to have the power to turn cannon shells into watermelons" and "he could give out an endless supply of grain from the same sack" (Burke 1976, 200). El Hiba had himself proclaimed Sultan and he introduced a Saharan coinage instead of the official

Moroccan currency. As a puritan, he "insisted that all unmarried women should marry his men" since celibacy was not allowed in Islam (Burke 1976, 205).

As we have seen from these five examples, the Moroccan elite were segmented into patron-client networks and kin groups and this landscape prevented the emergence of a unified action. Moreover, there was a pervasive influence of the religious scholars and the Moroccan state was grounded on Islamic legitimacy, and it had to take this parameter into account if it were to last. Furthermore, the encroachment of the Moroccan state on traditional privileges aroused a concern that manifested as Jihad. The latter, taken to its radical meaning, proved to be useful for the ascension of sultan Abdelhafid and provided a legitimate excuse for rebellion against his brother.

The main beneficiary of this challenge between the religious scholars and king

Abdul-Aziz was the sultan's brother Moulay Abdelhafid who denounced his brother's acceptance of French control of several ports of the country and argued that as a descendant of the prophet he was very saddened by this state of affairs and urged his audience to choose him as the "sultan of the holy war" instead of his ruling brother. A resolution to depose Moulay Abdel Aziz and a bayaa to the new sultan was drafted and circulated. The proceedings to unseat Moulay Abdel Aziz took place in Marrakech and were orchestrated by the powerful mayors of the region who resorted to force to obtain 101

signatures for the allegiance from many reluctant scholars. In Fez, those who signed the contract were subjected to the same pressure by the urban poor, peasants and artisans who revolted against a market tax imposed by Moulay Abdel Aziz (Burke 1976, 108).

After Abdel Aziz's departure to Rabat and while preparations were still under way in

Marrakech for the new sultan to assume power in 1908, al-Kattani remained in Fez where he acquired considerable but ephemeral power. He received the support of some representatives of different neighborhoods in the city. The religious scholar formed a revolutionary committee and undertook several initiatives before the arrival of Moulay

Abdelhafid. When the new sultan arrived in Fez, his relations with al-Kattani became increasingly tense due to al-Kattani's role in the drafting of the allegiance text. The latter included several explicit conditions restraining the sultan's authority, which was objected to by some scholars.

In 1907, as tension increased over the European intervention in Moroccan affairs, al-Kattani became identified with the movement to overthrow the ruling Alawi Sultan

Abdul-Aziz in favor of his brother Abdelhafid for the former's heavy handed behavior and luxurious spending as well as his submission to colonial powers. The bay 'a

(allegiance) of the sultan Abdelhafid included fourteen conditions to be respected by the incoming sultan such as returning the territories seized by France, rescinding special taxes, termination of foreign advisors, consulting with the people in political matters, and protection of the rights of the Sharif. These conditions came to be known as the Kattani conditions because al-Kattani was a driving force behind their inclusion. Soon after his 102

appointment, Abdelhafid re-implemented the gate tax (maks) to avoid bankruptcy, running against one of the conditions of his allegiance.

The new sultan proved unable to thwart the French presence as he promised he would before he sat on the throne. Al-Kattani was an ally of the Alawi Sultan Abdelhafid in the latter's uprising against his brother the sultan Abdul-Aziz, but when Abdelhafid became the Moroccan king and started not delivering on his promises tension arose between the saint and the sultan. The latter started undermining al-Kattani's power by criticizing him on the basis of his esoteric ideas and Sufi practices such as dancing and playing musical instruments. Abdelhafid began also imprisoning followers of al-Kattani so the latter left the city of Fez heading towards the tribal lands of Ait Ndir to ask for protection. On his way, he was overtaken by some tribesmen who marched him back to

Fez not without humiliating him as we will see below.

The Sultan Abdelhafid and the clash with the Sufis

The Moroccan sultan Abdul-Aziz ruled Morocco from 1894 to 1908. Until 1900, because of the sultan's young age, the real ruler was his regent the grand vizier Ahmad ibn Musa known as Ba Ahmad. The latter followed a policy of "gradual weakening of the zawiya-s as loci of regional power" (Burke 1976, 43). Curbing the temporal powers of religious brotherhoods took the shape of attacking their privileges such as their rights to own vast pieces of land or their entitlement to granting sanctuary (horm) to those convicted of a crime (Doute 1914, 348). The Moroccan king Abd al-Hafiz was born in

1876 and when he grew up he studied religious science under the charismatic saint Ma al- 103

Aynayn in 1904 that "preached the need to purify the religion of Islam and advocated the unification of Sufi brotherhoods (Paquignon 1909, 125-28). After becoming a sultan, he recalled the "Moroccan Abduh" Abu Shu'ayb al-Dukkali, the father of the modern Salafi movement in Morocco, from his exile in Medina (Saudi Arabia) to become a member of the Royal Learned Council. Influenced by Salafism, Abd al-Haflz wrote one book in which he attacked the Tijaniyya Sufi brotherhood (Abun-Nasr 1971, 97-98).

In May 1906, the king Abdelhafid started a series of talks with Abu 'Azzawi, the head of a spiritual religious brotherhood in Central Morocco known for its resistance against the French troops. Despite his Salafi doctrine, Abdelhafid did not break with the

Moroccan Sufi tradition when he became Sultan. In 1907, he made the pilgrimage to the religious brotherhood of Tamesloht in the Atlas Mountains and on his return he visited the shrine of another saint Sidi Bel Abbes. "By these acts he further solidified his religious legitimacy in the eyes of the tribes" (Burke 1976, 107). Sultan Abdelhafid

"must be rated the first Moroccan sultan to make serious efforts to implement Salafiya doctrines" (Burke 1976, 135). He saw the religious brotherhoods as being divisive and he was convinced of their negative effect on the country.

Abdelhafid has shaken the custom of ruling in Morocco in two important sociological ways: altering the social fabric of the elite by playing on the Arab/Berber divide and using radical discourses. In fact, the first government composed by Abdelhafid once in power is worthy of mentioning because it had reversed the social composition of the state apparatus from Arab urban families of Northern Morocco to Berber chieftains of the High Atlas region the South. Rather than going for Arab bureaucrats, the Moroccan 104

sultan based his new government upon semi-feudal non Arab leaders. The minister of foreign affairs was Omar al-Abdi even if the real mastermind of foreign affairs was his principal secretary Abdullah al-Fasi (Arnaud 1952, 245). Even if customary wisdom dictated that the kings maintain a balance of power, Abdelhafid breached this customary law in many instances. First, he appointed religious imams as chaplains in the Moroccan army. Second, he "asked" the Moroccan Jewish community to provide forced labor to the

Moroccan state (Burke 1976, 138). Third, he publicly recited some of his anti-French poems which were added to the curriculum of the traditional schools in Fez {Affaires du

Maroc 1908, 55). Fourth, even when he abdicated and was replaced by Sultan Yousef, he continued to go against formal protocol since he was profligately consuming fine wines and the French colonizer "arranged a series of wine-tasting parties, drawing on the stocks of the French crusier Du Chayla" (Saint-Aulaire 1953, 251 -63).

Abdelhafid showed hi s anti-Sufi position in the blow he dealt to his captive Al-

Kattani, mentioned in detail in the previous section. The latter was brought to the palace in 1909 where he was abducted and viciously beaten to death and his Zawiya was closed.

His body was put in an unmarked grave and his disciples did not know the whereabouts of his body in the hope that the memory of his saintly authority would fade away. After

1912, Abdelhafid was forced to abdicate the throne. Muhammad al-Kattani's brother led the Kattani order in the colonial time and cooperated with the French which used him for military pacification of the resistance tribes and as a counter-balance to the monarch, an act that tarnished the name of the order for generations to come. Abdelhafid's conflict with the saint was grounded in the king's efforts to stop the expansion of the Kattani 105

order as a political movement. This clash was interpreted by the French ethnologist

Everiste Michaux-Bellaire, in an article published in 1908, as a confrontation between two Sharif lineages, one Alawi and one Idrissi. According to Michaux-Bellaire, al-

Kattani was trying to overthrow the sultan and establish the Idrissi imamate. Since the

18l century, Moroccan politics has been defined by a legitimacy to rule predicated on prophetic descent, but the death of Muhammad al-Kattani and the abdication of the

sultan Abdelhafid heralded the end of an alliance between Sufi-saints and sultans in

Morocco.

Conclusion

According to Spadola (2007), one of the main themes of post-1930 nationalist

reformism in Morocco was an obsession with the power of Sufi ecstatic rites that could

link the Moroccan urban under-classes and compel attention from the colonial state. In

this regard, Spadola advises, "Just as new reformists sought to use technologies of mass

communication, including the newspaper and camera, to speak to and for 'the People,'

they chafed at the global renown these same media lent to public Sufi spectacles" (2007,

119). Based on his analysis of Moroccan print media in 1930s Fez, Spadola suggests that

anti-Sufi critiques were neither doctrinal nor anti-colonial; new reformists aimed, rather,

to domesticate the popular force of ritual and their power to speak for the nation (Spadola

2007, 119). The main point of this chapter is that Sufis come in different shapes and

colors. At times, they are pro-government and at other times their political activism leads

them to rebel against the state. They fight among each other like any other movement 106

seeking power and popularity. Even if many Sufi orders claim that they are not politicized, what this chapter shows is that one finds political motives behind every historical move of the Sufis whether they cooperateed with the sultans or they fought them.

The saints cooperated with the sultan when the latter offered them economic help such as gifts and tax exemptions. Moreover, when Sufis appear docile politically they operate their rebellion in more invisible ways. For instance, the Gnaoua Sufi order sends its disciples to haunt the ladies of the harem of the palace. This trope of the slave haunting the ladies of the harem was a popular discourse of power in pre-modern

Morocco. Misunderstanding sometimes pushed saints to appear rebellious when in fact they were just following Islamic law. For example, when the head of the Naciri order refused to read the prayer in the name of the sultan he did so for legal reasons: He considered pronouncing the name of the sultan in a prayer heretical. Another instance of cooperation between the saint and the sultan is when the latter intervenes in disputes over succession in the leadership of the Sufi order. Such was the case of the Darqawi order that witnessed the mediation of the king to solve its disputes.

The Saints clash with the sultans when there is a lack of central power and saints aspire to become states such as was the case of the Dila'iyya order which was destroyed in 1678 by the Alawi dynasty after being a state for a long time. In other instances, the

Sufis rebelled against political authorities for their support of a foreign occupier such as the case of the head of the Kattani order who fought the king Abdelhafid after helping him dethrone his brother because the new king did not respect his engagement to fight 107

French colonialism. Another problem between saints and sultans is the position on Sufi doctrines. When the Almoravid sultan publicly destroyed the book of the mystic Ghazali, the Sufi head of Ribat Tit refused to appear before the sultan who invited him as a sign of protest. However, he sent him donations and the fog was ultimately cleared between the two.

No matter how the relation between the Sufi and the Sultan is, the history and the reality showed and will show us that there will always be a relation. A relation that started during the Almoravid dynasty and that cannot be ceased, but only built upon. CHAPTER FOUR

THE MOROCCAN SULTAN: ADLI OR BOUTCHICHI?

The religious field in Morocco is composed of several actors, characterized by the multiplicity of actors: the King, the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Islamic parties, independent scholars, preachers, mystical brotherhoods, and Islamic state institutes and schools. The major task in this chapter is to analyze how the Boutchichi order and AWI interact with these different religious actors, but also to show, at a surface level, how the

Moroccan monarchy borrows Sufi tactics and symbols for religious legitimization. The conclusion of this chapter is that the Boutchichi order helps the Moroccan order to become a "mystic regime" meanwhile AWI represents the Sufi rebel. This conclusion, as will be shown in the following chapters, does not stand scrutiny when Sufi repertoires become the registers that we use to locate political contention between the sultan and the saint.

Moroccan religious policy is mainly structured around the goal of integrating religion into the structure of the state. The Ministry of Religious Affairs functions as the intermediary actor in the process of integration. According to the scholar Mohamed

Darif, Morocco's religious field revolves around three cornerstones: the field of arbitration, which operates mainly in rural areas aiming to produce intermediaries; the field of Commander of the Faithful aiming to eliminate intermediaries between the king and his subjects; and the field of monarchy centered on urban areas (Darif 1987, N. 2).

108 109

In fact, in his book Culture and Counterculture in Moroccan Politics (1996), John

Entelis examined the dynamics of culture and counterculture in Islamism and the monarchy, which constitute two of the four "cultural strands" in his analysis of Moroccan politics. The other cultural strands that, according to Entelis, characterize Moroccan politics are militarism and modernism. After this introduction, the author examined the country's political culture by identifying what he refers to as a "Muslim consensus," which comprises Islam,

Arabism, and Moroccan nationalism, with the monarchy constituting a fourth element.

Entelis discussed Moroccan political culture using many approaches: Moroccan personality, primordialism, Islam and additional sub-cultures. The main thrust of his analysis is that the Moroccan monarchy has managed to survive thus far for two reasons.

First, it is the only institution that embodies the three pillars of the Muslim consensus:

Islam, Arabism, and Moroccan nationalism. Second, the Moroccan regime, under Hassan II, has astutely followed a policy of incremental democratization and adaptive modernization.

The Moroccan monarchy seems to be relying for its religious legitimacy on the

Boutchichi order, a strictly urban movement, unlike Hassan II who relied on rural notables according to the French political scientist Remy Leveau's book Le Fellah marocain defenseur du trone (1985). His main argument is that the monarchy's power came from its alliance with rural notables, the Moroccan elite. According to Leveau, the elite members rather than urban bureaucrats were appointed as local representatives. In

Mohammed VFs Morocco, The Boutchichi order became the defender of the throne. 110

Survey presentation

The sampling method that I followed in my survey was purposive sampling in the sense that for the sake of my dissertation, the sample population (N = 634) is a subset of a general population (the number of disciples of these two movements each estimated to be

15,000 member). This sampling method is used in my case because it is a case study of two organizations. However, I used both probability and non probability sampling for my project. The sample has four categories that were equally and randomly represented:

Disciples of Yassine, Disciples of Hamza, people living outside Morocco, and males or females.

The sample does not fail the second non-probability sampling method: quota sampling. The latter sets quotas to ensure that the sample really represents certain characteristics prevalent in the population. The characteristics of the sample population are representative of the quotas for gender and age, education. One of the shortcomings here is that there is always a certain bias in selecting quotas and subcategories within these quotas. I partially used the simple random sampling in my survey, where the probability of selection was the same for every individual.

Since there was no available list of all the disciples in my statistical population, and it would have been simply impossible to construct such a list, my sampling units also used cluster sampling with respect to the group Z defined as an entity of people having all the following characteristics: "disciples of Yassine or Hamza, people living inside and outside Morocco, and non leaders." For some disciples, I sent an email to the country and Ill

city organizers of both groups, asking them to randomly select a sample that they think is geographically representative within each country or region. I received ninety five answers from the following countries: France (20), Finland (1), The UK (10), Spain (10),

Belgium (20), USA (20), Mali (3), Saudi Arabia (3), Canada (4) and Germany (4). I am aware that this method is less accurate than the other methods in the sense that my parameters will have greater variability than the previous samples, but that was my only way of covering that wide physical spectrum. The methodology employed here is also that of availability sampling, because it is a sampling method dictated by convenience and possibility. Although widely used, the primary problem with this method is that one cannot know for sure never what population is being represented. For the female respondents in my sample, I had to use snowball sampling due to access difficulty especially when some tongues already started seeing in my sampling a prelude for dating.

Hence, I spoke to one member and asked her to identify others in the population that I could speak to in order to be referred again to another person, and so on. This method proved useful for group membership applications in terms of gender. A pattern of conservatism towards women emerged due to this separation between women and men.

The sample was homogeneous as one can see from the results of the survey, and that allowed me to reduce the bias. 112

Data analysis

The data analysis will have to main parts. Part one is the data diagnostic: I will find out the pertinence of the data; which variables are important and which one are irrelevant. To do so, I will use Factor Analysis techniques. The second part will be for finding results and conclusions from the data.

Data reduction

The objective of this part is to find out which are the variables that did not bring any information to the model. Those variables are even irrelevant or redundant. The initial model contains 65 independent variables which are considered a very high number.

One way to reduce the number of variables is to perform a factor analysis. Using SPSS, I found 5 principal components with an Eigen value greater than 2.

The five principal components explain 75.2% of the data variation.

Component 1^39 variables

Component 2^4 variables

Component 3^3 variables

Component 4^2 variables

Component 5^2 variables 113

TABLE 1: Total variance

N Initial Eigen values Extraction Sums of Squared

Total % of Variance Cumulative % Total % of Variance Cumul

1 39.539 59.013 59.013 39.539 59.013 59.013

2 4.145 6.187 65.200 4.145 6.187 65.200

3 2.546 3.800 68.999 2.546 3.800 68.999

4 2.167 3.234 72.233 2.167 3.234 72.233

5 2.012 3.003 75.236 2.012 3.003 75.236

6 1.684 2.514 77.750

7 1.490 2.224 79.973

8 1.091 1.629 81.602

9 .988 1.475 83.077

47 .021 .031 99.898

48 .016 .024 99.922

49 .013 .020 99.942

50 .012 .018 99.960

63 -2.65E-016 -3.96E-016 100.000

64 -4.52E-016 -6.75E-016 100.000

65 -7.68E-016 -1.15E-015 100.000

The factor analysis reduced the number of variables to fifty variables. The variables that have the smallest weight were eliminated. As mentioned before, those variables were either irrelevant or redundant. The methodology consisted of determining 114

the variables that best described the component that had the smallest number of variables.

Factor 5 (Appendix B)

• According to you, Why is the movement AWI popular?

• According to you, among these celebrities, what is the person that follows most

justly democratic practices in their environment?

Factor 4

• Do you believe that your leader/sheikh will intercede for you in Judgment day?

• Do you believe that your leader/sheikh is the saint of saints (moul Iwaqf)!

Factor 3

• Are you still in touch with some ex-members of your group?

• Do you discuss problems related to the management and the leadership of your

group with people who are external to the group?

• The leader/sheikh of your group is: available for the rich, for the poor

Factor 2

• Do your parents also belong to your group?

• Can you cite three paranormal powers of your leader/sheikh?

• Do your children also belong to your group?

• Do you have a leadership position in your spiritual group?

Factor 1

Factor 1 has 39 variables. 115

The table below has the 14 superfluous variables.

TABLE 2: Superfluous variables (See appendix B)

Choose one of these Moroccan feminine celebrities: Fatima Mernissi, Nadia Yassine, Hanan Fadili, Saida Mnebhi.

According to you, the leader of a Sufi order of a religious movement can be a woman: Yes, No, it depends.

Do you think that we need to disobey a country's law if we deem that it is unjust?

How often do you see mystic dreams?

Since you joined your group, how many new members have you recruited?

According to you, Should the movie «Marock» have been forbidden in Moroccan cinemas?

Most members of your group are:

The activities inside your group are:

Do you think that homosexuals have the right to express freely their ideas in Morocco?

[How do you best define yourself?

[What was the highest degree of education of your mother/provider?

How often do you pray?

[According to you, political parties in the Moroccan scene need to have:

[According to you, Why is the Boutchichi movement popular? 116

In general, the factor analysis gives us what factors are important and what others are not. It does not give us degrees of importance. Factor 5 and other factors are important, as opposed to what I called the non important and redundant factors. Factor analysis discerns the order and regularity in phenomena. It was invented by psychologist

Charles Spearman a hundred years ago. It argued that all the tests of mental ability could be explained by one underlying factor called "g" (general intelligence). If g could be measured and there was a subpopulation of people with the same g score, g was the only factor common to all the measures of mental ability. The purpose of factor analysis is to discover if the observed variables can be explained largely by a smaller number of variables known as factors. Factor analysis tries to answer four questions: How many different factors will explain the pattern of relationships among our variables? What is their nature? How well do they explain the observed data? How much purely random variance is included by each observed variable?

I enhanced my understanding of the patterns defined by factor analysis through using a geometric model. I followed a configuration of points rather than vectors because it was simple for me, and it helped me clarify how factor loadings define a pattern of relationships as well as the association of each characteristic with this pattern. I have also used an Algebraic model to connect, through a mathematical function f(x, z), one variable, y, with the set of variables x and z. Factor analysis determines the f functions.

The size of each loading that emerges from a factor analysis measures how much that

specific function is related to y. 117

To perform the statistical analysis, I will use the group belonging (Adli or

Boutchichi) as a comparison variable. Thus, I will try to find out the behavior's differences between those two movements. To do so, I will use correlation analysis to

find out if there is a correlation between a certain variable and the group belonging.

Another technique I will be using is the percentage of responses. This technique will be used more for variables that have multiple dimensions and therefore it is hard to obtain

significant correlation.

Survey general results

634 persons took the survey in three different languages (Arabic, English, and

French). All the answers were collected together and computed into the SPSS software to

provide us with the results. Volunteers took the survey either via the website that I

designed or on paper. All the results were collected and put on the survey software to

compute the results.

People living in more than 10 countries (Morocco, United States, France, Canada, Saudi

Arabia...) and with different mother tongues (Arabic, English, Tamazight,) took the

survey. Following the general results from the survey takers:

• 65% of the people belong to the Boutchichi movement, 30% are with AWI and

5% are part of other movement.

• About 1/3 of the takers were Female ( 35 % Female and 65% Male)

• Age Distribution 118

TABLE 3: Age distribution

Age Percentage

24-30 12.82%

31-36 28.21%

37-43 25.64%

44-55 17.95%

56-70 15.38%

• Survey takers are very well educated: About 88% of the people have a B.A. or a

higher degree. The majority holds a pretty good position in various industries.

• 80 % of the takers claim that they have a comfortable economic situation.

Participants from Oustside Morocco

• Boudchichi aAdti

m •si u

flH •

^ ^ •y / ^ >

FIGURE 1: Participation from outside Morocco 119

Boutchichis

• Male • Female

70*

FIGURE 2: Boutchichi gender distribution

TABLE 4: Boutchichi age distribution

Age Percentage

24-30 14.81%

31-36 25.93%

37-43 14.81%

44-55 22.22%

56-70 22.22%

• Regarding the economic situation, 90% of the survey takers are in a good

economic situation (either middle, well or very well). 120

• Over 80% have at least high school diploma

The recruits of the Boutchichi order come from different backgrounds and

classes as my survey shows, and this heterogeneity stems from the fact that each

subgroup of the order recruits different types of followers (Latkin 1987; Palmer

1994). However, the recruits share several characteristics: they are disproportionately

young, better educated than the other groups except in religious matters, and tend to

come from the middle and upper classes. Wilson and Dobbelaere explain the presence

of well-educated people in the new religious movements (NRM) by the following

reasons: "To be properly understood, the teachings [of most NRMs] demand literate

intelligence, a willingness to study, and lack of fear in the face of unfamiliar concepts

and language" (1994, 123).

It is A Gift Of Boutchichi Popularity Because of the God support of the 4% The Moroccan West monarchy is 4% behind it 18%

lti$a

' *& '. '* V , networking it$$j»atc$up society for its members •' o^reWonSyf . 37% 30* * It is Moroccan Islam 7%

FIGURE 3: Boutchichi popularity (in general) Boutchichi Popularity "on Adlis Eyes"

FIGURE 4: Boutchichi popularity according to Adlis

Adlis

• Male 1 Female

FIGURE 5: Adli participants gender distribution 122

TABLE 5: Adli age distribution

Age Percentage

24-30 6.25%

31-36 25.00%

37-43 37.50%

44-55 18.75%

56-70 12.50%

The economic situation for both groups is quite similar. More than 80% of the Adlis have

a comfortable financial situation. The Adlis are less educated than the Boutchichi members. 70% of the surveyed people have a high school diploma or more.

This survey shows that it is not always the case that mobilization by religious

groups is a matter of the middle class. Both movements tend to recruit along the class

continuum. What the figure does not show is that in the Boutchichi movement, economic

poverty is not well seen and is not an incentive to mobilize. In fact, there is a narrative in

the order not to focus a lot on poor people. One of my informants told me: "You are in

the United States. Always bring to the gathering affluent white people. No Blacks. No

Blacks." One can interpret this trend as a desire of the movement to target a rich market

(a phenomenon I explore in the following chapter when I talk about the saint 'wearing

Prada') but one can also see it as an embodiment of the story in Prophet Muhammad's

life when a blind wretched man came to see him but the prophet did not give him much

time because he was so busy with the elite of his tribe. Following this episode, a verse of

the Koran was revealed to him, reprimanding him for ignoring the blind poor man. Adli Popularity

It is a ';',:. •*'••!. •/, networking ' > JUS&Gift Of ' society for its *;.'- JSod. members ^ X$$Z% 50% e* ••&&..- • i

Because of the v*" ,..' . _support of the — West 8%

FIGURE 6: Adli popularity (in general)

Adli Popularity "In Boutchichi Eyes"

Because of the The Moroccan. It is A gift of God .support of the monarchy is 4% West behind it 4% 18%

ll is J networking ll speaks up society for its jRdinst munhrrc oppression 37% 30%

_lt is Moroccan Isiam 7%

FIGURE 7: Adli popularity according to the Boutchichis 124

Members of both groups believe the main reason to join the movement is its networking opportunity. The Adlis believe that their movement is popular because it is a networking society where one is not praying alone in Morocco than as a gift of God, a choice that reflects the internal struggle within the movement between mystic tendencies and political ones. In the Boutchichi eyes, Adlis are popular because it is a networking society as well followed by the fact that it speaks up against oppression, which runs against the stereotype that Boutchichi members are against AWI in the same way Satan is opposed to a saint.

On the other hand, the Boutchichi members believe that their group is popular because it is a networking society. However, according to AWI members, the Boutchichi order's popularity stems from the backing of the monarchy and not from its internal power. Moreover, the dimension of Moroccan Islam is present with the Boutchichi respondents and absent with the Adlis meanwhile that of the western support is surprisingly present with Adlis and not Boutchichi members. 4% of respondents from the

Boutchichi order think AWI is supported by the west in order to attack Sufi values, while

24% of AWI members think the Boutchichi order is popular because it spreads a

Moroccan version of Islam.

RELIGIOUS PRACTICES

In the Following table, I summarized the questions that reflect the religious practices among the members asked on the survey. This table shows the correlation that exists between the variables. TABLE 6: Religious practices correlation

Praying Relation In the With Alcohol Belongings Praying Mosque Women Behavior

Belongings 1.00

Praying -0.31 1.00

Praying In the Mosque -0.09 0.35 1.00

Relation With Women 0.30 -0.15 -0.13 1.00

Alcohol Behavior 0.28 -0.73 -0.30 0.11 1.00

Drug Usage 0.23 -0.50 -0.18 0.01 0.56

Beard Within The Group -0.94 0.33 0.04 -0.18 -0.30

Veil in the Group -0.80 0.39 0.08 -0.13 -0.36

Dhikr -0.24 0.42 0.28 -0.01 -0.22

Koran Reading 0.02 0.21 0.59 0.09 -0.15 126

There is a strong correlation between "to which group do you belong" and the

"Beard wearing inside the group". For those two variables, r2= (-.942) = .8836=88.36%.

This means that the two variables have 88% common variation which reflects a strong correlation between these two variables. In plain English, people from AWI tend to wear beards more than Boutchichi members. In general, religiosity tends to manifest more in the ranks of AWI than in those of the Boutchichi members. The veil wearing has a significant correlation with the group. For example, women that are in AWI tend to wear more the veil than women who are part of the Boutchichi group.

Regarding the praying practices, there is no big correlation. However, the

Boutchichi followers tend to pray less than the "Adlis." The weak religious knowledge of the affiliates of the Boutchichi order echoes a theory advanced by Stark and Bainbridge in other settings: "Church membership and membership in a conservative denomination

are preventives against cultism. The unchurched and those affiliated with the more

secularized denominations are more open to cult involvement." (1985, 400) Hence, the

fact that the Sufi order is constructed in parallel, and at times in opposition, to mosques makes it normal that Sufi disciples do not make it a priority to engage in orthodox Islamic learning. My own research seems to support this: The majority of western Boutchichi

converts I interviewed possessed a negative identity. They joined the order escaping from

a certain situation. One western young girl joined the Boutchichi order to assuage her

guilt about her alcoholic parents, an identity she wanted to erase and forget:

I was unable to open letters from home because of the guilt they stimulated and then Sidi Hamza appeared to me and I did not have to open any letters from him as he started advising me frequently in my dreams. 127

Sidi Jacques, a middle-aged baker who found "light" upon joining the Boutchichi circle, possessed an even more black and white streak than the previously cited young girl. He gradually moved from Catholicism, Marxism and Zen to Sufism. One of his

friends told me: "This baker had strong susceptibility to guilt and confusion of identity

each time he was moving from one faith to the other. Sometimes he thought of himself as

a generous Robin Hood and at times he was a little self-deprecating servant." Sidi Khalid,

a forty-five year-old intellectual in France, offers another reason for his membership in the group in his interview with him:

When I started looking for an Islamic community, I was struck by the rigid laws governing some mosque attendants and when I came to the Boutchichi zawiya, not ready to let go of my Parisian wining and dining habits, I was happy to see that spiritual intoxication was not seen as contradictory to grape intoxication.

The explanation given by Khalid echoes the fact that religious practice, as

understood by the Boutchichi order, takes the form of ambiguous continua rather than

sharp polarities. Disciples with unconscious guilt tend to possess a "negative external

conscience" that renders them prone to transferring responsibility for their beliefs and

actions to authoritarian hierarchies legitimated by absolutist ideologies, and to the

projection of anger and guilt onto demonized out-groups. As Max Weber (1946) notes,

all historical religions that are based on the concept of being saved have a notion of a

false natural self, a self the convert must transcend to gain a new self, which embodies

values that challenge legalistic rationality. Many conceptualizations of the stages of

religious evolution in the world have highlighted the accentuation of individual autonomy

in a milieu pervaded by anomie and dissolution of institutionalized cultural patterns 128

(Bellah, 1999; Weber, 1946). Some of the reform movements that emerged during the

transition to capitalist modernity have been called "religions of the heart" and focused on

inner spiritual growth (Campbell, 1991). It is no coincidence that the Boutchichi recruiters refer to their order in that way and consider love an important conduit for

knowledge. Sidi Hamza always stresses the love of the disciple for his master as a way of

learning from him.

Gender analysis

Table 7: Gender issues in AWI and the Boutchichi order Single Working Women Women Group Polygamy Inheritance V.s. No Leader V.s. Working Married

Group 1.00

Polygamy 0.13 1.00

Inheritance 0.35 -0.12 1.00

Working V.s. No Working -0.33 0.09 -0.30 1.00

Women Leader 0.43 -0.06 0.34 -0.23 1.00

Single Women V.s. Married -0.33 0.08 -0.21 0.14 -0.23 1.00

There is a correlation between the belonging to a movement and the perception of

women. The Boutchichi order is more receptive to the idea of women as leader of Sufi 129

movement than AWI. This can be understood in light of the battle of succession within

AWI and the clans against Nadia Yassine. The Boutchichi order is also more open to the idea of equality between women and men in terms of inheritance. Yet this finding is odd because women do not inherit at all in the Boutchichi order, not even what their due is.

When one analyzes the qualitative data, the Boutchichi order seems more misogynistic than the survey shows, which is at odds with the new monarch's attempts to

give women their rights. An important area of King Mohammed VI's reforms is the area

of gender rights. For example, the proposal of The National Action Plan for Integrating

Women in Development caused a heated debate. This plan recommended a ban on

polygamy, granting women half of their husbands' wealth in the event of divorce or

death, and raising the legal minimum age for marriage from 14 to 18 years. The right

wing parties and Islamists strongly opposed this plan. On March 12, 2000, a

demonstration against these proposals, mainly supported by Islamists, gathered 500,000

people in Casablanca, while only 100,000 people gathered in favor of the proposals in

Rabat (Kramer, 2000).

To look at the issue of gender relations within Sufism, it's revealing to examine

personal testimony, a form of argument that appears to be successful in mainstream

politics because social movements know how useless it is to rage against spiraling

unemployment without presenting personal cases of young graduates struggling to find a job. Hence, the "reasoning by cases" becomes the register of political dissent. The

personal testimony acquires the status of truth because it has an authority that is lacking

in academic or political speeches. One can say that we all use personal examples in our 130

daily life, be it to show love to a "significant other" or to explain a theory to young

students, but the main difference between the Life Story genre and the political testimony is the fact that the latter aims less at raising consciousness than at being visible in a public

forum.

What I want to highlight is the transformative potential of the testimony: once brought to the Sufi arena, the personal testimony is no longer merely an example that backs up an argument but it becomes the argument itself. For instance, a story about the

spiritual saint Sidi Hamza takes a different meaning when it jumps from a spiritual publication to a daily newspaper. The fact that a spiritual matter occupies the first page of

a daily political newspaper means that a new symbolic space has been opened up: The

Sufi testimony is upgraded. The Sufi discourse, relying on the backbone of personal

testimony, defined as haal (state) or maqaam (station) enters politics when its main tool

(testimonid) becomes the main method of its visibility. In other words, acquiescent

Sufism gains a terrain not only through a visible alliance with the state, but also through

the institutionalization of experience as a political practice.

In domestic life, women's testimony becomes a discourse. A new Moroccan

cogito is born: I testify therefore I am. The gender blindness of the Boutchichi has an

origin. When Sidi Hamza performed the ritual of the mousafaha (literally 'shaking the

hand') with Sidi Boumediene to symbolize that he would become his disciple, he told

him to avoid the repetitive company of women for their company generates the extinction

of the disciple's light" (Ben Rochd 2004, 79). But do current Sufi practices within the

home today induce liberation or a continuation of past prejudice? Two informants helped 131

me to find out. One smart objection of a blue collar informant was that asking female disciples about their domestic life cast them in a submissive, stereotypical "staying at home" posture. While this locus (the domestic sphere) typifies the testimony genre, the limitations became obvious. However, citing it would help clarify how gender blind the

Boutchichi order is.

The first interviewee was a middle-aged woman, then a student at a French school and now a bank employee, whose husband joined the Sufi order well after their engagement. She talked to me freely about the ways in which the tariqa influenced their matrimonial life:

Before my husband joined the order, we had a normal husband-wife relationship. However, since the appearance of the Boutchichi order in his life, he has changed. Now, when he sees me all what he sees is his sheikh. I remind him of saints more than breasts (ma presence lui rappelle les saints plutot que les seinsl) When I make myself beautiful for him, he turns his eyes away and meditates. I am not attractive for him anymore because he is very consumed in his worship. I hate seeing him disappear for weeks, and at times months, at the order. I know for a fact that Sufism destroyed our life.

A second interviewee, a woman originally from Marrakech, opened her heart to me. In her mid-twenties, from a rural background, Kenza preferred to talk to me shooting directly at the bull's eye:

My husband went to the Zawiya for two weeks, and upon his return, as horny as a rooster, fell naughtily on me, and of course as a Muslim wife, I had to satisfy his sexual urges not to generate the wrath of the angels. When I asked him later about the source of his unusual behavior, he simply said that Dhikr made him horny.

In both testimonies, Sufism is presented as a drug to which men become addicted.

In both accounts, Sufism is the cause of an unnatural outcome: no sex or too much sex. 132

These stories reflect gender relations as produced by Sufi practices. What the mystical dimension adds to our two narratives is the politicization of sex through the power mechanism: In objecting to the Sufi practices of their husbands via the bedroom, my two interviewees crossed the hermeneutical bridge to a shore where Sufism becomes a politicized game of two competing wills: the earthly requirements of matrimony and the transcending expectations of the spirit. It is true that the two women are not Sufis

anymore but disciples who quit the order because of the negative impact of Sufism,

carried out by their Sufi husbands, on their domestic life. Sufism as a discourse of the wives stops addressing heavenly issues like God's omnipotence or paranormal visions,

and it starts using a more earthly glossary made of expressions like women's rights and

gender equality.

By voicing their discontent against gender blindness (either through negligence in

the first narrative or lust in the second one), the two women's wish is to become present

in their domestic sphere as autonomous agents, through a link that they draw between

Sufi piety and gender representation. According to them, a good Sufi is someone who is

aware of feminine agency. The first woman expresses her wish by saying: "I am a

woman, and my body is special," while the second woman inscribes her femininity in a

less material way: "I am a woman, not only through my body." What ensues from that is

the empowerment not of women as agents but as their testimony as a discourse.

The reality of gender in AWI is less gender blind. Until the mid-1990s, women

did not have any autonomy at the organizational level of AWI. Women are supposed to

conform to certain rules: A woman must be obedient and submissive, and speak with 133

shyness and must never contradict men. One member said to me in the summer of 2007:

"It is impossible for a woman to be elevated towards God. Women lack confidence in themselves, and they freeze when faced by a brother." Little by little, and under the influence of Nadia Yassine, relationships between the two genders were transformed and brothers accepted the increasingly important role played by sisters. Nadia Yassine has attempted, from the early 1980s, encouraged by her father despite his theoretical views regarding the submission of women, to mobilize women but she faced a backlash from

Bashiri, the co-founder of AWL Bashiri criticized the nepotism of Yassine's family and refused to accept Nadia's husband, Abdullah Shibani as the leader of the movement. He did not tolerate the fact that Yassine seemed to make the movement into a family affair and suggested Yassine push his daughter aside. Nadia only played a significant role in the group, according to Bashiri, by virtue of being the daughter of the leader who suddenly became aware of the femaleness of disciples other than his daughter. To discredit Bashiri,

Nadia and her supporters suggested he was a salafi although he was one of the most fervent opponents of that trend in Casablanca. Bashiri's exclusion from Yassine's movement in 1995, presented as a decision that finally allowed for the development of the feminine voice of Nadia Yassine, was in fact less a feminist move than a move of nepotism, and was meant to silence those who were opposed to the role the sheik's daughter played within the movement.

Men's hostility to feminism inside AWI was such strong that a publication by

Yassine, Tanwir al-Mu 'minat (The Illumination of the Female Believers), was necessary

(Cairo Edition, 1995, two volumes). This book legitimized women's aspirations to 134

occupy an increasingly important role in the community. Some female members of the movement have photocopied pages from the Tanwir and pasted them to the walls of their homes, while some men forbade their women to read it. Hence, sanctity and leadership within family is another Sufi characteristic in the sense that Yassine's daughters, for he has no sons, are all revered within the group. The members of the group treat Yassine's daughters differently because they revere anyone who is linked by blood to their leader, but in the privacy of their homes, they do not treat their women with such reverence.

Recruitment

To analyze the recruitment behavior, a regression analysis is performed with the

number of elements being recruited as dependant variable (Y) and the number of years in

the movement and the group belonging as independent variables (XI and X2). The movement in this case is a dummy variable (1 or 0). The results obtained in the survey

were the following:

Regression Statistics

Multiple R 0.778145

R Square 0.670557

Adjusted R Square 0.597329

Observations 625 135

The value of Adjusted R is 59%. This means that 59% of the variability of Y is explained by the variability of XI and X2.

Significance Df SS MS F F

Regression 2 14229.88 7114.939 62.13007 2.12E-12

Residual 623 4237.123 114.5168

Total 625 18467

The model has a significant F value of 62. Hence, the model is 62 times better than no model.

Standard Coefficients Error t Stat P-value

Intercept 0 #N/A #N/A #N/A

Group -3.57643 2.520567 -1.4189 0.164298

Years Of Membership 1.481087 0.150335 9.85193 6.88E-12

Organizational incentives are offered by AWI and the Boutchichi order for post- recruitment participation. Members have to trust SMO leaders and support their decisions, and they have to believe in their movement. Members who are contacted more often by their leaders exhibit higher levels of post-recruitment participation than members with no such communication. 136

Years Of Membership Line Fit Plot 70 i 60 1 • 50 \ • • 40 i # 30 -j • * • Number Recruited r Recruite d 1 _•# • Predicted Number Recruited 20 j li

Numb e I HI • of" •?** , 0 10 20 30 40 -10 Years Of Membership

FIGURE 8: Recruitment behavior

Y = a + pi * XI + p2 * X2

XI = 1 if the movement is Boutchichi order,

0 if the movement is AWI

X2 = Number of years

In the analysis, I forced a (Y intercept) to be null because for a group that has age of 0 years (X2=0) it is logical that this group will recruit 0 person during this period. pl= -3.58. The value pi is not statistically significant at a 5% confidence interval level.

The value of XI (dummy variable) reflects the difference between the recruitment behavior of each movement. In this particular case, for a given period of time, the 137

Boutchichi order tends to recruit less people (or AWI tend to hire more). This is due to a poor communication structure within the order as the thesis shows.

P2= 1.48. The value of (32 is statistically significant at 5% level.

Of the Moroccan disciples who had contact with a Sufi recruiter, many reported never having any thought about joining an order. It is interesting that more students who had no contact with a recruiter were receptive to an invitation than students who had been approached. The fact that subjects were less predisposed to accept further contact if they had contact already indicates that an initial contact does not enhance suggestibility. Based on my survey findings, it seems instead that the initial contact reflects the subject's pre existing yearning to meet the Sufi saint. Those who believe the Boutchichi order have a positive purpose are more likely to have had contact. This finding conforms to Stryker's notion of identity salience which posits that there must be a linkage between a recruiting appeal and its perceived salience to the identity of the recruit (McAdam, 1997,148).

Satisfaction within the group

The survey talks about satisfaction inside the group in three different ways: relationship with the other members, leader perception and finally activities inside the group. I used group satisfaction to trace dissent not only across movements but also within the movement. Sometimes, the disciples criticize the activities of the group. 138

TABLE 8: Satisfaction correlation

Movement Members Leader Activity

Movement 1.00

Members 0.30 1.00

Leader 0.41 0.35 1.00

Activity 0.37 0.32 0.51 1.00

In general, the members of the Boutchichi order seem to be more satisfied inside their group. The Boutchichi leaders are easier to approach and are more available than the

"Adlis". The high correlation existing between the leader and the activity's quality reflects the implication of the leader in the activities inside the group.

Perceptions of politics

Internal and external democracy

In answering the question about the most democratic person in his environment,

78% of the Boutchichi disciples considered their leader to be the one. 11 % of the interviewed think that the king Mohamed VI is the most democratic person. The same number considered Benkirane, the head of the Islamic party PJD, to be the most democratic person on his field.

On the other hand, more than 95% of the Adlis consider Abdessalam Yassine to be the most democratic person. The difference between the answers reflects a different 139

perception of democracy and various views. The veneration of the leader is more present within AWI than the Boutchichi order. More Boutchichi followers hold the king

Mohamed VI in high regards and see him a sacred person than AWI members. The

Boutchichi disciples are more related to the government.

Most Democratic Person Abdessa am Yassine ^~"""-~-^ For Boudchichi 0% Adelilah Benkirane 11% """""-——-. ^^~~-

Mohammed •'. "A^-V 11% « •*• 'J6%-- * 'V',!,

. .-.-.. .«•- '.., .V t* •£_ -.V. . ..

• , . it*. *•:••• .-.. •

• «*:**• * * *

" * * *£ *l\ '** 4 **\ it"*"

FIGURE 9: Boutchichi and democracy

This figure should not push us to conclude that the Boutchichi order is automatically pro- regime as it is shown in the following chapter that it engages in political dissent in an infra-political way, through hidden registers and coded messages. The two movements

are not very involved in politics in terms of activity. For example, only 15% of the

Boutchichi members interviewed voted during the last two elections. The percentage for the Adlis is much lower: Only 2% had voted and this shows that that the Adlis do not participate in elections. Those who do not manifest an interest in politics think it is dirty. 140

Political life implication " positive implication"

TABLE 9: Political implication correlation

Politics is Movement Voting Party interest dishonesty Islamist Dirty

Movement 1.00

Voting 0.28 1.00

Party -0.37 0.24 1.00

interest -0.39 -0.21 0.15 1.00

Politics is Dirty 0.37 0.02 -0.43 -0.49 1.00

dishonesty -0.24 -0.24 -0.10 0.27 -0.11 1.00

Islamist -0.55 -0.22 0.14 0.41 -0.21 0.18 1.00

Political life and protest: A "negative implication"

Table 10: Protest correlation

Protest Protest Movement NOT By By the Disobedience The Group Group

Movement 1.00

Protest NOT By The Group -0.35 1.00

Protest By the Group -0.59 0.13 1.00

Disobedience -0.54 0.54 0.18 1.00 141

The negative correlation that the movement variable has with all the other parts

shows that the Adlis have more rebellious behavior and the correlation between the disobedience and the movement is very high. The Adlis are even somehow active in

events not organized by their own group. For instance, in the Movement of Unemployed

Moroccans, AWI is present while the Boutchichi order is not. A more detailed analysis is

showing the following numbers:

TABLE 11: Percentage of participation in protest events

Protest in Protest in events events NOT Disobedience organized by the organized by Manifestation Group the Group

Boutchichi 54% 42% 43%

Adli 97% 82% 88%

The percentages above reflect the rebellious attitude with the Adlis that are not

very politically active in terms of voting but they protest a lot compared to the Boutchichi

order. As I mention in chapter six, AWI members copy the defiant attitude of their leader

and participate in marches and in sit-ins and have a record of going to jail for fights in

university campuses with leftist activists. 142

Homosexuality and religious reform

TABLE 12: Homosexuality and other religions correlation table

Other Living Movement Homosexuality religion lieu

Movement 1

Homosexuality 0.23 1

Other religion -0.046 0.139973128 1

Living lieu -0.39 -0.415227399 0.276654426 1

There is no strong correlation between homosexuality and other religious practices along with the movement. This will mean that both movements do not tolerate at a high level homosexuality and/or other religious practices at a high level. However, the statistics showed that a certain percentage of people are open toward those practices.

Given the fact that the survey included some people living in a non-Muslim environment

(USA, Canada...) I found it wise to run the results across the variable of location as well.

Interestingly, I found that there is a strong correlation between those two variables.

People living outside Morocco are more open toward other religious practices and homosexuals rights than the ones living inside Morocco.

There is a strong correlation between the Islamic State and the movement. The

Adlis believe that Morocco will be stronger under an Islamic State. The Boutchichi members on the other hand do not share this opinion and think that Morocco will be better off with the actual ruling system, the monarchy. 143

King against sheikh

TABLE 13: King VS sheikh King Group Position

Group 1

King Position 0.50 1

There is an interesting correlation between the movement and the group. The

Adlis are totally against the idea of the king being untouchable. This reflects their rebellious attitude and their position against the government.

King Untouchable

• Yes I No

* m ft

Boudchichi Adl

FIGURE 10: King's position

As the graph above shows, slightly more than 50% of the Boutchichi members think that the king should remain an untouchable figure. On the other hand, more than 90% of the

Adli members are against this Idea. 144

Morocco's three kings

Mohamed V

Mohamed V was only eighteen years old when the French protectorate designed him as sultan of Morocco, in lieu of his father Moulay Youssef who had died in 1927.

Mohamed V's reign was tainted by a black spot in nationalistic Moroccan history: In

1930 he signed the Berber dahir (decree) confirming the detachment of customary Berber law from Islamic law. Seen by the nationalists as a divide-and-rule tactic, the then-young monarch was criticized for his passive endorsement. The monarchy was in disrepute in the view of many Moroccans at this point, and according to Geertz, Morocco would have become a republic had it become independent in the 1930s (Geertz 1971, 80).

When Mohamed V decided to support the nationalist struggle for independence from the French and the Spanish, he formed good alliances with the Moroccan nationalist movement, and stopped signing decrees that he deemed contrary to the 1912 treaty of the

Protectorate. The exiled king's popularity grew in exile as his image was used as a tool of mobilization by the nationalist movement, which started a series of prayers of latif, a supplication chanted in times of hardship to ask for the intervention of God, the kindest.

Protests borrowed religious overtones and Mohamed V was celebrated as the father of the nation. Mohammed V became the king with Baraka after having survived a "terrible ordeal" imposed by the French who gave place to many of his miracles. Legend has it that his plane flew without having taken any fuel from the French reservoirs (Lacouture

1958; Monjib 1992). Mohamed V became so popular and beloved that many Moroccans swear to have seen his image in the moon while he was in exile. The French writer Charles 145

Andre Mien devoted a portion of his 1978 book, Le Maroc face aux imperialismes, to this legend (1978 300-350).

Sidi Mohammad Ben Youssef, known as Mohamed V, became the first king after

Morocco gained independence in 1956. On August 15, 1957 he officially confirmed his title of king despite of a few strong voices within the nationalist movement that had republican dreams. The new king was leading a war behind walls with the nationalist party who had a pseudo unique party status. Thus, he resorted to the strategy of giving smaller parties greater representation. The nationalist movement, ready to make the most of the newfound independence nationally and internationally, promoted him as the symbol of Independence. In order to weaken it, the king had created conflicts inside the

Istiqlal party and other parties split from it (Waterbury 1970, 146; Ashford 1961, 319-

326).

Raised by the nationalist party as a symbol of resistance to colonialism, Mohamed

V turned the situation to his advantage after his country's independence to sit above partisan politics. On November 15, 1958 he issued a decree stating the sacred nature of the king and criminalizing any caricature or criticism of his personae. This law was used to dissolve the Moroccan communist party in 1959 because of its alleged anti- monarchical vision. One year after Morocco's independence in 1956, the palace officially changed the title of sultan to that of malik (king), signaling a shift from a caliphate order, which was based on a pact between the ruler and the ruled, to that of a hereditary monarchy.

Thus, the change of the title by Mohamed V indicated his desire to pass on his throne to his son Hassan Ben Mohamed who came to be known as Hassan II, to maintain his rule and 146

prolong the dynasty's control over the country. As Marina Ottaway and Meredith Riley argue, "the modern political system was set up by King Mohammad V when the French protectorate ended in 1956 and remained virtually unchanged until the early 1990s"

(2008, 162). Moreover, Geertz captured the impact of Mohamed V on the Moroccan monarchy: "Mohamed V made in his quiet, tenacious, blandly recalcitrant way, a radically new thing out of the sultanate" (1971, 75).

King Mohamed V was among those reformers of the traditional religious field with the goal of co-opting Morocco's then influential religious scholars. There were three major attempts to reform the prestigious traditional university of al-Qarawiyyine in 1914,

1917 and 1930. One of his reforms was making religious scholars employees receiving a

salary from the state, when he issued the royal decree of 31 March 1933. Even if the reform might seem an improvement of the situation of the ulama, the religious scholars protested against the decree from 1933 to 1940, to the extent of taking refuge in the

sanctuary of Moulay Abdullah in January 1936. The protesters opposed the submission of this prestigious institution to the control of the royal palace and the weakening of the monopoly held by families from the city of Fes on matters of religious and literary learning. The use of dreams as a site of political contention can be seen in the testimony of a French connoisseur of Moroccan politics:

Some old scholars started having dreams, in which they saw Moulay Idriss's complaint against our occupation announcing the advent of a person who will use the sword of Moulay Idriss and reestablish, with the help of Moulay Abdessalam and Moulay Abdelqader, the Islamic supremacy in Fes. (Michaux-Bellaire, 1921, 36, my translation) 147

After independence, all remaining Moroccan military personnel merged with the tenacious forces of the Liberation Army and formed the Royal Armed Forces (FAR).

Prince Hassan II was made chief-of-staff, and in 1960, when the defense minister was a member of the Istiqlal party, Mohammed V eliminated the ministry of defense and put the crown prince, who was also vice-president of the Council of Ministers, in charge of defense, until when Hassan II would become a King, he would reappoint a defense minister. Furthermore, Mohammed V juggled the ministers in his Council of Government and changed them five times in as many years. In 1960, the King took over the position of president in the Council of Government in the hopes of instituting some badly needed social and economic reforms: Mohammad V had refused to provide for a popularly elected constitutional assembly and had appointed his own Constitutional Council composed largely of Istiqlal party leaders who had served in high government posts.

According to Ottaway and Choucair-Vizoso, this decision was unpopular with members of other political parties: "Mohammad V dismissed the UNFP cabinet and formed his own, acting as his own prime minister, and consolidated power by rallying to himself the rural notables and the security apparatus" (2008, 163).

Mohammed VI was not as close to Sufism as his son and grandson. He gave his orders to shut down the Aliyya Sufi order headed by Abdelali which was pro-colonialist.

Moreover, he issued a decree in 1946 forbidding the constitution of any new order to open its lodge without a royal permission, and the existing Sufi masters from opening a new Sufi lodge without his authorization. This decree came as an answer to a petition

sent to him in 1931 by the religious scholars of Fez against deviant Sufi orders, and a

series of complaints in 1925 against the Tijani order and its views. Furthermore, 148

Mohammed V put a stop to the activities of the Aissawi and Hamdouchi orders who were engaged in unorthodox Sufi parades, hitting themselves until blood came out and drinking hot water as well as eating live goats. Despite this anti-Sufi stand, Mohammed

VI was seen in August 1954 riding his horse on the moon in the aftermath of his exile by the French to Madagascar (Rivet 1999, 399)

Overall, Mohammed V was able to retain his preeminence because of the traditional role of the monarchy, his participation in the struggle for independence and the fact that the Istiqlal was not able to present a united front to counter the measures undertaken by the King. His death during surgery left the country in a crisis and aroused some speculation regarding his son's role in the sudden death of the father-king. In fact,

Prince Hassan who would later be known as King Hassan II was craving power to the extent that Morocco's history would remember him as the crown prince who crushed the

Rif s insurrection in 1958. He was attacked by the Rif s rebels while he was riding a military plane, which left him with a scar that will create an enmity between the northern region of the country and himself forever.

Hassan II, commander of the faithful

Hassan II took over the leadership of Morocco after the death of his father,

Mohamed V, in February 1961. He then vowed to keep his father's promise of providing

Morocco with a constitution and popular elections. Hassan II was proclaimed the King of

Morocco on March 3, 1961, and his reign lasted for 38 years. He accorded himself primacy in interpreting Islam and he began to rehabilitate the Sufi brotherhoods to 149

weaken competing centers of religious legitimacy like the right wing political parties

(Istiqlal).

Hassan II was feared by the Moroccans, and he was known among common

Moroccans for his hiba fawej. The more powerful Moroccans of the country prostrated to him and kissed his hands. His portrait hung in the houses of all the notables, who were attempting to acquire a position of minister or governor. People called him mallam [the patron] or sidna [our Lord] but never did anyone dare to call him "Hassan" in a telephone or a public discussion. In fact, rumour had it that his faithful minister of interior Driss

Basri issued a 'law' inside his house which forbade his family members to pronounce the name of his king without saying sidna before it. Hassan IPs regime successfully created fear of his government, a fear sustained by repression and tragic disappearances of the opposition members.

Hassan II moved rapidly to present a broad program of reforms but after failing to reach an agreement on any of his proposals, he dissolved the parliament, dismissed his ministers in June of that year, and declared a "state of exception" that lasted for five years, appointing a new Council of Ministers and assuming full legislative and executive powers. In October 1969 the King called for local elections and in 1970 he revised the constitution by national referendum and a new parliament was elected. The new constitution greatly increased the power of the monarchy since the King was given the power to declare war. Growing complaints of mismanagement and corruption in government led to two attempted military coups against the king in 1971 and 1972.

Hassan II survived these two coups miraculously, and many generals who participated in 150

these military coups were executed. The legend explained his survival by his mystical

charisma.

In December 1972, Hassan II declared, "God has placed me on this throne to

safeguard the monarchy and to do this the Maliki school of Islam stipulates that [I] must not hesitate, if necessary, to eliminate the third of the population infected by evil ideas to protect the two-thirds of the population not so infected" (Lemrabet 2005). Hassan II's

statement about eliminating the third of the Moroccan population was designed to

emphasize the importance of the monarchy and the king's determination to preserve it. In a

1978 address to the Moroccan Parliament, the king reclaimed the divine permission granted

to him to rule Morocco:

The control of him whom God has entrusted with the mission of being the prophet's successor is indispensable for the legislative as well as the executive branch of government. (Tozy 1984, 84, my translation)

Hassan IPs self-proclaimed sacred lineage offered an added advantage to his political

acumen, which served him well in protecting the throne. After the Iranian revolution,

Hassan II publicly announced at several occasions that the biggest mistake of the Shah of

Iran was his religious provocations: the Shah's wife was seen in a short skirt in the

mosque of Isfahan, and, the Shah was filmed toasting with a glass of champagne in a

news program. This need to preserve his religious Took' did not mean that Hassan II was

a supporter of the Iranian revolution. In fact, in 1980, Hassan II asked the Ulama to

publish afatwa "to denounce Khomeini's view as being opposed to the Islamic faith"

(Benomar 1988, 552). 151

Hassan II loved to repeat that he was a descendent of Prophet Mohamed and above all the

"divine shadow on earth," as he continuously stressed in his interviews:

I received this title at birth, without asking for it, without wanting it. That means that I am one of the descendants of the Prophet, which is not exactly common, and which means that as deeply rooted as I am, in Morocco for generations, my original tribe is that of Mecca. This title, commander of the faithful does not leave indifferent some people like the Iranians who have accorded such an importance to the question of the descent of the Prophet. It is a title that imposes a great deal of humility and, all the same at certain times, great responsibilities. (Hassan II1987, 44, my translation)

Hassan II used religious marketing as a three-layered tactic in his political rule. First, he was the president of the Al Quds committee for some time and he was twice the president of the general assembly of the Conference of Islamic countries (OIC). Second, he highly advertised his encounter with the Pope Jean Paul II both at the Vatican (1981) and in

Casablanca (1984), a meeting that portrayed Hassan II as a man of peace and interfaith dialogue. Third, he conducted a national fundraising campaign to build one of the biggest mosques in the Islamic world and named it after him. The site of the Hassan II mosque was decided upon in July 1988. The mosque would be in Casablanca, where the bread riot occurred at the beginning of the 1980's. The king delivered a speech inviting Moroccans to participate in the mosque's construction, citing the Muslim prophet's words: "For he who builds a mosque where the name of God is called on, the Most High will build for him a place in paradise." Moreover, every year during the month of Ramadan, the religious lectures called "Hassani lectures" (Durus Hasaniya) were aired on television.

Each night during Ramadan, in the royal palace, a scholar from a different Islamic country would give a lecture in front of Amir al-Muminin Hassan II. 152

Hassan II blamed Moroccan religious scholars in a speech in 1980 in Marrakech for not being active in social life: "I do not know, and I do not want to know noble ulama, the reasons behind your absence from Moroccan daily life" (Darif 1992, 60). Hence, the tactic of using visible promotion to stop the expansion of religious orders, followed by the current king with the Boutchichi order, was engineered by Hassan II. The long-ruling monarch died on July 1999 at the age of 70, after 38 years of rule. One of the first tributes issued after Hassan IPs death came from Israeli Prime minister Shimon Peres, who described him, when he attended his funeral in Morocco, as a visionary and a leader of peace. The official heir to the throne, his eldest son Mohamed, 36 years of age, immediately took over.

Hassan II used Sufism in his political favor. Following the two failed attempts to overthrow him by the military in 1971 and 1972, Hassan II started publicizing the argument that he escaped the two attempts due to his Baraka and spiritual sainthood.

According to one senior Boutchichi member, Haj 'Abbas was sitting with some disciples at the moment of the first coup against Hassan II, and the event had not yet become public, and he asked them to leave and started praying and chanting. Hours later they found out about the failed coup and they 'understood' that it was their saint who helped the sultan escape death. Furthermore, right before he decide to organized the green march in 1975, where half a million of Moroccans marched peacefully in the then-colonized regions of the Sahara, he sent his courtiers to bring Haj Lahbib, a saint known for his

Baraka, but the latter refused to answer the call in an epoch where the mere fact of mentioning the king's name resulted in people shaking out of fear. When the king inquired about the matter, he was told that Lahbib's Baraka is in the physical site where 153

he is. The saint asked the sultan to come to him without the noise and light of Royal protocol. The king answered the saint's call and when he saw him he asked him if he would win the Sahara conflict. The saint answered: "Yes, you will win the Sahara conflict but not without trials" and gave Hassan II a rosary that would accompany him until his death. Hence, the saint Lahbib wanted invisibility as a condition to meet the sultan and to preserve his paranormal powers, and this dynamic of visibility and invisibility was emphasized in my theoretical framework in Chapter Two.

Mohamed VI: the "Boutchichi king"

After the sudden death of Hassan II on July 23, 1999, his eldest son, Mohamed

VI, was enthroned on the very same day. His brother, Prince Moulay Rashid, and his cousins, Moulay Hicham and Moulay Ismail, were the first to pledge allegiance to the new monarch. Then members of the government came in second, followed by the military.

The elite members repeated their devotion to the new king, thus ensuring the continuation of the monarchy. Time Magazine, called the new king "the king of cool" describing him as

"combining a common touch with strategic vision [and that] he may be the most impressive of the new generation coming to power in the Middle East" (Leod 2000, 28). He was also nicknamed "M6" or "Sa majetski", because of his love for jet skis. Nicknamed "king of the poor," the new monarch did not miss any chance to popularly convey the message of modernization of the monarchy.

One of Mohamed VI's first initiatives, symbolizing his rupture with the past, was firing his father right hand man Driss Basri on 9 November 1999, who for twenty years had 154

been the minister of interior, head of secret services and the de facto second man of the regime. The second front of reforms was the area of human rights. For instance,

Mohammed VI created an arbitration commission on human rights to provide monetary compensation to victims of arbitrary detention during the 1970s and 1980s, when the state engaged in a campaign of persecuting political dissidents, which came to be known as the years of lead, an era that I covered in detail in my article "Couscous Democracy" based on a collection of interviews with dissidents and representatives of the Moroccan state (Bouasria

2007).

The third main religious reform of the new king was to fire, on December 2002, the old minister of religious affairs Abdelkebir Alaoui Mdeghri, who was blamed for allowing the Salafi movement to spread in Morocco. The former minister had two enemies inside the royal palace, the Jewish advisor to the king, Andre Azoulay, and his peer

Abbes Jirari (Chaarani 2004, 472). The king replaced the departing minister with Ahmed

Taoufiq, a historian and a Boutchichi disciple. This change was interpreted by some experts that I interviewed as a sign that the new monarch wanted to make visible his choice of

Sufism as the religion of the state in order to counteract the radical Islamists. The king's invitation to the Boutchichi order to share power was read as a co-optation mechanism that benefited the monarchy by reinforcing its supreme power over the definition of spirituality.

In an interview with the magazine L 'intelligent, Ahmed Taoufiq gave the secret of his appointment: "My university career and my previous jobs as head of cultural institutions, as well as my links with traditional spiritual circles have prepared me for such a position"

(2003, 29). Said Saadi, ex-minister did not quite agree with this explanation: "The State is trying to recuperate the Boutchichi order through the nomination of the minister of 155

religious affairs" (interview with the author 2009). On September 13, 2002, the Moroccan daily Al-Sabah also accused the fired minister of Islamic Affairs of marginalizing religious scholars: "The party of the minister of Religious Affairs brought only problems of violence and excommunication and erased what remained of the Maliki rite by subjecting Morocco to the Saudi rite." (Al-Sabah 2002) Mohammed Mrabet, another critic of the ex-minister, voiced his concern regarding the turn away from the official

Maliki doctrine with the following words:

The ministry of religious affairs does not provide any sufficient religious coaching for Moroccans. There is a partnership between this ministry and the two Islamist movements MUR and PJD enabling the latter to access private mosques, in their competition against Al-Adl wal Ihsan and against democratic forces, with these private mosques being in majority abodes of propaganda of al Khatib's party. The minister of Religious Affairs keeps the country's religious scholars marginalized and fills the Religious Councils with scholars not adhering to the Maliki School. The preachers of big mosques, in most cities, do not follow the Maliki rite. (Chaarani 2004, 382, my translation)

The king's popularity would soon come to an end following the end of his

'honeymoon.' hi early 2001, French and Spanish newspapers published several accounts on

Mohamed VI, accusing him of ignoring his duties by engaging in a lot of leisurely travel but the Moroccan press did not join in this criticism. Moreover, a group of Moroccan religious clerics, such as Driss Kettani, opposed the king's expression of solidarity with Americans after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S.

The events of September 11, 2001 in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia led to a focus on security in religious affairs. Terrorism became the avant-garde of religious 156

commissions, mosques or ministries. May 16, 2003, the day of the Casablanca bombings, is a date of major religious and political significance. Both sides of the "conflict" found themselves forced to adapt their strategies. First, the Moroccan state had to adopt a new religious strategy that would allow the religious actors to engage in politics and push their agenda to contain national political objectives without allowing them to become full political actors. Second, the religious actors had to state their nonviolent claims and allow these actors to be politicized to fit the state's agenda.

In his speech on April 30, 2004, King Mohammed VI, in a move that reminded us of Hassan IPs message to Morocco's religious scholars, said that the institution of religious scholars in Morocco "had to leave its sleeping phase":

We are determined to reform the religious matter in order to institutionalize our authentic values and to preserve our Maliki school of thought with a sense of open innovation that does not contradict the spirit of our age. Thus, our youth will be immune against invading and destructive streams. The religious reform does not mean changing only the cultural and educational field but the political field as well which is the field of democratic diversity. This principle means a disassociation of the religious field from the political sphere [...] politics and religion, in the Moroccan constitutional monarchy can only be associated at the level of the commander of the faithful, (http://www.almajlis-alilmi.org.ma)

This speech mentions several indicators: the historical legitimacy of the Moroccan religious field is found in the Maliki legal school, the link between the institution of the king as a commander of the faithful and the preservation of the Maliki school is established, the restructuring of the ministry of religious affairs includes an institutional aspect apparent in the creation of a division or department of mosques and traditional schools. Furthermore, the Moroccan king insists that the issue of the fatwa is the 157

exclusive domain of the Supreme Council, whose members are known to be Islamic liberal jurists. The council suggests the matters to the king as Commander of the Faithful and the latter looks at them to avoid sedition. Going back in time, in a letter sent to the

Seventh Conference of the League of Moroccan Scholars (16 May 1979), Hassan II warned the Ulama against deviations of religious ideology and "the call by some members who claim to be speaking in the name of Islam to doctrines and beliefs which are inconsistent with God's prerogatives" (Darif 1992, 18)

Since Mohammad VI became king, he started to make reference to three components of its religion in its official speeches: the Ashaarite doctrine, the Maliki

School of Jurisprudence and Sunni Sufism, as the king himself explained in his royal speech on April 30, 2005. The new minister of religious affairs did a whole re organization of his ministry. Figure one shows the old organization while Figure two shows the new facelift of the ministry.

When Mohammed VI created a new party named PAM (Party for Authenticity and Modernity), founded by the king's close friend and former Deputy Interior Minister,

Fouad Ali El Himma, the party attracted parliamentary deputies left and right and started becoming the right hand party of the king. The religious discourse of the king is known to promote Islam on the secular side. 158

Directorate of |i|lfesan|l|||| Religious •;

BSEi^k:ia;:,.i3::i Endowments I

Foreign Division.; (Nadirs)

FIGURE 11: Previous organization of the Ministry of Religious Affairs (source: Ministry fall 2007) 159

mmmzf^iitimMiim-^Ki

j^-JijjSS:-,

-y.-.—qj.

•l'«.. .»•*.', •• ,J>, . j if,,t, ••?.Av% •%{.... •: 8MRK

•¥*•:•• j

+ **i\ • i . *' F * '*/ * - * * -

3 r"f5!f!Bl!n!BBIIBBiH

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FIGURE 12: Restructuring the Ministry of Islamic Affairs (source: Ministry, fall 2007) Jihad in Palestine

The overall results for the two groups are the following:

Jihad In Palestine For Boutchichi

Only With Money _ 13%

.-» ** <•<• ^ :J5r . <'•• m'.'y.-.: **><

FIGURE 13: Jihad for Boutchichis

Jihad In Palestine For Adl

Only With Money _^___^ 27% • , • v . -v.

,-V «t: V* m i V 21H '

FIGURE 14: Jihad for Adlis 161

The results show that the Adli members are more willing to be part of Jihad's activities in Palestine. The Boutchichi members are less motivated by such an idea even when it comes to sending monetary contribution to resistance groups in Palestine. This is another point of difference between the two groups when it comes to some political and religious points. This difference is due to the influence of the thinking of the Muslim

Brotherhood and the Iranian revolution in the thinking of the leader of AWI and its disciples. The struggle in Palestine is an important component of their Islamic belief, while many Boutchichi disciples cross bridges with Israeli musicians and artists, and this, in turn, pushes them towards a normalizing behavior regarding the Hebrew state.

Conclusion

The Boutchichi order encourages through its behavior both privatization ("Do not touch politics") and pluralism understood in two ways. First, the Boutchichi discourse accommodates all Sufi orders and other Muslim schools that do not fight Sufism, claiming that all of them come from the prophetic light. Second, the Boutchichi practice is a call for Moroccans to join Moroccan traditional mystical Islam as a weapon against radical Islam which tries to standardize Islamic practice, hence killing religious diversity and pluralism. By fighting the enemies of religious pluralism, the Boutchichi order is indirectly giving credence to this plurality. Mark Sedgwick explains the breakthrough of the Boutchichi order as a counter-reformation in the sense that it stems from classic cooperation between the state and major Sufi orders (2004, 125-45) However, the

Boutchichi order has always had an internal trope pushing people away from getting 162

involved in any political activity. By siyaasa (politics), the managers of the order meant specifically any political or social action directed at having a stance towards political issues or persons. In the last two years, even if the order did not have official positions in

Moroccan politics, some of its public appearances clearly added a political dimension to what was previously strictly a spiritual brotherhood.

One of these politicizations of the order was the appointment of two Boutchichi disciples in public political positions: the historian Ahmed Taoufiq became minister of religious affairs, and Ahmed Boutchichi, Sidi Hamza's son, became the governor of

Berkane, the city that hosts the brotherhood. On November 7, 2002, Ahmad Taoufiq was appointed as a new Minister of Religious Affairs. According to the political analyst

Malika Zeghal, Taoufiq is "a professor of history who was born in 1943, he is a specialist in the history of Morocco and a novelist. He was assistant dean of the faculty of letters of

Rabat between 1976 and 1978 and director of the general library between 1995 and

2002" (2008 249).

Another politicizing incident is the celebration of occasions related to political events. Two examples come to mind. First, there is the Boutchichi leader's call to

Moroccans to gather behind their king, in response to Abdessalam Yassine's letter of advice to the king in 1999, and in response to his daughter Nadia Yassine's request for a republican system of governance replacing a monarchy in Morocco. Second, there is the

Boutchichi participation in a march of protest in front of the Danish embassy in Morocco following the publication of caricatures against the prophet of Islam. There was a communique by the Boutchichi order following the recent publication of the Prophet 163

Muhammad's caricature. The communique condemned the caricatures as "systemic attacks": "There has been lately an increase in the systematic media attacks against Islam to reach the extent of publishing caricatures vilifying the prophet Muhammad (PBUH), who was sent as a mercy to mankind, and hurting the dogma of more than a billion of believers in this planet" (www.maroc-hebdo.press.ma). The communique of the

Boutchichi order took an official position in the issue of the caricatures: "The Boutchichi order, headed by sheikh Hamza, condemns these media attacks considering them a falsification of the life of all the prophets and a blow to the message of Islam carried by all of them" (www.lejournal-hebdo.com). CHAPTER FIVE

THE 'COMING OUT' OF A BOUTCHICHI SAINT:

SIDI HAMZA AND KRYPTOPOLITICS

The formal register of Moroccan politics conveys the idea that the Boutchichi order, as the third and fourth chapters have shown, is apolitical. Despite these arguments, I argue in this chapter that the Boutchichi movement uses meta-hidden transcripts referred to here as kryptopolitics, a Sufi paradigm that allows us to shift from the visible to the invisible levels of perception. While retaining our ability to function at the lower realm, my theory argues that understanding and finding Sufi politics require looking at the formal, informal (identity formation, monetary donations, ritual, spectacle), hidden (collectively interpreted dreams, poems, symbolic language) and meta-hidden levels (silence, individually interpreted dreams). Stark and Bainbridge's model argues against the demise of religion, and includes the supernatural realms, such as contact with the dead, forecasting the future, as well as afterlife rewards as part of the religious experience (1985, 5). The demise of established religions and the emergence of new religious movements are due, in Stark and Bainbridge's view, to the failure of established religions to deliver to their consumers enough supernatural compensations, in the sense that "they offer little solace to the bereaved, to the dying, to the poor, or to those who seek to understand the enigmas of existence" (Stark and Bainbridge 1985,

434).

164 165

I define a new social movement as a collective movement whose rhetoric constitutes ideologies and identities that are either opposed to or provide an alternative to the status quo. Looking at social movements as alternatives to the status quo does not require that a collective make their contestation within the realm of "official" bourgeois public spheres (Fraser 1993). As Nancy Fraser writes, the public sphere is not the same as the state; it is rather the informally mobilized body of non-governmental discursive opinion that can serve as a counterweight to the state (Fraser 1993, 24). I will argue throughout this chapter that the Boutchichi order appears to be either nonpolitical or sides with the state, but in fact it continually inscribes its resistance in a "hidden transcript" and a 'meta- hidden' one that can only be decoded following Sufi symbolism. Since Sufi orders depend on the transmission of knowledge from one generation to another for the survival of their legitimacy and power, the Boutchichi brotherhood crafts a discourse that is rooted in history. This discourse allows us in turn to show how the current leaders draw from this repository. The emphasis on Sufi supernatural values is stressed in the discourse and the history of the order, a history that becomes a reservoir of symbols and lessons from which the current political moves of the order borrow. In other words, one needs to do a genealogy of kryptopolitics in order to be able to dig out the political insurgencies of the order beyond conventional politics.

A history of the Boutchichi order

The Boutchichi order is relatively a new Sufi order but its roots go way back in history. The history of the Boutchichi order is ripe with political episodes where silent 166

resistance was practiced. The trope of colonialism and its resistance is rather prevalent in today's interpretation of the order's past as we will see below in the example of one of the Boutchichi ancestors, Haj al-Mokhtar Boutchichi. The leaders of the Boutchichi order themselves are keen on narrating some episodes from the past where they resisted the

French colonizer. In fact, Sidi Boumediene, one Boutchichi saint introduced below, in the testimony of Sidi Hamza, the order's current leader, was always praying for the defeat of the Germans in World War II. One day a scholar asked him to also pray for the defeat of the French, since France was also guilty of transgressions, and Sidi Boumediene responded, as I was told by an informant, "may France be swallowed by a big snake."

Three days later, France was invaded by Germany. Sidi Boumediene was also heard saying: "I will take France with me." A few months after his death, Morocco obtained its independence in 1956. In the time of Sidi Boumediene, the saint carried the weight of colonialism silently without openly defying it. The rationale here is found in the Sufi tradition which makes the saint the one who takes on calamities and passively resists them in the sense that he knows the date when the calamity will expire but does nothing to prevent it out of respect for god's destiny. It is a bargain that the saint makes with God by saying: "I will accept your destiny without opposition as long as you promise me to change it in a near future."

The history of the Boutchichi Brotherhood is divided here into three main eras.

First, during colonial times the order came under the leadership of Sidi Boumediene

(1873-1955). Second, during the leadership of Haj "Abbas (1890-1972), after 1955, the group knew its expansion. Third, after the death of Haj 'Abbas in 1972 and the ascent of 167

his son, the current leader of the Boutchichi order, Sidi Hamza, born in 1922, the order became international and changed many ways of recruiting members and presenting its internal culture to them.

Before Haj 'Abbas and colonial Sufism

In the middle of the 18 century, the Qadiri family, famous for its lineage to the

Iraqi Saint Jilani, chose to settle in the Beni Snassen tribal region in Northeast Morocco

after being persecuted by local rulers of the Oujda region in northeastern Morocco. Sidi

Ali al-Qadiri, the first ancestor of the Boutchichi family, settled in the town of Taghjirt in northeastern Morocco and there founded his Sufi Qadiri lodge. Legend has it that during the famine in 1870, he started distributing a wheat-based soup known as Tchicha (spelled

also as Dchicha) to poor people, hence his name Boudchich or Boutchich (the father of

Dchicha/Tchicha). According to another local legend, the local governor invited the elite

of the region and cooked tchicha for them. As was the Moroccan custom then, this soup was always followed by richer and more consistent richer Moroccan meals like meat

tagine or chicken pastilla. While the other guests consumed the first meal with prudence,

leaving room for what would follow, Sidi Ali felt satisfied after the first meal. The

governor then exclaimed: "The secret went to Boutchich," alluding to the transmission of

spiritual Baraka, as the meal was a spiritual test to see who scored high on the gluttony

scale. From that time on, the Qadiri family and Sidi Ali's progeny became known as the

Boutchichi family. In jest, Talat Halmann, a famous Sufi scholar with whom I shared a

UCLA conference on Sufism on February 12 2009, called the Boutchichi order a way of

"soup-ism." 168

Another key person in the Boutchichi genealogy is Haj al-Mokhtar Boutchich,

Sidi Hamza's grandfather. In 1907, this respected man took up arms against the colonizing French army. Some French manuscripts list him as "an influential marabout"

(De la Martiniere 1897, 199, my translation), and others describe him as "the head of the revolt" (Augustin 1911, 161, my translation). Upon his capture by the French authorities on the last day of December 1907, they took a photo with the caption "one of the most fanatic enemies and the real leader of the anti-French movement" (L'illustration 1908, 1:

63, my translation). One of the famous oral 'tropes' of the Boutchichi disciples is the fact that paranormal gifts allowed Haj al-Mokhtar to leave his prison cell for ablutions and prayer, only to return voluntarily to abide by God's decree. In other words, if the French colonizer could tame the Sufi master Mokhtar by putting him in jail, God gave him freedom by granting him some supernatural powers such as the ability to walk out through closed gates.

The trope of using mystical powers in anti-colonial resistance reflects the typical dogmatic tension in the Sufi theology between power over creation (tasarruf), and respecting God's exoteric law and will (adab). In other words, even if a Sufi saint has paranormal powers, the use of these powers is conditional upon God's laws and wishes.

At times, a Sufi saint can cure his sickness by a mere prayer to God, but because of shyness from God (hayaa), a famous saintly state in Sufi ethics, the saint does not dare ask God to alleviate his pain because he thinks it is God's will not to be disturbed by a simple servant of God. Haj al-Mokhtar died in 1914, and was buried in Madagh in oriental Morocco, where his tomb is visited as part of the Boutchichi ritual ziyara (visit). 169

Sidi Ali, Sidi Hamza's other grandfather, advised his son against claiming that he was the leader of the Sufi order (Ben Driss, 2002, 110). Hence, Sidi Boumediene came to fill this spiritual gap (Appendix G).

Sidi Boumediene, cousin of Haj al-Mokhtar and spiritual master of Sidi Hamza is one of the major saints of the Boutchichi order, known as the reviver of its secret. Born in

1873, he spent his early life studying Islam and looking for spiritual guides. In the words of Sidi Hamza, this saint was "a sharif who used to visit the Derqaoui disciples of Sidi al-

Habri, finding them very generous, and his spiritual awakening started then" (Ben Driss

2002, 113). Two main figures transmitted the secret to Sidi Boumediene: Mahdi Bel

Ariane and Ahmed Lahlou. In light of the importance of a reliable chain of transmission of knowledge for Sufi orders, the Boutchichi movement is showing its chain of transmission including people from other Sufi orders, namely the Tijani order.

Mahdi Bel Ariane was of modest appearance, yet he had reached a high spiritual station. Known as a malamati saint (a saint who would show people that he is engaging in religiously condemned actions and immoral behavior while not really engaging in them such as holding a Vodka bottle in public that is in reality full of water only), he used to make many jokes. Sidi Boumediene was advised by a scholar to seek the esoteric knowledge in a sanctuary during the dawn prayer. Once there, he saw a man on a mule, and the scholar pointed to him and said: "This is the qutb (pole) that you are searching for." To his surprise, the man was none other than his neighbor, whom he had been taking for granted. He kissed his feet and asked him why he never revealed himself although he knew about his sincere quest for a spiritual guide. The saint responded 170

simply- as all Boutchichi disciples know- that "time had not come yet" asking him:

"Come with me now, and I will transmit to you what you need." This parable says something about political participation in the Boutchichi frame of reference: time for political participation comes when God wants it to come. In the same way the early

Boutchichi saint did not reveal himself for five years, the Boutchichi current Saint Hamza chose not to be politically visible for many years until the time came for this visibility, an alternation that I analyze in my part about kryptopolitics.

Sidi Ahmed Lahlou, Sidi Boumediene's other master, was a Shadili mystic who gave dhikr to Boumediene, after which the latter started experiencing bodily seizures.

Sidi Lahlou, as Sidi Ahmed Kostas (the husband of Sidi Hamza's daughter) wrote in his magazine al-Murid, told the disciple Boumediene that experiencing such seizures is the normal effect of divine love and the unveiling of esoteric secrets (5: 41). Sidi

Boumediene died in 1955 and was buried in Madagh. Before his death, Sidi Boumediene appointed Haj 'Abbas as his successor, but the latter refused to take on this responsibility for five years. In 1960 he finally followed his destiny after he had the same premonitory dream three times, where angels exhorted him to take the appointment seriously or they would harm him in an unpredictable way.

In his book, Cheikh al Akbar al-Kibrit al Ahmar Sidi Hamza Boutchich, Ben

Rochd Errachid, an expert on the Boutchichi order, gives a more detailed story about the decision of Haj 'Abbas to come out of his silence and claim he is the real inheritor of the secret of his master and should be the leader of the order (2004, 123-124). One day in

1960, Sidi Boumediene's son Sidi Mustapha, one of his first disciples, Sidi Omar and Haj 171

'Abbas engaged in a heated discussion. Haj 'Abbas insisted on having Sidi Mustapha as his father's official successor, but Sidi Omar claimed to be the real master of the order.

Haj 'Abbas harshly responded: "If you have the secret, then show me what you can give me, and I will follow you." When Sidi Omar took the side of Sidi Mustapha, Haj 'Abbas got angry and said that he would give his son Hamza the green light to give the mantra.

His rationale was that he did not express himself for five years out of respect for his guru's son, and now that the latter is letting a humble disciple claiming to be the heir, he would speak up. Sidi Omar said: "I am the master of masters." Haj 'Abbas then answered: "Let us leave aside Sidi Boumediene's disciples since they will follow neither of us, and let us go out to the market place and each one of us pick a deviant man and try to guide him." The story ends with Sidi Hamza purifying an alcoholic and drug addict only a few days after he took the Boutchichi dhikr, turning him from an addict to a pious

Muslim abstaining from drinking alcohol or inhaling illegal substances. Nothing is said in this Boutchichi story about Sidi Omar's achievements.

This story is very important because it reflects the dissent possible after the death of a spiritual master, as if this split is doomed to be a source of splintering within the movement. Hence, when Haj 'Abbas died in Madagh, there was dissent between

Abdessalam Yassine, one of his favorite disciples, and the latter's heir Sidi Hamza. Such dissent is bound to happen, I predict from both my esoteric and exoteric observations, after Sidi Hamza's death, too. While there may not be any specific individuals to claim succession other than the known and expected heir Sidi Jamal, the oldest son of Sidi

Hamza, there most certainly will be different movements to gain or acquire over 172

leadership. The old guard, privileged during the reign of Sidi Hamza, will not be easily contained by the new elite rushed in by his elder son Sidi Jamal about whom Sidi Hamza told some disciples who then related the story to me: "Whatever secret I have, Sidi Jamal has it." Aware that he is in his nineties, Sidi Hamza starts preparing the terrain for his elder son to take over the 'presidency' of the Boutchichi order to avoid a Yassine scenario (Appendix G).

This story is also important for another reason: the repertoire of contention in the order has a period of silence within it (Haj 'Abbas keeping the divine authorization for him to go preach the secret inherited from his master) followed by a period of publicity

('Abbas making his secret public). This process of spiritual 'coming out' parallels the phase of political silence of the Boutchichi order and the phase of its political visibility.

In the same way that Haj 'Abbas kept invisible/silent for years before becoming visible as a leader, the Boutchichi order became visible on the public sphere today after years of invisibility. My argument here is that the shift of Haj 'Abbas from absence to presence became a tool for the order, and one needs to remember this genealogy to accurately interpret the current visibility of the order not just as submission to the demands of cooptation by the state but also as an answer to a call of the supernatural realm. The story of Haj 'Abbas becomes in fact a sabiqa for the order in terms of political participation.

The history of the order has other lessons for us. Sidi Boumediene, according to

A. Qadiri, a Moroccan historian in his book Al-Nobough Soufi, refused to attend a dinner organized by a corrupt city official working for the colonial power, but upon reassurance from some scholars he went to the banquet after all (2000, 169). A parallel can be drawn 173

to the ease with which current Boutchichi leaders attend 'banquets' of today's Moroccan state officials. Rather than condemning them as sell-outs, we need to locate the

Boutchichi current honeymoon with the state within the order's history of accommodation with colonial figures. Upon scrutiny, this accommodation was not mere submission or passivism but was rather a strategic timing decision as stated by Ben

Rochd Errachid:

In the circle of Sidi Boumediene, many voices - including that of Sidi Hamza - were asking for the Moroccan independence from France. Sidi Boumediene was of the opposite view, since he deemed the Moroccan nationalist movement immature, neither professionally nor morally ready to manage the country adequately. He preferred that Moroccans waited few years to get their independence. (2004, 83, my translation)

Haj 'Abbas: The spiritual grounding of a rebel

Sidi 'Abbas was born in 1890 and grew up in Madagh, a small town in the north eastern part of Morocco. At the time, the disciples easily felt the ecstatic states following the dhikr, and seeing visions was a relatively easy matter. He wrote two different wills in

1968 (October 19 and April 6). The first will talks about receiving the spiritual secret from his master, and the second document mentions his heir, Sidi Hamza. In the first document, Haj 'Abbas said: "Know that I am neither a preacher nor a scholar avid for producing fatwa, nor am I a man of hadith [...] my relationship with you is that of spiritual education." In his second letter, circulated in a small circle of the Boutchichi order, he clearly states that Sidi Hamza is "without doubt" his successor. His two letters reflected the order's mode of expression, similar to Yassine's two letters to the kings of 174

Morocco and Yassine's style in his two political letters of advice can be traced to his spiritual companionship with his master Haj 'Abbas, in addition to being a replication of the scenario of confrontation between the sultan Moulay Ismail and the saint al-Yusi, a parrhesia that I have described in chapter three in details.

Sidi 'Abbas was known for his generous donations to his spiritual master. For example, he gave his 16-year-old daughter Lalla Zineb in marriage to his 70-year-old master despite their enormous age difference, a despicable act that was justified by using the paranormal register: since he was a saint, Sidi Boumediene always appeared a young man to his new wife. The paranormal register serves hence the purpose of legitimizing marrying minors and much younger women. According to Rachid Ben Rochd, Haj

'Abbas became president of the agricultural association of the region (2004, 60), while a non Boutchichi historian of the Boutchichi order (Okacha Berrehab) told me in an interview that Haj 'Abbas was only the second in command after failing to preside over the order to the advantage of a famous party member (interview with the author, October

2008). "He had contacts with important Sufis such as the Derqaoui master Mohamed

Lahlou and his friend Said Bachir, muqaddam of the Qadiri order in Fez" (Ben Rochd

2004, 62, my translation).

The local archives are silent about the educational background of Haj 'Abbas and some of his detractors even describe him as an illiterate or semi-illiterate man. Despite its leader's lack of charisma, the Boutchichi order expanded under the guidance of Haj

'Abbas for other reasons. During his time, Haj Mohamed Chemaou, a Boutchichi aristocrat from the city of Sale, prepared the rise of Haj 'Abbas in a tour of Morocco that 175

he did with few of his disciples, first with his money, and second with a platform of networks for recruiting, as one informant told me. Haj 'Abbas died on February 22, 1972 leaving a will in which he appointed Sidi Hamza as his successor. He was buried in

Madagh, and visiting his tomb is part of the ritual of visiting Sidi Hamza. It is interesting to recall that he was the spiritual master of Abdessalam Yassine, whom we will encounter in the following chapter. He left a will designing Sidi Hamza, the current leader of the order, as his successor.

Sidi Hamza: The globalization of the order

Sidi Hamza was born in Madagh, where his predecessor grew up, in 1922. Sidi

Boumediene, his spiritual master had already told him that he was going to be someone exceptional. Sidi Hamza told me one night: "In my childhood I received a religious education. I grew up imbued with respect for people and the principles of the Koran."

The current Boutchichi saint pursued his religious studies in Madagh, where he memorized the holy book by age nine. After the death of his uncle and teacher, Sidi al-

Makki, in 1936, Sidi Hamza went to Oujda to pursue his studies at the university (1937-

1940). He learned the traditional religious sciences until he met Sidi Boumediene in

1942. Sidi Hamza and his father then became disciples of Sidi Boumediene for fourteen years. After his master's death, Sidi Hamza had been authorized to educate disciples, but he chose to become a disciple of his father instead. As Sidi Hamza told us in many occasions: "A black beard does not grow from a white beard," clearly implying that a son cannot precede his father. 176

Sidi Hamza removed from the rituals of the order the rigid observance of the traditional Islamic legal framework as a requirement to accept new members, since in the time of Sidi Boumediene a man without a beard could not have access and started opening up the order to all sectors of society: youth, drug addicts, foreigners and other outcasts of the society. While Sidi Boumediene used to turn away potential disciples if they engaged in minor breaches of Islamic law, his successor Haj 'Abbas and even more so Sidi Hamza opened wide their doors to all kinds of disciples: non Muslims, non religious Muslims, sinners, and marginal people. There are three major changes in the order's educational methods which took effect under the leadership of Sidi Hamza.

First, Sidi Hamza initiated a transition from the majestic aspect (jalal) to the beautiful aspect of spiritual orientation (jamal): Instead of Sufi masters subjecting their disciples to rigorous tests to help them vanquish their own egos, the "test" is no longer required and disciples are raised with love and orientation (tawajjuh). Second, the relationship between the master and the disciple has been transformed: It is no longer the disciple who seeks the master, but the master who recruits the disciple. This is certainly an example of Berger's contention that increased privatization and pluralism lead to the need to actively solicit disciples. Third, austerity has made room for beautification

{takhalli versus tahalli): Sufism is used to promote self-deprivation as the only way towards spiritual achievement; today self-fulfillment is the path to religious enlightenment. Sidi Hamza compares a novice's heart with a darkened room in disorder where one must first bring in light to it in order to create order. 177

Perhaps the most important change is that Sidi Hamza switched from recruiting people above forty years of age, who already have exoteric knowledge of Islam, to recruiting people of all ages, including the young, a practice Mohamed Tozy calls recruiting "by all means" (Interview with the author August 2008). In marketing terms, this shift away from segmentation explains two new features of the movement: its demographic expansion, and the ambiguity of its frame as well as the diversity of its members (Marxists, liberal women, and conservative religious traditionalists). This plurality of beliefs, diversity of believers within the Boutchichi order fits with Berger's ideas about pluralism in new religious movements. The need to market the religion made it pluralistic in practice and philosophy (Berger 1967, 138). Yet to Sidi Hamza this is consistent with his belief that the order is based on four pillars: loving every created being, obtaining the moral character of the prophet, working toward the unification of the umma, and submitting to the nation and to Amir Al-muminin (Ben Rochd 2004, 41). As a result, during Hamza's reign, the Boutchichi order achieved a massive expansion in numbers and in reach with approximately fifteen thousand disciples both inside Morocco and abroad.

When first contacted by Sidi Boumediene in the early sixties, Sidi Hamza was invited to spend three nights at his master's house. As most members of the order know, one night, Sidi Hamza had a dream in which he saw the messenger of God in a mosque.

In the dream, Sidi Hamza was carrying five tubes of silver and offered them to the prophet, who told him that he was only going to take one of them, the smallest. Not knowing how to interpret the dream, Sidi Hamza asked Sidi Boumediene, who remained 178

silent and seemed saddened. Days later, one of Sidi Hamza's sisters got sick and died.

Apparently, the tube in Sidi Hamza's dream was a metaphor for his sibling. This dream

metaphor that I heard as a member of the order transmits an important prophecy, just as

resistance to the authoritarian regime will be seen to be expressed in the hidden

transcripts of dreams later on. In the same way in which the announcement made by the prophet of Islam to Sidi Hamza about the death of a family member was a sign that he

was the 'chosen' one, the death of King Hassan II was an omen that the time of Sidi

Hamza to shine has come. Death becomes a corollary of fame in the repertoire of Sidi

Hamza's biography.

All my senior informants confirmed to me the fact that the Boutchichi order was

politically repressed in the sixties, seventies and eighties. According to Si Rahali, one of

the managers of the order whose words clearly indicate the trends within the movement

and the discourse that the order wants to spread, this repression consisted of controlling

the movements of Sidi Hamza and his disciples, monitoring the activities of the order,

and threatening to fire public officials who were sympathetic to the Boutchichi call.

According to my interview with Si Rahali, who is known in Madagh for having daily

talks with the disciples to tell them what Sidi Hamza said about this or that issue, the

attitude taken by the order to face this repression was to "be patient and faithful to the

king and the nation."

On January 2009, Sidi Hamza gave the green light for another symbolic shift: The

dhikr of latif, known as latifkbir, changed from a silent group ritual to a meditation read

aloud forcefully in groups. This change signals the order's transformation from a silent to 179

a publicly visible brotherhood. The internal justification for this change was to make sure that people would perform the Latif properly, no longer miscounting the number of mantras they were asked to pronounce, and no longer falling asleep in the silence of meditation. The new dhikr came with a new set of rules that included not leaning on a wall, not standing, and not talking privately. These rule changes mark another shift from private and silent to more visible "market politics."

Boutchichi informal transcripts

Media visibility and sacred music festivals

Not all spiritual activities by Boutchichi disciples are performed for God's love.

Economic gain is sometimes the ultimate motive behind spiritual exhibitions. For example, Faouzi Skalli is responsible for the Boutchichi order in France and meets intellectuals in the Cafe Le Derviche in Marseilles. He used to organize the now famous international festival of sacred music in Fez, where a former World Bank head gave a talk on the spiritual dimensions of capitalism, before fighting with one of the founders and creating his own festival. Indeed, the festival is one of the tools that the Boutchichi order uses to create a public memory. Many scholars have looked at the role of public memory in creating a good image of a movement (Erenhaus 2001; Hariman & Lucaites 2003; Zelizer

1995) and others looked specifically at memorials (Blair 2001; Blair & Neil 2000; Carlson &

Hocking 1988). In addition to the politics of festivals, the Boutchichi order makes its entry into public transcripts via media visibility. In spite of the potential for positive effects garnered by the multiple Boutchichi appearances on TV, the narratives naturalize the 180

'spiritual' aspects of the Boutchichi order in order to secure legitimacy in the public eye.

In other words, Moroccan TV engages in a display of the everyday spiritual practices of the

Boutchichi order and as such contributes to a public understanding of these practices.

However, simply presenting these practices on TV might indicate that what is shown on

TV is a performance of the "other." Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett discusses

"exhibiting the quotidian" where "live exhibits tend to make people into artifacts because the ethnographic gaze objectifies" and as such further contributes to constructions of the Boutchichi as spectacle and as an "other" (1990, 415). To this end,

Kirshenblatt-Gimblett's provides us with a framework that helps us understand how the

Boutchichi TV appearances are depicted as entertaining performances rather than representations of realness:

Live displays, whether recreations of daily activities or staged as formal performances, also create the illusion that the activities one watches are being done rather than represented, a practice that creates the illusion of authenticity, or realness. The impression is one of unmediated encounter. Semiotically, live displays make the status of the performer problematic, for people become signs of themselves. We experience a representation even when the representers are, if you will, the people themselves. (1990, 415)

The politics of eating

The Boutchichi order's main events where people show up in huge numbers are the nights of mawlid and the night of destiny in the twenty seventh night of the month of

Ramadan as explained earlier. These two festivals attract hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world. The Boutchichi order even owns a plane that brings attendees from France to Madagh, the home of the order. Singing, dancing, and drumming are commonly part of such rituals, as is sharing of food. The latter, both in its 181

literal as well as figurative meaning, plays a great role in the Sufi tradition. What is striking about these two activities is not the fact that they are a tool of socializing and networking, as symbolic anthropology dictates, but, more interesting is their hermeneutical interpretation that they acquire in the tongues of mystical disciples. What does food mean in a Sufi's journey? Can eating become a political act?

The Boutchichi order has been associated with the serving of food to the poor, a tradition that continues to this day, where massive concrete tables are set up during these nights and may serve up to forty diners at a sitting (hatta). At mawlid festivals, feeding stations are set up to offer food and drink to passers-by. Food imagery and metaphors are used extensively in the Boutchichi order. Sweet foods, like honey represent the sweetness of piety and closeness to God. Bread is sacred and is treated reverentially. Through the pronouncement of hadra (trance) during the baking process, the bread is imbued with spiritual power or Baraka, which is shared by those who eat the bread. The transformation of the raw wheat to finished bread is used as an analogy for the spiritual development of a Sufi.

The Boutchichi food is unique, which I discovered first-hand during my long fieldwork, when I was presented with a greasy and spicy dish that my stomach first abhorred. The meal, I was told, contains the Baraka of the saint Sidi Hamza and therefore would confer a spiritual blessing on me. I had no problem believing my advisor, for I had already pledged to be a seeker of saintly blessings, but I had difficulties convincing my stomach to ride along. It rebelled, with a diarrhea in a manner more vicious than it usually does. I learned that there was a secret to my stomach's rebellion. "Consider 182

yourself lucky," Ahmed, a young Boutchichi student whose parents are in the order, said,

"because your suffering is a purification of your sins, and praise our sheikh for granting you this opportunity." Another disciple whose years in the path almost equaled Ahmed's age gave my malaise a different subtitle: "The food carries no doubt the divine secret, but how can sinful souls decode its messages?" Clearly, the food was not simply at odds with my stomach; I was either a sinner who could not bear the weight of "divine light" or my sins were being washed away through suffering. No matter what one may think about these interpretations of my stomach ache, the story shows the latent enmity between rational realism and Sufi theology.

Fasting is an essential feature of Sufism, especially during the secluded retreats that are used by some zealous Boutchichi members to purify their souls. In earlier times,

Sufis placed great emphasis on asceticism, and eating was seen as a source of harm to the new initiate in the sense that food was associated with the pleasures of earthly life to be avoided in favor of spiritual abstinence from all bodily pleasures including gluttony.

However, for the Boutchichi order, excessive fasting came to be viewed unfavorably as a trick played by Satan to induce the disciple to think highly of himself. Nowadays, both gluttony and excessive fasting are considered treacherous. Some disciples practice vegetarianism, because they view animal consumption as conducive to animalistic behavior.

These rituals and festivals can be seen as political and economic rallies that create the bond between the state and society. From an economic perspective, guests find in these nights commercial shops that are created for the annual gathering in the vicinity of 183

the zawiya, where merchants sell all sorts of items at a high price (portraits of the Guru, books, beads, clothing, and food). Politically, these gatherings serve as a show for the public and its rulers of the number and the variety of disciples to demonstrate the sheikh's legitimacy to his disciples and to government officials. The most important people in the order are seated next to the saint, and singers in front of them. The importance of the order is determined by the number of people who attend and by the importance of the intellectuals who speak at these gatherings and the public officials who are invited to observe the 'carnival' and interestingly seated close to the saint. Foreign disciples are visible as participants and speakers. In these festivities, Sidi Hamza never gives speeches but his grandson does. The sheikh receives visitors, dignitaries from all over, and accepts their gifts, often cash. During the ceremony, the saint receives visitors, while sitting on a comfortable bed, which symbolically and symbiotically mixes the

"private" with the public sphere. When a delegation visits the saint in his private room, the head of that delegation generally speaks for the group and the other members observe silently the saint and try their best to benefit spiritually from looking at his radiant face.

These annual gatherings reinforce the ties between the saint and his followers, but most importantly stress the order's significance to the political regime by gathering about

15,000 members from across the whole world in one night to celebrate a festival and venerate one saint, in the context of an authoritarian country such as Morocco that requires an authorization from the police to do a gathering of more than three persons.

For the disciples, these festivities are an occasion to gain status by showing devotion, and connecting with a powerful guru. In a groundbreaking study of Sufi cults in the Egyptian 184

city of Tanta, Edward Reeves argues that commemorative saintly rituals serve an internal and an external purpose:

Rituals intensify common feelings and beliefs within a group and assert its legitimacy vis-a-vis another group. Thus a ritual has two audiences, inside members of the group and outsiders or members of competing groups. The intent of the ritual performance is to dramatize the differences between these two social categories so that greater legitimacy is accorded the insiders (Reeves, 1990, 4-5).

Mawlid made in Madagh

I attended several of festive spiritual gatherings at the Boutchichi headquarters in

Madagh, but one of them particularly impressed me. It was one of the numerous nights celebrating the birth of the prophet Muhammad that I attended at the zawiya. A huge crowd started flocking about six hours before the beginning of the ceremony. Religious songs praising the prophet and the saints were being aired. I was in Madagh at 2:30 in the morning after a flight from Casablanca to Oujda. The taxi driver, who had picked me up from the Oujda airport for a forty five minute drive to the zawiya, had told me-obviously irritated by what he had witnessed on a previous visit to the Boutchichi lodge- that he did not approve of this "new religion." Referring to the respect shown to the eighty eight- year-old Sufi Guru Sidi Hamza by his disciples, he said: "Even the pope is not entitled to such a treatment."

Mud was everywhere, and in order to dispose of undigested food, one had to stand in line for a long time to squat later in a dirty toilet. But that did not seem to disturb the crowd that had come from all over the world to celebrate the birth of the prophet.

Thousands of pilgrims filled up buses that were mobilized by the order from all over the 185

country, starting as far away as the southern Sahara provinces. Even the Moroccan state deployed elements of the gendarmerie royale, sometimes accompanied by dogs, to search the buses looking for an illegal substance such as drugs or smuggled merchandise from the Algerian border. The house of the Sheikh was a large traditional residence of two floors. The ground floor was devoted to receptions while the other floor was dedicated to the private life of the Sheikh and his close friends. The two floors were connected through an elevator.

Once inside the house of the saint, a few hours before the festivities that night, a girl could not hide her joy because her father, who accompanied her, was able to touch the pillow placed on the feet of Sidi Hamza. She threw herself on her father's hand that touched the sheikh's pillow. I asked her for the reason of her passionate embrace, and she said: "Sufism is about taste not reason and you should consider yourself blessed to be here just to have him (she points to the sheikh while she is sobbing) look at you.

Everything is about the nadra (gaze)." The disciples (fokara) threw an "Ah!" in chorus, almost in fright, each time the name of Hamza was mentioned. Whenever they saw the

"sayyid", a term of endearment for Sidi Hamza meaning "the master", they held on to him like a gift from the sky or a present from God. Litanies and Sufi songs were repeated for several hours while these fans were shaking as if they were Amish teenagers in a techno club during their libertine years.

For a moment, the sheikh sat in his bed without answering the greetings, although a nod or a smile would break occasionally this routine, putting the visitors in different mystic states. Some were shouting and others were sobbing. The saintly bed was placed 186

in an immense living room adorned with two photographs, one of Sidi Hamza and the other of Morocco's current king Mohammed VI. The circle of the sheikh's guard organized the entry and the exit of the disciples into the sheikh's room, all the while taking care of the collection of their financial contributions known as ziyara. As soon as an excited visitor came close to Sidi Hamza's bed, a member of the guard made sure to show him the bed corners that were permissible to touch or kiss or else they would forcibly remove him. All visitors were searched before entering the room, and nobody got to carry any bags inside, which made me wonder, armed with the skepticism that I have been fed by my American University professor Ruth Lane, if such resentment would soften once the visitor reveal that their bags are full of donations.

To temper my cynicism, I started chatting with my crowd. A visitor from Madagh told me about the good reputation of Sidi Hamza in the local community: "If you want more rational explanations ask the inhabitants of Berkane. Here, people like him a lot for what he did for the community." Another person joined the conversation to describe the zawiya: "This is the house of hospitality and generosity." Yet, other inhabitants of the city of Berkane use sarcasm when they speak about the Boutchichi order using a fun pun:

"In Iraq, they have Karbala; in Berkane we have qarbala (anarchy)".

Sidi Hamza finally made his entrance in the public tent outside the house, designed for the celebration of the night, two hours after the beginning of the ceremony.

Supported by his closest disciples, the Guru could hardly walk amidst the shouting frenzied crowd. The sky was full of shouts in the unison "al-habib" (o dearest one!) until the sheikh reached the official platform, where a bed standing on a high podium awaited 187

him. Disciples were waving their hands in an attitude reminiscent of the protocol for a deployment by a head of state. In spite of Sidi Hamza's silence, he showed some interest in listening to the songs being played by moving his hand to the tempo of the incantations. Three hours later, the saint left the tent and went back to his private quarters. Before leaving the festivity, I made sure to steal some more confessions from the disciples who did not show any sign of tiredness. AH, a young disciple, told me about his conversion to Sufism: "I was feeling the corrupt influence of material life. The forbidden items were dear to me. I was a brigand until I met the sheikh who saved me."

Another pilgrim came all the way from Las Vegas to Madagh motivated only "by the love of the Sheikh." It was an incredibly moving experience.

Hidden transcript

Identity politics

In the last decade, the political sphere became haunted with social movements and associations that struggle to legitimize their identity, be it ethnic, sexual, religious or racial. This wave came to be known as identity politics. I argue in what follows that the

Boutchichi order as a new social movement, engages in informal politics through identity construction, not resource mobilization and institutional reform as a result of the postmodern condition. In fact, Steven Buechler (2000) comments that social movement studies historically tended to privilege the political (functional/resource management) over the cultural (symbolic) framework. The cultural goals of movements are embedded within the symbolic practices of the everyday lives of the disciples (Buechler 2000). In the 188

same line, De Luca negates the materiality of new social movements:

[They] do not focus on the distribution of material goods, the expansion of institutional political rights, and security, but rather thematize personal and collective identity, contest social norms, challenge the logic governing the system, and in sum, deconstruct the established naming of the world. (1999, 25)

However, critics of the cultural perspective of social movements argue that

cultural movements are apolitical (Buechler, 2000). This critique creates a false dichotomy between a movement that is political and a movement that is cultural, because such a dichotomy is based on a conventional definition of politics. By looking at the Boutchichi social movement from the cultural perspective, we can understand its tactics through a political lens. Rather than the typical channels of expressing a political voice such as voting, lobbying or publicly protesting, the Boutchichi brotherhood

engages in politics by other means. According to Buechler, "the ability of people to

engage in collective action is increasingly tied to their ability to define an identity in the

first place" (2000, 47). Moreover, Buechler calls for an examination of everyday life

instances of resistance and activism as modes of action for new social movements:

If the standard for a social movement is that it consists of an organized, enduring association of leaders and followers pursuing deliberately chosen strategies and tactics in opposition to other groups, a good deal of contemporary resistance in the interstices of everyday life will not even register on the scale being used to measure social activism. (2000, 156)

The Boutchichi order tries to control and construct a history that allows new and more positive identities in both the public and private spheres. I argue that critical

analyses of whether or not media visibility supports the Boutchichi order is crucial for 189

understanding its presence in the tactics of the Moroccan sphere. This dual movement between the public and private spheres offers a space for potential emancipation (Fraser,

1996). Both the public and private performances can have advantages and disadvantages.

For example, the private mystery surrounding the Boutchichi dogma and rituals may give the order a certain power of performance in the public, and a mysterious attractability that may help recruit curious and inquisitive souls, but this power is both constraining and enabling. Indeed, Sufism may become mundane and lose its potency once it becomes routinely displayed in the public arena.

The new emphasis on identities becomes more important as the "equation of the personal and the political fosters not only identity politics but a life-style politics in which everyday life becomes a major area of political action" (Buechler 2000, 47). Key to understanding new social movements is recognizing that politicization of everyday life

(private and public) "means that social locations become sites for resistance to power"

(Buechler 2000, 156). Hence, some scholars have called theories of new social movements an "identity paradigm" (Cohen 1985, 663-713) pointing to the link between what an actor does and who an actor is. The Boutchichi order plays here the role of a new religious movement and the theorists of NRMs finds politics in spheres unexplored by realist politics since they "have looked to other logics of action (based in politics, ideology, and culture) and other sources of identity (such as ethnicity, gender, and sexuality) as the sources of collective action" (Buechler 2000, 46). I argue in what follows that there are two roles played by the Moroccan Sufi Boutchichi order with respect to identity politics. 190

First, if the main goal of social identity movements is to engage in a politics of individuation and autonomy from institutional categorizations, then the Moroccan regime, aware of the rise of Islamic identities, gained more power by creating or promoting an otherness against which all potentially dangerous Islamist identities are

demonized. Hence, the Moroccan regime resorts to the strategy of socially constructing a

collective Sufi life-history that will challenge, years from now, other Islamic identities. In

simple terms, the official Moroccan approach is to play out against one another a Sufi and

a non-Sufi group.

Second, by the game of multiplying identities, the Moroccan monarchy aims not

at creating balance among competing identities, but rather at planting the seeds of

diversity as a practice. It is important here to understand diversity not as a strategy

dictated by the now fashionable global imperative of multiculturalism. The Moroccan

state, and by state I mean the planners of the political chess such as the monarchy and its

advisors, did not produce diversity because diversity is a cultural value, but because the

discursive frame within which Islamist parties such as PJD or some salafi groups operate

shuns diversity as heretical and un-Islamic otherness. The cornerstone of identity politics

here is the politicization, by social actors, of previously mundane non-political values and

relations, and the condition for such politicization is the questioning of prevalent social

norms. Hence, for the Sufi identity to become politicized, it needs to lead to the

expansion of the discursive public sphere with respect to the right and norms of

Sufism. AWI achieves such politicization via a political discourse based on justice, while

the Boutchichi order builds its freshly politicized identity on questioning the material 191

values imported from the "West" through globalization, and on fostering nationalistic values of legitimate defense against a religious attack (the controversy of the Danish caricature) or an ethnic aggressor (the western Sahara rebels). Thus, the democratization of the public sphere, through many contentious identities, should not be seen as dissolving boundaries between what is political and what is not, but rather as freezing the definition of a political terrain to exclude certain social actors, making them irrelevant to the established space of public contestation.

The comparison of two definitions of the Boutchichi order by the same person shows that over time the political identity of the order is subject to change and interpretation. Khalid, 28 years old, defined, in an interview with me, the mystical order before its politicization in the following words: "They are absent from Morocco's

struggles. They are there only to get people out of politics." However, when years later I

asked Khalid about the same order after the appointment of one of its members, Ahmed

Taoufiq, as a minister of religious affairs, he answered: "What good does a dull knife do to you? These people never say a word about dictatorship or injustice." In the first instance, Khalid, the non-Sufi engineer located the Boutchichi order outside politics, hence bestowing upon it a status of absence (in the sense of not being where it should be) in two ways: not only is the order absent in politics, but it also produces absent agents

from a reified zone of politics. Khalid uses the trope of silence in the second quote to

criticize the order that is no longer absent. Presence in the first criticism is understood in

its physical sense with a dichotomy of inside/outside: Khalid seems to wish that the order was physically present in the political sphere. Presence in the second criticism is 192

understood as speech: once physical presence is achieved, discursive presence should follow.

It is interesting in this context to reflect on Khalid's image of the dull knife.

Khalid considers the knife ineffective because it is dull; hence implying that cutting is a good mode of political action. This function is implicitly present in his first statement, since the mystical order is blamed for cutting people away from politics. The function of cutting shifts its meaning to that of separating the right, understood as justice, from the wrong, understood as injustice. After this semantic shift, Khalid blames the order not for cutting as he did in the first statement, but for not cutting. The Boutchichi order went from the silently absent to the silently present.

Two observations follow from this change. First, the Boutchichi order is obviously repositioned from an absent to a present actor in the public sphere. Second, silence as a mode of speech becomes synonymous with presence. In fact, silence becomes a legitimate public practice. However, AWI, a competitor movement headed by

Abdessalam Yassine, who seceded from the Boutchichi order for reasons that are discussed in the following chapter, is very vocal even when it boycotts the electoral process. Hence, from the state's strategic perspective, giving a hand to the then apolitical

Boutchichi order aims at fostering an identity that is silent and publicly mystical where the narrative shifts from negating the predicate "you are not political" to affirming the non predicate "you are apolitical." This strategy is inscribed in the Moroccan regime's battle against AWI, a context that helps clarify that the Moroccan regime needs another mystic in the public sphere so that Yassine's mysticism does not monopolize the spiritual 193

discourse. Since the social construction of identities is a negotiation of power, the

Moroccan regime wanted, through an alliance with Yassine's former master, to subjugate

Yassine and jeopardize his access to sainthood. Thus the Moroccan state highlights the discipleship of Yassine to send the message to his followers and potential recruits that he is still a Boutchichi student and not a Sufi master worthy of guiding perplexed souls.

When one compares the discourse of the Boutchichi order and that of AWI in terms of identity politics, one will realize that the latter relies on class, while the former revolves around difference. Most members of Yassine's group are Arabic speaking and belong to the lower middle classes. Yassine's disciples faithfully observe the laws of

Islamic law, while Boutchichi followers often do not pray, drink alcohol, and date.

Hamza's message, which represents identity politics, is severed from solidarity in favor

of difference, except for issues of nationalism. At a discursive level, Sufism shifted from

being a unifying force to being an agent of differentiation. In this sense, Sufism becomes

a populist discourse that leads to populism as a genre in Moroccan politics.

The dhikr of the zawiya

Following Ono and Sloop (2002), critical rhetorical scholars need to study not

only dominant texts in public spheres but also vernacular texts of voices not heard in

private spheres. One way of reading these vernacular Boutchichi texts is to examine the

dhikr of this order. The Boutchichi order has a variety of mantras for its disciples, but

they are generally of two kinds: personal and collective. 194

First, the Boutchichi dhikr is performed collectively and uses many texts of other historical brotherhoods, as if it tries to appropriate the Sufi discourse through ritual reuse, and hence establishes, sotto voce, its supremacy over them. Among the famous texts we find the treatise Ashifaa', written by one of the seven saints of the city of Marrakesh

(Qadi Ayyad). The treatise is a collection of biographic texts praising the Muslim prophet. The latij'prayer, elaborated upon in this chapter, is a collective dhikr of the order that used to be performed silently until it was made to be recited loudly in the last two years. There is also the wadhifa, the typical collective dhikr recited daily by the disciples.

There are two variants of this wadhifa (meaning function), one performed around sunrise and the other one by sunset (for a description of the Boutchichi wadhifa consult www.sidihamza.us). The Boutchichi order's main collective events are two nights taking place in the headquarters at Madagh, one celebrating the birth of Prophet Muhammad

(mawlid), and the night of destiny in Ramadan (lailat al-qadr), and two annual retreats taking place in Madagh in Ramadan and August of every year lasting one month each.

Second, the individual mantra of the Boutchichi disciple is performed twice a day by the disciples and it is a collection of prayers recited by the prophet or ones devised by the spiritual master himself. It is performed silently. Part of the individual dhikr is the recitation of one chapter of the Koran twice a day and reading the corresponding prayer of the day (there are seven prayers according to the days of the week) from the famous treatise Dala 'il Khairat, written by the founder of the Jazouli order. The introduction of the book, a manual sold and used by Boutchichi disciples in their prayers, was written by

Mohamed Sabri, a young Boutchichi disciple who later turned Tijani. Sabri wrote his 195

introduction praising Sidi Hamza, and insisting that the latter gave a general permission

to all Moroccans to read Dala'il Khairat. In a Sufi context where prayers need the permission of the saint to be performed (out of fear that the novice starts mixing energies

that the prayers contain and ultimately be hurt by some paranormal entities), Sidi Hamza

is using the matter of idhn (permission) to establish his power over other orders and over

all Moroccans. One Boutchichi disciple that I interviewed told me once: "the king Sidi

Mohammed can read Dala 'il Khairat if he wants. Sidi Hamza gave all Moroccans the

permission to do it." Why would a book written previously by a famous saint (Jazouli)

need the authorization of a current saint (Sidi Hamza) to be read? Besides trying to

appropriate the Jazouli heritage in a typical intra-Sufi competition, the Boutchichi order,

in its exclusive claim on spiritual education as the only existing Sufi path with a living

authentic master, can be seen as the new Jazouli order of Morocco. Hence, the dhikr

becomes an element of dethroning the king and making him just one of the Moroccans.

Another prayer included in the Dala 'il Khairat is the Duaa Nasiri, written by a famous

saint (Nasiri) on the occasion of an attack on him by the sultan of his time. It was written

when two kings were waging an attack on Nasiri, the founder of the Nasiri order, and

because of this prayer the two kings started a civil war. That prayer is at times recited

individually by Boutchichi members in their meditation.

However, the fact that it is mainly recited publicly and that it includes some

politically dissident verses shows the potential insurgency that is hidden by the order in

the sheets of meditation. To add insult to injury, Nasiri, who wrote this prayer, was the

teacher of Al Yusi, who sent a letter of advice to the King Moulay Ismail, explained in 196

Chapter three. The 'dissident' verses are translated by me as follows:

Kings are humbled to the might of your domain And you lower or elevate whomever you wish, Give us victory over the aggressors And contain the evil among those who asked for it

The fact that this prayer is repeated many times a day by Boutchichi disciples reflects political dissidence on a more important level: the spiritual register of prayers.

Politics is spiritualized. An anonymous critic of the Boutchichi order whom I interviewed had a different interpretation of this Nasiri prayer: "It is only a way of telling people that prayer is the only way out of injustice. That is political apathy at worst and nonviolent resistance at best."

Boutchichi kryptopolitics

The Boutchichi order claims to be apolitical and many analysts fall in the trap of

taking its claim at face value. Mistrusting this announcement of political apathy leads us

to dig beneath politically dormant transcripts and registers in order to map out what I

called in chapter two the kryptopolitics of the order. My argument is that the order of Sidi

Hamza follows a type of politics that Moroccan analysts and politicians alike do not

count as politics proper. The Boutchichi order follows numerous political strategies that

will be laid out in this section. These strategies form the core of kryptopolitics. First, it

follows the politics of never outshining the king. Second, its discourse appeals more to

fantasy than to reality. Third, it assumes political formlessness so that its enemies cannot

locate or attack it. Fourth, the order tries to win incrementally the hearts and minds of the 197

masses and appeal to their emotions until its power becomes an 'emotional fact.' Fifth, the Boutchichi movement follows a tactic of powerful weakness based on a congeniality that numbs the enemies and makes them easy targets for the order's counterattack.

Finally, the order uses the politics of alternating absence and presence, invisibility and visibility in its territorial war with the Moroccan monarchy.

The Boutchichi order follows the politics of never outshining the king. In the same way that there is only one sun that enlightens the universe, the Boutchichi order prefers to play the role of the moon that reflects the light of the sun. In fact, I had the following conversation with Sidi Ahmed Tahiri, an old labor union activist converted into Sufism by the father of Sidi Hamza:

• Why does the sheikh appear in a deferent posture towards the king? • Our ancestors had always taught us that we should always make our leaders feel comfortably superior to us. Sidi Hamza does not like to display his talents and boast about them in public or in private because that might piss off the political authorities whose ego is not ready for breaking. Those who remember Allah a lot will know the value of Sidi Hamza. • But how can the Boutchichi order then claim that it is open to the western democratic heritage when it is claiming an ancestral heritage that is clearly pre-modern? • Well, western history is full of examples of politicians who tried to show much of what they have, be it symbolic, informational or financial capital. Take the French king Louis XIV and his story with his finance minister Nicolas Fouquet. The latter was a generous man who lived lavishly and who loved to host big parties and invited important people. One day, he threw out a party to pay tribute to his king, and he invited for the occasion Moliere to conduct one of his plays. There were fireworks all over the place. The following day, Fouquet was arrested and tried for stealing from the budget. • But stealing is a crime that should not go unpunished. • I agree with you. But this minister was stealing with the permission of the king. It was his pompous outshining of the king that cost him his job. This is the reason you will always see in our zawiya unfinished construction work. It is a way to show imperfection for those above us. We also need to show them that they are smarter than us. In this way, they will not suspect that we have 198

ulterior motives or that we might have the upper hand on them. The highest wisdom is in appearing not to know.

This tactic of not outshining the master applies also within the Boutchichi order.

One day that I attended a lecture by the great Moroccan philosopher Taha Abdurrahman in Madagh at the presence of Sidi Hamza, I was taking notes when a newly recruited member, Samir, an intellectual from Rabat, asked forgiveness from the sheikh before asking the lecturer in French. Knowing that Sidi Hamza does not speak French, what was probably a genuine act of politeness from Samir Haloui was interpreted as an attempt at outshining intellectually the master who does not speak French. The latter left the room while Samir was asking his question.

Another political strategy that the Boutchichi order follows is appealing more to fantasy than to reality in order to make people leave their miserable real lives, an action I described in my theoretical framework as Kryptopolitics. For example, when King

Hassan II passed away, the Boutchichi order organized a collective prayer and an obsequious gathering in order to honor the memory of the deceased and ask God forgiveness for him. Sidi Hamza gave special individual prayers for his disciples telling them: "You have to pray a lot and tighten your belt (thezzmou) while meditating for the salvation of the deceased king who really needs our prayers." The spiritual master asserts his power over the king and his revenge against him- for limiting his traveling without a permit after the Yassine letter of advice-through the use of his gift of seeing the abode of the dead- in heaven or in hell- and he makes sure his closest disciples hear it. When I mentioned this story to an old disciple of the Boutchichi order, he told me that since this current king Mohammed VI had a conflictive relation with his father, the saint Sidi 199

Hamza was preaching to the king through a solid register for the Sufi paradigm, the dream. Furthermore, this saintly speech is a political act in the sense that it is in conformity with the new monarch's philosophy of persuading the Moroccan people that they are in charge of the decisions taken regarding the policies that matter in their daily lives. By performing the prayer for the deceased king, and believing that the prayer will be his ticket to paradise, the disciples feel empowered by the role of assistant to the king.

The Boutchichi order practices also the art of political disguise in the way of being politically formless. Kryptopolitics entails assuming formlessness so that no predator can attack it. It does not want to reify politics so it widens its sphere. Novelty is a characteristic of Sidi Hamza as we have shown in his biography in this chapter. This novelty applies to politics too, since from an apolitical form the Boutchichi order started issuing public statements asking the Moroccans to rally behind their king. Rather than considering this public call a public transcript of submission to authority, one can see it as a resistance mechanism against the numerous attempts of the Moroccan monarchy to destroy the kyrptopolitical transcript of the order by rendering it visible.

The response of the Boutchichi order is to combat exorcism by another exorcism.

Instead of changing its strategy in the hidden realm, the Boutchichi order precisely writes a transcript in the formal visible realm and it makes it that of obedience and flattery.

Instead of having a position, the Boutchichi order prefers swinging between many. Even its websites are not official and there is no specific webmaster in charge of unifying its communication policy. The Boutchichi mobility makes it hard for the political police to predict its moves or form a strategy to defeat it. Indirection and elusiveness become thus 200

tactics that pay off better than engagement. In the time of Sidi Hamza's father, the rule was not to be engaged in politics. No engagement was the order's engagement.

Nowadays, a disciple is free to engage politically or be neutral even if the order as such does not take sides except when it is about backing the king. Sidi Hamza himself told me one day: "Sidi Abdelilah, be like water. It takes all forms and it always stays close to the

earth."

The Boutchichi politics targets masses not leaders. It does so by winning the hearts and minds of the common people, incrementally until power is gained, slowly without noise. When I had just entered the Boutchichi order in 1995, my senior

colleagues were always bombarding me with sweet comments about me that catered to my ego. They were telling me repeatedly: "you are shining like the sun" or "you are a

saint" after a spiritual gathering. Winning my heart, through sweet-talking me and

nurturing my desire for distinction, was their way of making me stay in the group after

being recruited. The same strategy is followed with intellectuals or professors who join

the order. They are generally given the opportunity, and insistently asked, to give a

speech in populated gatherings. For an intellectual, keen to outshine his audience, it is the

best marketing tool to get VIP access. The leaders of the order benefit from this strategy

because they show to potential and new recruits that the order counts among its members

intellectuals and not only common people, and the intellectuals in turn benefit from the

deal because people recognize them as spokespersons and this role gives them legitimacy

and empowerment within their smaller circles. 201

There is a famous Sufi poem ("with weakness, we have gained all strength") that

Boutchichi disciples like to chant. This poem is representative of a general Boutchichi political discourse that I call powerful weakness. The "weapons of the weak" in the

Boutchichi order are lulling the Moroccan monarchy into complacency by surrendering to it. Sanaa, a Boutchichi disciple from France, told me one time that the Boutchichi order believes that arguing with the authorities is lowering oneself to their level. Pseudo- obedience is better than making a costly rebellion since our enemies are so satisfied and numbed by our congeniality that they become easier targets for our counterattack. Hence, the longevity of Sidi Hamza and his respect for the orders by the police not to leave his city in many instances got him to put one of his disciples Mr. Z in charge of the secret service of the city of Oujda. Z became an informant for Sidi Hamza, so he won his battle against the state. Outwardly bending and giving the other cheek does not negate staying firm internally. Sanaa gave me here the example of the French writer Voltaire who was once stopped by an anti-French mob in England under shouting orders to kill the

"Frenchman" and instead of rebelling or running, Voltaire told them: "am I not punished enough for not being born in noble England?" They were laughing and let him go. My argument throughout this dissertation was that the Boutchichi order surrendered outwardly to the monarchy to learn its ways and gain its trust while maintaining its own insurgent inward culture. This soft power leaves no room for the enemy to resist, but this strategy requires patience and self-control, two characteristics of sheikh Hamza as we have shown in his biography. 202

Kryptopolitics is ironically the realm of visibility that hides invisibility. A simulacrum is its backbone, and it is manifest in the set of public rituals and ceremonies in which it is engaged. For example, as I show in this chapter with the feast of the birth of the prophet Muhammad (mawlid), cult politics involves uses spectacle and theatricality to fight boredom of the members of the movement. Emphasizing the sensual and the visual is part and parcel of this process. A ceremony of the mawlid involves showing the sheikh sitting motionless on a high stand, a semiotic act that points to distance and hierarchy.

The chanting of poems soothes the ear, and incense soothes the smell. Group hysteria becomes a wave that generates a Mesmer-like magnetism. Our tendency to doubt dissipates when we are in a group. As this Boutchichi disciple from Fes told me once,

"the fokara become your brothers and sisters, and the sheikh your father" and insisted that the warmth of the group overrides the skepticism of the individual. Hence, one of the strategies of the Moroccan monarchy to fight the cult dimension of the Boutchichi order is precisely to individualize it and kill in it the group dimension.

Another strategy that the Boutchichi order uses in kryptopolitics is the politics of

absence followed by that of presence. The sheikh was telling a group of disciples who

came to see him once, when I was there: "when one is present and available all the time, people take him for granted. Only by withdrawing momentarily does one restore his presence (hiba). You are more likely to die from food indigestion than from fasting." He

continued his talk explaining to them that nature is full of this alternation such as night

and day, summer and winter, sun and moon, and birth and death. In fact the sun is

appreciated more when it reappears after a long absence like in Scandinavian countries. It 203

is precisely in this dialectic that the monarchy's tactic operates to counter the expansion of the Boutchichi order. Lately, the state has been promoting the Boutchichi order precisely to strip it of the legend that cloaks its absence or political absence. It wants to make it so present to devalue it. The logic of the monarchy is simply that of the supply and demand where too much offer drives the prices down while scarcity pushes them up.

For the Boutchichi order, absence created fame, so the Moroccan state countered by giving it presence and familiarity to diminish it.

Deconstructing the Boutchichi order

While I have my own criticism of the Boutchichi order and its future, there are deep-seated historical and cultural beliefs about Sufism that shape the anti-Sufism discourse that I will study in this section. I address three main critiques against the

Boutchichi order by voices that are critical of Sufis, and that are encouraged by the

Moroccan monarchy as part of its strategy of being an enemy and a friend of any movement out of fear that it grows out of proportion. Finally, I present my own critique of the Boutchichi order based on the fact that the Moroccan monarchy will kill the secret of the order that resides in its core essence (invisibility) and will make it lose its potential for kryptopolitics. Through marketing and branding, the Moroccan monarchy pushes the

Boutchichi order towards de-kryptopolitics.

The three anti-Sufi arguments go as follows. First, the order is no more than a legitimating tool for the Moroccan monarchy by setting the cultural foundations of authoritarianism; second, the order lacks historical legitimacy since its Tijani link is broken; third, the order lacks national legitimacy since it is Algerian due to the fact that 204

its founder was born in Algeria and was involved with the French colonialists; I will address in what follows the three arguments, discussing their strengths and weaknesses.

Sufism as a legitimating tool of the state

Abdullah Hammoudi (1997), a Moroccan anthropologist teaching at Princeton

University, argues that Sufism is the cultural foundation of Moroccan authoritarianism in the sense that it teaches Moroccans blind submission to the Saint, an uncritical behavior recuperated by the Moroccan monarchy in the political scene to depict the king as an infallible and sacred person. Hammoudi's argument relies on two major assumptions.

First, at the heart of Morocco's culture we find the Sufi paradigm of master and disciple that is known to rest upon absolute submission of the disciple. Second, by serving his master through cooking and washing his laundry, the disciple witnesses a loss of manhood because he performs feminine tasks. Hammoudi's arguments are very accurate when it comes to the lack of democratic attitudes within Sufi orders. However, one needs to understand the hidden transcript of Sufi orders in order to assess their situation more deeply. Discussing the excellent work of Abdullah Hammoudi was given special treatment in my book that carries the same title Master and Disciple (Bouasria 2006). I will only sketch its main arguments here.

Abdullah Hammoudi's book, Master and Disciple (1997), argues that the Sufi disciple is feminized while serving his master food and washing his clothes. In

Hammoudi's account, by being docile in front of his master through cooking for him and washing his clothes, the disciple becomes effeminate, and this feminization is defined as a loss of virility and power. However, contrary to what Hammoudi argued, feminization 205

can also be read as empowerment. Some feminists have sought to understand how and why women resist the dominant male order by subverting the hegemonic meanings of cultural practices to fit their own agendas (Hegland 1998). If the disciple, as Hammoudi argues, is feminized by submitting to his master, then why consider femininity as weakness rather than empowerment?

The focus on women as active agents provided a crucial corrective to studies on the Middle East, which depicted Muslim and Arab women as submissive to male authority (Abu-Lughod 1990). Feminist scholarship portrayed women's lives in Muslim society as far more active and influential than previous narratives made us believe

(Fernea 1985). In fact, some feminist scholars used subaltern gendered agency in several original ways. For example, Janice Boddy (1989) studied a Sudanese village analyzing a women's Zar cult, a healing ritual using spirits and attended largely by women, and concluded that in a society where the official religious discourse is controlled by males, the Zar cult can be read as a locus of subordinate discourse. She described it as a

"feminine response to hegemonic praxis, and the privileging of men that this ideologically entails" (Boddy 1989, 7).

Another example is Lila Abu-Lughod, who criticized some feminist assumptions including her own in previous work (Abu-Lughod 1990 and 1993). She criticized her

early analysis of women's poetry among the Bedouin tribe of Awlad AH, where she located instances of resistance. Abu-Lughod argued that one could not recognize instances of women's resistance without "misattributing to them forms of consciousness or politics that are not part of their experience-something like a feminist consciousness or 206

feminist politics" (Abu-Lughod 1990, 47). As an alternative, Lila Abu-Lughod suggests the use of resistance as a "diagnostic of power" (1990, 42) by locating the shifts in social power relations that influence both, those who resist and those who dominate. She puts her finger on a real limitation of the use of the subaltern resistance paradigm:

The problem has been that those of us who have sensed that there is something about resistance have tended to look to it for hopeful confirmations of the failure- or partial failure- of systems of oppression. Yet it seems to me that we respect everyday resistance not just by arguing for the dignity or heroism of the resisters but by letting their practices teach us about complex inter-workings of historically changing structures of power. (1990, 53)

The lack of historical legitimacy

The spiritual master of Sidi Hamza, the head of the Boutchichi order, was Sidi

Boumediene whose master was a man by the name of Ahmed Ibn al- Aryan who belonged to the Tijani Sufi order. Hence, the Boutchichi order claims to be in part Tijani. One of the critiques of the Boutchichi order by the disciples of the Tijani order is that the chain of transmission of the Boutchichi order was broken. H.D, a young Sufi who was formerly

Boutchichi, told me in an interview that the Boutchichi breaches all the three conditions of belonging to a Tijani order: not to mix the Tijani with another order, not to mix the

Tijani dhikr with another one, and not to visit dead or alive saints. In fact, the saint

Ahmed Tijani believed in his pre-eminence over all saints and "the superiority of his order to all other Sufi orders" requiring "Muslims who aspired to the Tijani order to give up their membership in other Sufi orders, assuring them that they would be safe from the vindictiveness of the walis whom they repudiate" (Abun-Nasr 1965, 39). In fact, an 207

informant that left the Boutchichi order to join the Tijani order shows how the Boutchichi order's claim to the Tijani link is historically dubious:

Ahmad ibn al-Aryan did not initiate the Tijani wird to Boumediene. He rather gave him a litany of 1000 repetitions of al-Sharh chapter a day. It was not the Tijani litany. Moreover, sheikh Ahmed Ibn al-Aryan did not order Boumediene to go to Fez and meet with Mohammed Lahlou because if Ibn al-Aryan were a Tijani master he would be the first one to respect the Tijani condition of not allowing Tijani disciples to go to other Sufi orders. Furthermore, Ibn al-Aryan did not give a permission to Boumediene to teach the Tijani secret because that would require a written permission in the Tijani tradition, and such a document never existed. Boumediene received his fath (psychic unveiling) by drinking the spit of Ibn al- Aryan during the latter's ablution. Other than the broken connection of the Boutchichi order to the Tijani order, the Qadiri connection of the Boutchichi order is also broken.

The implications are important because a spiritual order's historical legitimacy rests upon

a sound and unbroken sanad (chain of authority), and when the latter is corrupt the claim

to sainthood is false. Boumediene did not take the Qadiri order from Haj al-Mokhtar who

was a Qadiri saint. Boumediene used to criticize al Mokhtar, calling him a lazy and

passive man, and it was a Tijani master (al Mazuni) who corrected Boumediene's

perception after the death of al-Mokhtar by telling him that the latter was a real saint

since light came out of his forehead on his deathbed.

Casting doubt on the link between the Boutchichi order and the Qadiri origin was

the posture of more than one scholar. Okacha Berrehab, a Moroccan historian, said: "The

leaders of the Boutchichi order claim that their Sufi origin is the Qadiri order, but all the

documents prove that this order that was founded by Boumediene is the Ben Alioua

order, a mixture of Qadiri and Derqaoui, even if sheikh Hamza and others deny it, and

what gives credence to this story is the changing, by the leaders of the order, in 2006, of 208

the sign that shows the way to the headquarters in Madagh from the Boutchichi order to the Qadiri Boudchichi order" (Berrehab 2007, 75 my translation, emphasis in original).

The lack of national legitimacy

According to the book of A. Qadiri Boutchich, Nubugh Sufi fi qabail bani yaznasen, the current publicized chain of authority of the Boutchichi order linking it to the founder of the Qadiri order is not sound. In fact, al-Mokhtar, the grandfather of Sidi

Hamza's grandfather, died very young and left his wife pregnant with his child who was named after his father. The father obviously could not transmit any knowledge to a baby in the womb, so the chain of transmission to the saint Jilani is "cut" and not sound.

Moreover, al Haj al-Mokhtar's real master was an Algerian who took the authorization to be a spiritual master from Emir Abdelkader al-Jazairi. In a letter, al-Mokhtar received the order from the cousin of Emir Abdelkader to direct the order's money to the Algerian

Muqaddam Boualam. Furthermore, Sidi Mohammed As-Sufi, a competitor of Hamza and one of the early students of Boumediene, became a sheikh after his master's death and migrated to Algeria where he founded a Boutchichi order before dying in 2004.

Sociologists and political analysts of the Islamic field in Morocco point to the new alliance between the Boutchichi order and the Moroccan state as a proof that the order is using a tool of global capitalism (marketing) to do what it always did:

'evangelizing'. Using mass media to reach out to the Moroccan youth and elite is seemingly a new policy of the Boutchichi order. While this is not false, looking at this joint venture between the sultan and the saint only through the prism of politics leaves 209

aside the business rationale behind such a shift. The argument that I make here is that the recent integration by the Boutchichi movement in its religious practices of a marketing logic will ultimately produce religious consumers embracing a capitalist ethic. This rationale is grounded in a modernist protestant ethic and a secular materialist ontology, and it is the weapon used by the monarchy to fight the insurgency of kryptopolitics by putting it in daylight and exposing it. What happens when a previously Sufi counter- public order enters the public sphere? My answer is that the Boutchichi order made some sacrifices when choosing to go public. What follows is a discussion of how the Moroccan state fights invisibility with visibility through the explicit market positioning and the branding of the Boutchichi order.

The Boutchichi saint wears Prada

The Harvard Business Review on Brand Management came out in 1994 with a compilation of very interesting articles on the issue of building brands. This book helps to explain the different strategies used by the Boutchichi disciples to construct their image, particularly in the public sphere. Besides using mass media (newspapers, TV, radio, internet) to polish its image, the Boutchichi order resorts to another technique: recruiting sports figures and sponsoring cultural events, not as an institutional body but through individual organizers known to be affiliated with the Boutchichi order.

The guidelines for building a successful brand suggest "the companies recognized the importance of clarifying their core brand identity; and they made sure that all their efforts to gain visibility were tied to that core identity" (Joachimsfhaler and Aaker 1994,

2). As for the Boutchichi order, while the leader is silent in public forums (except for a 210

2009 interview in Al-Masae, a populist newspaper) his grandson does not miss an opportunity to speak to the media. The order loves to recruit intellectuals, professors and public servants for networking and for polishing its image as a "cool" order where not only the wretched of the earth come to seek guidance but also the prosperous gentry in need of spiritual fulfillment. Furthermore, the order stresses its core brand identity: the

Boutchichi are the only divinely authentic path for the perplexed. Moreover, when asked about their recent media savvy stunts, the managers of the order claim that they seek visibility only because God asked them to do so or because the time of going public has come. The two tactics tend to tie the visibility variable to the core identity of the group.

This ex-disciple that I interviewed puts the discourse of the "renewal of the order" in its marketing context:

When the Boutchichi order states that it had transformed its identity from that of a hard core spiritual testing path to a more or less easy and accommodating order, it does so to create an alternative marketing technique in light of the rising costs of traditional mass media and the fragmentation of its market. Hence, the change of the brand is merely driven by tactical communication objectives: diversify the niche and reach the maximum of people.

Rather than making its products known with a major advertising campaign, the

Boutchichi order opens posh mini orders in affluent urban vicinities. Cafe Le Derviche, put in place by the Boutchichi Faouzi Skalli in France is an example of a cafe-like meditation center where the rich and famous come to pray. It is in this same spirit

(catering to riches rather than rags) that a Boutchichi senior disciple in a sub-Saharan

African country was made fun of by another disciple in France, known for his tasteless jokes, for recruiting "drawa" (niggers), a Moroccan racist word to refer to black people. 211

The same disciple made a contrast with the order in Europe and America where blondes and blue-eyed gentry bring gifts to the Guru. Linking the Boutchichi order to the arts- through music festivals and sports events- sponsorship is a sub-strategy in business that fits into the whole vision of preaching to the nobility. A Moroccan magazine published a whole issue on all the sports and arts figures that visited the Guru Sidi Hamza for guidance. The fact that the Boutchichi order scores high on the visibility spectrum gives it a comparative advantage over other orders in the sense that people tend to like known brands.

Can we look at the Boutchichi politicization as a business vertical extension? By this concept, I simply mean extending the Boutchichi brand to an attractive market niche beyond its current position. The state apparatus represents a golden opportunity for the spiritual sellers to relocate into booming premium and value segments. The motivation for raising the brand from a mainstream market to an upscale one is that high-end markets have higher margins than middle markets. One way to access an upscale market is to acquire or launch a new brand. For example, the Honda car company developed the

Acura brand to compete in a high-end market famous with brands such as Mercedes and

BMW, and Nissan did the same thing with Infmiti. Hence, by having a "shadow" endorsement of a new brand, the sponsor tells the consumers that the newborn is here to stay. For the Boutchichi order, the "shadow" endorsement is operated through prominent public figures such as the minister of religious affairs and several counselors of the king who "belong" to the order without attending any of its public ceremonies. When people point to Ahmed Taoufiq, the minister of religious affairs, they automatically cite the 212

Boutchichi order. The latter's access to the upscale market (public figures, businessmen, francophone elite...) is mediated through the appointment of one of its members in a ministerial position.

The Boutchichi order developed a two-layered tactic to accommodate this strategy of moving up market. First, it made sure its vertical extension is reasonable. Hence, it will publicly claim ties to a minister or a businessman but never to the king or a secret service official. Although in the informal internal discourse of the order, the king appears to be also a Boutchichi disciple, in the public register the saint Sidi Hamza appears subjected to the Moroccan king. Second, the order gives its upscale product distinct characteristics to differentiate it from the mainstream product. Hence, it makes sure to show foreign disciples speaking French, English (both British and American) and

Spanish in a festival. It even separates the Moroccans from the non Moroccans in its rituals, always giving the latter better privileges. The rationale in the mind of the foreigners is to keep their distinct culture, but for the recruiters it is to show to the

Moroccan market and to the regime that the order is global and sophisticated.

Another strategy followed by the Boutchichi order is increasing the power of the brand by repositioning it in a new market. This strategy is done through many ways.

First, one is to drop the brand's price. In the context of the Boutchichi order, the price that is dropped is religious rigor. It is known among the Boutchichi disciples that strict adherence to religious commandments is not a priority. For example, they might delay one of the five daily prayers, engage in religiously problematic premarital sex or drink alcohol, the rationale being that imperfection of humans is natural with the hope that one 213

day the Boutchichi mantra will induce a self-change in the seeker's lifestyle. Compared to other Islamic movements as I have shown in chapter four, the Boutchichi order is often criticized for being "lax" on the respect and observance, by its members, of Islamic law not as a Modus Vivendi of the group but rather as a weakness of its members. The strategy of price reduction comes with a risk: damaging the brand's image mainly among the religious clientele.

The Boutchichi order, well aware of such a drawback, devised a technique to reduce the tarnishing image effect of price reduction. It came up with a mystical rationale that explained the "price" move in a way that did not sacrifice the quality of its product

(Islamic salvation). A Boutchichi disciple told me once: "God can draw you closer to him through sins, because as a sinner you will not be arrogant and you will feel low." The saints always recruit such humble servants and prefer them over Islamic scholars or intellectuals. The latter's bloated egos make their breaking in the sake of God, or emptying from non Sufi knowledge, very hard. It is common among the disciples of the

Boutchichi order to repeat the following slogan: "You can only fill an empty cup."

Hence, a rationale for price reduction is found and incorporated within the mystical discourse to make it look original, and most importantly to inscribe this price strategy as a comparative advantage of the order in the gamut of the Islamic supermarket.

There are strategies in business that the Boutchichi order does not follow, and one wonders why it is so, thinking about these tactics as potential boosters of the order's mobilization range. One of these strategies is officially sponsoring events related to

Sufism but not to the order. In the same way that the Swatch Company organizes the 214

Swatch World Break-Dancing Championship in New York City, the Boutchichi order can sponsor a competition of poetry about the prophet Muhammad or a national Koran recitation contest. Adidas, for instance, developed urban culture programs that included a street-ball festival. Another strategy that I suggest and predict from many years of participant observation is to open a Boutchichi museum, parallel to the Holocaust museum, in order to inscribe the Sufi order in the memory of the generations to come, linking an entertaining spiritual experience to brand building. Unfortunately, while the logic of consumerism might seem to speed up the order's expansion and align it with today's technological communication means, this same logic is used by the monarchy to shorten the life of the order. The tactics used by the monarchy were discussed in detail in this section, and they range from spreading rumors against it regarding its historical or political legitimacy, or diluting it in a materialist logic that it appears to fight.

Conclusion

I looked at the symbolic registers used by the Boutchichi order to communicate, sotto voce, its expression of dissent and I explored this movement from the perspective of what I called kryptopolitics, a Sufi paradigm that allows us to shift from the visible to the invisible levels of perception. While retaining our ability to function at the lower realm, my theory argues that understanding and finding Sufi politics require looking at the formal, informal (identity formation, monetary donations, ritual, spectacle), hidden

(collectively interpreted dreams, poems, symbolic language) and meta-hidden levels

(silence, individually interpreted dreams). 215

The Boutchichi order focuses on everyday life and engages in identity politics

(who a person is, the person's relation to truth) which prevails over socio-political dimensions. Instead of focusing on changing the political regime or challenging the economic class system, the Boutchichi order prefers to emphasize the purification of the heart of its members and their relation to divine truth. Hence, the target of transformative action for the Boutchichi leaders is the taming of the self or ego of the members. This preoccupation does not mean that the order is not politicized. It only means that it follows hidden avenues of participation in the socio-political Moroccan field outside the confines of traditional political activism.

The Boutchichi order reintroduces the concept of family in Moroccan society since its internal discourse depicts itself as a spiritual family that emphasizes the bonds between the fokara as brothers and sisters, with the spiritual master wearing the mantle of the father. Sidi Abdelkhaleq, the muqaddam of the Boutchichi order in Montreal, Canada was always saying to the Boutchichi saint Sidi Hamza upon visiting him: "you are not my

Sheikh. You are my father." Boutchichi disciples often manifest their joyful state when their sheikh appears in front of them by shouting "Abba" (O Father!). In fact, Sidi

Hamza's order offers a sense of community to the desperados of mega-cities. The

Boutchichi order, aware of the importance of "emotional intelligence," offers open arms to those in search of a "surrogate family." Facing the alienating environment of work

(with its stressing demands) and "liquid love" (hit-and-run relations and repetitive break ups), the Boutchichi order regains its importance as a safety net and a larger family. The

Boutchichi umbrella offers protection in two ways: it removes people from their social 216

cubicles (intimacy and work) to offer them a communal life that places both work and intimacy in a divine setting. However, many Boutchichi families were destroyed precisely because the son started looking at Sidi Hamza as his "real" father and the wife started looking at the saint as her "real" husband. Thus, while one might argue that the

Boutchichi order recalls the notion of family as a safety net, it is also a double-edged sword that threatens the non Sufi fabric of Moroccan families.

I argued that the Boutchichi order uses silence as a form on political expression based on its mastery of the occult and paranormal register, and founded on what the

Algerian scholar Marnia Lazreg called the "eloquence of silence":

Silence as the absence of public voice is not synonymous with absence of talk or action. In fact, Algerian women acted throughout their history in ways that made their silence quiet eloquent. Their silence was at times circumstantial or the result of social, cultural or personal circumstances, such as trusting that the state would defend their rights and keeping quiet until these rights were grossly violated. At other times it was structural, or dictated by historically determined structures such as the colonial requirements that speech be expressed in French, thus disabling those who could not speak the language. Strategic silence was and still is a voluntary act of self-preservation when a women feels it is better to keep quiet than to incur someone's wrath or disapproval. (1994 18)

The state fights the Boutchichi order by making it espouse the logic of marketing and branding, making its main weapon (invisibility) switch to its opposite (visibility). In fact, the order loves to recruit intellectuals, professors, and public servants for networking and for polishing its image as a "cool" order where not only the wretched of the earth come to seek guidance but also the prosperous gentry in need of spiritual fulfillment. The

Boutchichi politicization can be seen as a vertical extension in the sense that the order 217

extended its brand to an attractive market niche beyond its current position from a mainstream market to an upscale one since high-end markets have higher margins than

middle markets. The Boutchichi order developed a two-layered tactic to accommodate

this strategy of moving up market. First, it made sure its vertical extension is reasonable.

Hence, it claimed ties to the minister of religious affairs Ahmed Taoufiq but never to the

king or a secret service official. Although in the informal internal discourse of the order,

the king appears to be also a Boutchichi disciple, in the public register the Guru Sidi

Hamza appears subjected to the Moroccan king. Second, the order gives its upscale

product distinct characteristics to differentiate it from the mainstream product. Hence, it

makes sure to show in a festival foreign disciples speaking French, English (Both British

and American) and Spanish. CHAPTER SIX

ABDESSALAM YASSINE: A BOUTCHICHI AVATAR ?

In present day Morocco, AWI is an Islamist party that is excluded from the formal political game, unlike other official Islamists like the Justice and Development Party

(PJD). Most analysts of Moroccan Islamism count AWI as the most popular and powerful

Islamist movement in Morocco (Tozy 1999; Darif 1999; Zeghal 2008; Maddy-Weitzman

2003). The membership of Yassine's group is estimated at tens of thousands, organized

in small networks of 10, whose members regularly interact and work while reporting both

horizontally and vertically (Darif 1999). Its leader Abdessalam Yassine broke away from

the Boutchichi order to found AWI, which has neither official status nor seats in the

current Moroccan parliament. Mind you, AWI does not seek official recognition because

it is opposed to the current government, and does not wish to participate in it through the

internal motto of the movement told to me by Roukia R, one informant who belongs to

the movement "we did not make any move towards political participation in Morocco."

Abdessalam Yassine became the uncontested leader of AWI. He says of himself

in his book Al Adl, that he is "the corner stone of the edifice, there is no group without

him; he is the state man and the preacher" (2000, 432, my translation). He nominates the

cells' managers and makes all educational decisions pertaining to the organization. He has

the right to make emergency decisions without consulting with others. Yassine empowers

218 219

his followers by making them feel that they are carriers of the noblest message. In order to understand AWI as a social movement, this chapter employs a number of theoretical approaches: dream analysis because dreams are a medium of communication for Sufis, and social movement theory because it maps its relationship to the Moroccan state and other political actors.

Post-Islamism is one explanation of Sufi resurgence in Morocco: an orthodox Sufi movement on the one hand and an offshoot that changed its apparatus. Some French academics put forth the concept of "Post-Islamism" to describe the crisis of Islamic movements in the Middle East and North Africa (Roy 2002; Kepel 2000). Post-Islamism was used to describe the shift of Islamism toward practical compromises vis-a-vis politics. Moreover, the theory of Post-Islamism has been arguing that the resurgence of

Sufi movements was symptomatic of this concept in that they created a secular space which shifted religious activism away from the state. According to academics discussing

Post-Islamism, the political discourse becomes tainted with spirituality and ethics.

Post-Islamism theory could be beneficial for the study of AWI since "it could explain multiple recent phenomena, including the advent of the moderate Party of Justice and Development (PJD) and the unprecedented visibility of the Butshishiyya Sufi order"

(Lauziere 2005, 242). According to Henri Lauziere, "Yassine's interest for mysticism had a tactical value," because Sufism was marginal among the Nationalist Moroccan leaders

(2005, 244). As a matter of fact, Yassine re-appropriated mystical elements for two main reasons: as a former disciple of the Boutchichi order he had a repertoire of contention full of mystical symbols, and he wanted to mobilize more people. Yassine praised the virtues 220

of his Boutchichi master al-Haj 'Abbas for liberating him from the shackles of ignorance and archaic forms of Islam (Darif 1995, 64). Is AWI a case of post-Islamism? Or does its reality lie dormant beneath our visible conventional ways of analyzing Yassine's movement?

History of AWI Yassine's biography

AWI grew from humble roots. Born in 1928, its leader, Abdessalam Yassine belonged to a poor rural Berber family that had immigrated to Marrakech. He was a first

generation city-dweller and was fluent in the Berber dialect of his native tribe. At an early

age Yassine was sent to a Koran school and was then educated in a free school. At fifteen

years old, he enrolled in courses at the Institute of Ibn Youssef of Marrakech, one of the principal learning centers for religious studies in Morocco. His father, who served in the

French army during the World War II, returned home adorned with medals and did not

seem to be pious, so the young Abdessalam grew closer to one of his uncles. In 1947, he

pursued a career in Arabic teaching, and in 1955, he arrived with another Berber,

Mohammed Chafiq, who would later be the cantor of the Berber activist cause in

Morocco, to the teaching inspector's examination organized by the ministry of education.

During this period, Yassine was not concerned with politics, but rather with his teaching

career and religious growth. In April 1956, the Moroccan ministry of education addressed

a note to all school inspectors asking them to begin an Arabization program for the

primary school, and hence, both Yassine and Chafiq were being summoned, as

inspectors, to the minister's office. In 1962, the minister of education Youssef Bel Abbas 221

wanted to make Yassine his personal delegate, with the explicit goal of enrolling them in the FDCI (Front for the Defence of Constitutional Institutions), a party created by the then minister of the interior Reda Guedira, but Yassine refused the offer so he was removed from office.

At the beginning of the 1960's, he started seriously studying modern cultures, so he learned French with a priest, in addition to English, Russian and Hebrew, to the extent that his colleagues gave him the nickname of "golden mouth" during a trip to the United

States of America, referring to his linguistic abilities. It could be argued that Yassine

studied Hebrew to know the language of the "enemy," bearing in mind his pro-

Palestinian position in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yassine began then to read the works of

Sufi masters and Christian mystics, which should not be surprising given that most

spiritual seekers are at first infatuated with the universal tolerant face of Sufism:

I began my quest with books. I studied the books of the Mazdeens [...] but God protected me and moved me away from their religion. I also read the spiritual experiences of both the Christians and Jews. Then I returned to the books of the Sufis. (1972, 387)

When Morocco received independence in 1956, Abdessalam Yassine was promoted inspector of education at the Moroccan ministry of education. He was married

and had a daughter who was born in 1960 followed by two boys. In 1945, he joined a

Training School for teachers in Rabat, graduating in 1947. Immediately afterwards, he joined the Ministry of National Education, but was suspended in 1968 for constant

absenteeism. 222

The beginning of Yassine's conversion to religiosity was a personal crisis. In fact, one spring day in 1965, Yassine, usually clean shaven and sporting a suit and tie, came to his office wearing a crude wool djellaba, an untamed beard and hair, announcing to his colleagues that he was searching for a Sufi saint. After a dream in which he saw the prophet Muhammad asking to follow him to see the sheikh who would teach him the real meaning of la ilaha ilia Allah (there is no God but Allah), Yassine took his car and went to see the sheikh in Madagh, close to Oujda at the border to Algeria. This dream gave

Yassine a certain sense of a prophetic destination, and set the tone for his future use of dreams as a site of contention, as well as a legitimization of leadership:

Since childhood, I dedicated myself to God and the Koran [...] but I was distant from the Sufis and their beliefs [...]. Since God wanted better for me, he made me very critical. I was a lucky man. I had everything a man of my age wished to have. I had health, a reputation and social status. I was not aware of this spiritual crisis [...]. I had a feeling of desperation as I wanted to know the truth of my existence. (Yassine 1972, 387)

However, conversion narratives are constructed after the events, and the real story of Yassine's conversion is that he was recruited by a former teacher, Si Rouhi, who is

still a Boutchichi disciple. I asked Si Rouhi about his recruitment of Yassine but he preferred not to talk about this matter, which caused him a lot of grief in light of

Yassine's defection. Yassine shared with Mohamed Chafiq - as the latter recounts in his book Ce que dit le muezzin (That Which the Muezzin Says) - his Sufi ecstasy:

Suppose you are a parachutist. If you were to jump out of a plane, you would be scared, for the jump to the end scares you. Now imagine that you know that you can fly indefinitely in the air. My impression is that I can fly in space. If you remain a prisoner of reason, you will never know your human potential. You are afraid of the absolute. (1972, 30) 223

The transformation of A. Yassine came in 1965 after he started having personal problems. He divorced his wife, and entered the spiritual order of the Boutchichi Qadiri path headed then by sheikh Abbas, the father of sheikh Hamza, and soon became one of the main disciples of Hajj Abbas. He did not talk much and was often heard telling his friends that he was sick. After being promoted again in his job, Yassine started going to work less and less and finally quit his job. When sheikh Abbas died in 1972, Yassine seemed to be unhappy with the succession of sheikh Hamza. Yassine left the Boutchichi order saying that it had forgotten the aspect of jihad and became co-opted by the regime as mentioned before.

Seeing visions started with the leader Yassine, and became a pattern of his movement making it a collective practice. The leader's empathy is manifest through his multiple suffering at the hands of the Moroccan regime. In the same way that his followers are tortured and jailed, he had his share of Moroccan police brutality: jail, torture, psychiatric ward and in-house confinement. In fact, Yassine had submitted inl982 to the Moroccan state authorities a request to recognize his association al Jamaa, and in 1983 he tried again, this time with another name, jamiyyat al-jamaa al-khairiyya

(The Charitable Community Association). After the second refusal, his association developed illegally. In 1987, the association took the name Al Adl Wal Ihsane and in

January 1990, it was dissolved by the Moroccan government who arrested the leaders and restricted all the activities. 224

Yassine's house arrest (1989-1995) was officially lifted on 13 December 1995, only to be reinstated a few days later. No real explanation was given for this decision, but it had deep implications for the movement. It marked a historical moment for AWI and became a symbol of its struggle against the status quo, embittering the movement and putting further strain on its relationship with the state. This development resulted from Yassine's tense relations with the state, which in turn fed on Yassine's refusal to recognize the principle of the king as the commander of the faithful.

From 1989 until 2000, Yassine was under house arrest but his movement grew bigger and his reputation became global. The negotiations with the palace were continuous, and the envoys of the king suggested a mutual peaceful pact in which the movement would not be bothered by the regime, provided it recognized the spiritual authority of the king as commander of the faithful. Yassine and his followers refused.

We have seen that visions marked Yassine's personal path before leaving their imprint on his movement. Similarly, saying the truth in front of the ruler, using the genre of nasiha, started with Yassine but became a cornerstone of his movement's ideology as well. In fact, the spiritual officials that Yassine has allowed to speak in the name of the movement are authorized to advise the other members of the movement, and they are defined by the term akh nasih [exhorting brother]. However, it is unimaginable that a youth would offer nasiha to those who are higher up because the hierarchy is also a spiritual one. The standards for such advice are soft and kind speech in the sense that advising members "commit to using kind words and to avoid hurtful ones, address people 225

by their preferred title and avoid bragging and stubbornness, do not offer nasiha if the result will favour the illicit over the licit results" (Yassine 1972, 64).

When asked about the rationale for his movement's confrontational attitude vis-a-vis the regime, Fathallah Arsalane, the official spokesperson of AWI, argued that the

"Moroccan government is uncomfortable about the existence of a legally organized Islamic force because this force will challenge the government's religious legitimacy" (1996, 58, my translation). Arsalane, who represents the leadership of the movement, further argues that his association has been the subject of an elaborate plot in which foreign agents, including the French, took part in order to discredit the Islamist movement. While the arrest of Yassine and the pressure on his movement may have served some of the state's immediate political goals, they may also have forced the Islamists to become more reluctant to engage in any dialogue with the government.

Yassine's writings

In his first book, Al-Islam Bayna al Da 'wa wa-ddawla [Islam, Between Preaching and the State] published shortly after his Sufi Sheikh Abbas' death, Yassine described his project very clearly: to create an Islamic group in collaboration with the Prince, that would be devoted to educating the population. Yassine believes that to lead people in religious matters it is necessary to have a man who has left this worldly life behind him and who has concerned himself with God. He should not aim to take and use his position of power in order to lure people into submitting to his will. Yassine has been writing tirelessly and publishing essays on his ideas about changing the decaying moral state of 226

Moroccan society and explaining in minute details how he would design and implement his political project. He compiled these writings, which began to appear in his al-Jamaa magazine in 1981, in a 500-page book he called Al-Minhaj Annabaoui (The Prophetic

Way). This book is a manual designed to instruct his disciples and followers on how to act

and behave, and became like a bible for the movement to the extent that it actually

appeared in some members' dreams:

Imam Malik asked me in a gathering about my Sheikh and I told him that it was Abdessalam Yassine so all those present looked at me and started asking me about his biography and about theMinhaj [...] and then Boukhari came to me and told me that it was the most authentic book after the Koran. (AlAyyam 2004, issue 163, 22- 28)

According to Malika Zeghal whom I interviewed, al-Minhaj Annabaoui contains also

a carefully structured outline of Yassine's organization and includes the theoretical principles

which constitute the political and religious infrastructure of the movement's legitimacy.

Death offers an interesting theme in the Minhaj and is connected to suffering, through jihad.

Yassine believes that giving one's life for the establishment of an Islamic community is a

worthy cause, adding that an Islamic state is not an end, but only a means to get closer to

God.

Yassine does not use the term "revolution"; he insists on using the concept "qawma "

which is a noun which derives from the verb "qaama, " to stand up. Yassine's rationale for

not using the term "revolution" is that it is an imported concept:

We use the word qawma in order not to use the word thawra (revolution). For in thawra there is violence and instead, we want quwwa (force). Force realizes its actions based on legality while violence is realized following desire and anger criteria. (1989,18) 227

AWI: Structure and mobilization

According to Egyptian scholar Emad Shahin, AWI's popularity is due to its rigid

discourse, its repression by the state, and the comprehensive manner in which it solves

social problems (1997, 195). In many ways, the organizational structure of Yassine's movement resembles that of the Muslim Brothers of Egypt. It has a supreme guide, a bureau of guidance, regional cells and branches and special committees. In 1994, Yassine

created the Divine Resurrection Assembly (majlis al-ihyae' al-rabbani), and in 1996 he

created Advising Assemblies (majalis annasiha), two channels for spreading education

about religion, and for adding an appearance of democracy.

AWI built its structures on consultative bodies yet provided the Supreme Guide,

Yassine, with the most important decision-making powers while giving the general

assembly the right to elect a new leadership, under special circumstances. The general

assembly also elects the different leaders of the numerous commissions and sections working

across Morocco. The supreme decision-making structure is the Council of Guidance then

an executive committee and the general assembly. However, in the last five years, two

camps emerged within the movement: one favoring a political integration within the system,

and the other favoring years of political Islamist militancy. In fact, in 2000, the movement

created "political circles" in all regions of the country. These were parallel structures

designed to attract a much larger number of adherents because they did not impose any

obligations of piety or morality on its candidates. In this way, the AWI parallels the

Boutchichi who opened up their movement to a more diverse group of people who might

hold differing beliefs. For both, it was an expansion of the politics of space. 228

The major strength of Yassine's movement is its educational structure that enables the group to teach women from different social and economic backgrounds. One of these

structures is called the School of Women's Companions of the Prophet. It is a monthly meeting facilitated by the women's section of AWI in various places across the country.

Looking at the Islamic heritage through the lens of women's questions, practices, and contributions brings back women's voices as a viable source for learning about the

Islamic faith and an important source to legitimate Islamist women's own interpretations.

In the movement, women were banned from establishing their own programs and new perspectives. The Women's Section was created in 1998, and the real turn took place after

the Casablanca Islamist rally, which was supported by men and opposed by women. The particularity of the women's position in Yassine's movement stems from the position of

Nadia Yassine as the daughter of the Sheikh.

The politics of visibility

If the Boutchichi order was forced by the Moroccan monarchy, as we have seen in

the previous chapter, into visibility in order to halt its invisible insurgency, AWI

voluntarily engages in the camp of visibility. Invading Morocco's beaches was one of

AWI's tactics of visibility. In 2000, the movement invaded some Moroccan beaches to

conduct a "pray-in" sketching a mosaic of bearded prostrating activists watched by young

girls in suggestive bikinis. The contrast was too much for the regime's taste, and the police

intervened brutally to halt the 'beach prayer.' Rida, an old member of AWI, explains the reasons for this technique: 229

In the time of the former minister of interior Driss Basri, we were left alone to camp in virgin beaches, far from the gaze of secular members of Morocco, and now that the security forces forbid us from conducting such gatherings, without clear motive, we or invade the public sphere." (Interview in Casablanca, February 2007)

For Mohamed Darif, an expert on Islamic movements, taking the battle to the public beaches was "a sign by the movement leaders that they were ready to play a role in

Morocco's public future" (Interview in the author's house, Casablanca July 2006). Another tactic of visibility is Nadia Yassine's statement that she prefers to see the monarchy in

Morocco leave its place to a republic.

On June 2, 2005, following Nadia Yassine's visit to Georgetown University and

Berkeley, the weekly Moroccan newspaper Al Ousbouia al-Jadida (issue 33) published an interview with her under the title "the monarchy does not serve Morocco." In the newspaper,

Nadia voiced her preference for the Republican system in Morocco on the premise that one can live in Morocco without having a monarchy:

When one says la ilaha ila Allah, the preposition "/a" [of negation] refers to the political injustice that falls on the head of all of us Moroccans, and which is related, whether we want it or not, to the current political regime that is a hereditary monarchy. Hence, I believe, from an academic perspective, that this regime does not fit a society that desires to become a constructive entity. (2005, 6)

The monarchy's answer followed immediately: an order to appear in court was issued to Nadia Yassine for "falling short of the respect due to the king". On June 28, 2005, Nadia appeared with a white tape on her mouth on which was inscribed a red sign symbolizing censorship. Because the members of the movement were not allowed to enter the court room, a clash between the police and the activists ensued and the session was adjourned indeterminably. Many interpreted this decision as confusion among the decision makers of 230

the state regarding the "Nadia issue" (blowing a marginal bubble given that the interview was conducted by a small newspaper versus appearing powerless in front of an illegal utterance).

Others considered this decision as the result of an intervention of the US ambassador Thomas

Riley to guarantee the freedom of speech of the activist Islamist first lady, because the new

American strategy was to open up to "moderate" Islamic groups to halt the more violent movements as exemplified by her then recent trip to the US.

It is also possible that the Moroccan regime has already picked Yassine's daughter as a successor to Yassine himself, and that the regime started building her credibility by granting her the status of the victim without really harming her. Two factors support this theory. First, in the last five years Yassine's movement has become politically isolated in the public sphere. In fact, during the fourth anniversary of the release of A. Yassine, AWI organized a national day of dialogue and invited different political actors who chose not to show up. Second, Nadia Yassine's creation of a website (02 July 2005) right after this incident gives our theory a heightened probability. Did Nadia speak in the name of the movement or was she acting alone? She said to me in a phone interview after the event that it was her own opinion, but Fathallah Arsalane, the spokesperson of the movement, said then:

"Nadia did not express anything new, and our position is well known from our literature"

(Interview with the author, Rabat, June 2005).

After the Al-Qaeda attacks on September 11, 2001, Fathallah Arsalane, the spokesperson of AWI, stated that his movement was against violence even if he explained the refusal of publishing a press release by his association to condemn the terrorist attacks by the fact that the movement only publishes press releases when it 231

serves its interest (Interview by phone with the author, December 2003). However, the movement participated massively in a march of solidarity with Afghanistan on October

10, 2001 chanting anti-western slogans. Omar Aharchane, one of the young leaders of

AWI speaks of peace clearly:

When people allude to military victories of the past that were won by the Companions, comparing them with the situation today, some would wish to rekindle that greatness and think of jihad, of fighting the enemy with arms without wisdom or limits. We do not want a blind revolution without wisdom, but a qawma lead by models of the pious ancestors who rose up against injustice, like Imam Hussein. (Interview with the author, Casablanca, August 2008)

The first letter to the king

His letter was co-signed by two of his companions, Alaoui Slimani, now deceased, and Ahmed Mellakh. Changing his biography into a hagiography was his ticket to declaring himself a saint. In Yassine's logic, cooperating with a Muslim king was better than cooperating with the Marxists. In condemning the revolutionaries and the military officers involved in the 1971 military coup against the king, Yassine's letter of advice to King Hassan II described the two main threats to the monarch. He allied himself with the King and proposed a division of attributes of power that could solve all his problems and those of the country: authority is not legitimate unless its possessor is liked by those whom he has educated, and the best government duplicates the values of the mystical brotherhood.

Yassine's memorandum invited the king to implement profound political and economic reforms, insure the conditions for social justice and observe the Islamic law as a code of conduct. Furthermore, it enjoined the king to renounce his title of commander of 232

the faithful, recognize his implication in corrupt political institutions, and renounce his allegiance to the West. Yassine's epistolary letter was political suicide because the constitution forbids satirizing or condemning the king, who constitutionally is above the law. This memorandum had cost Yassine three years of internment for "mental illness," but at the same time marked the beginning of his continuing popularity. The latter propelled the regime to put him under house arrest since 1989 in an attempt to limit his influence and his movement's scope. Yassine and his friends were immediately arrested and became 'guests' of one of the famous torture centers in Morocco. The palace commanded the authorities to release Yassine's friends and committed Abdessalam

Yassine to a psychiatric asylum, where he stayed for forty two months.

Reading the biographies of other saints in Morocco, Yassine, who fancied himself a saint, had copied this style of parrhesia from a repertoire of contention that dates back to al-Yusi and his conflict with the sultan Ismail, studied in detail in Chapter Three. This advisory letter was the founding act of Yassine's sainthood:

We live in Morocco under the reign of terror which is further translated into fear of the King [...]. I can say in front of God that I do not fear you and I do nothing but wait to be one of His martyr's, but I do not appreciate anything less than my opponent be of prophetic descent. (1972, 6)

The first letter of admonition that Yassine had sent to the king represented his introduction to politics. In that messianic letter, whose tone was innovative compared to the methods of the army or the left wing parties but not as innovative compared to the pre-modern letters that Sufi masters addressed to their kings, Yassine called the king to repentance and just rule. Yassine made sure to reiterate in many occasions of that letter 233

that he was a descendant of the prophet Mohammed through a branch that is different, and often seen as competitor, from the one found in the royal claim to noble heritage.

Yassine started introducing himself in that letter as a "slave of God," "son of a Berber peasant," a "man alone," and a "Sufi whom his brothers have deserted." He depicted the king as "disoriented" and "trembling with fear before the army that betrayed him," alluding to the two coups d'etat against Hassan II by the army in 1971 and 1972. He also described King Hassan II as "my beloved", "my brother", "my Lord" a "grandson of the prophet" a "weak man" and a "Sufi king." Yassine reminded Hassan II of instances of the

Moroccan past which involved saints advising publicly their rulers such as Mohammed al-Kattani and Hassan al-Yusi both of whom are mentioned in Chapter Three. Alaoui

Slimani, a co-signer of Yassine's letter to the king, reported that a "cousin" of the king telling the story of a vision that Hassan II had before releasing Yassine as one informant from AWI told me:

After having received the epistle, Hassan II imprisoned Si 'Abdessalam and ordered the death sentence. On the eve of the execution, Hassan II was taking his usual stroll in his palace on such party evenings, when a majdub [a ravished servant of God], companion of Mohammed V of Madagascar, came to him from a neighbouring room, and told him to leave "Si Abdessalam" alone because he was a saint.

Yassine's message to King Hassan II is very tricky since it conforms to the required politeness for a letter that might be sent to a suzerain:

To the Mawla, al-Hassan son of Mohammed son of Yusuf, the descendant of the prophet of Allah, peace be upon him, who has been tested with sitting on 'the throne of his forefathers' in these times of hardship through which Morocco is passing, the hardest of which being his kingship. (1974, 2) 234

The second letter of Yassine

From the beginning of Mohamed VFs reign, Yassine challenged him privately and in public. One of AWI leaders, Mohammed Abbadi told the Moroccan newspaper Al-

Bidawi that his association is "the most repressed one because it represents real political opposition in Morocco, and also because the regime could not domesticate us because of our cohesion" (2006, issue 202, 13). The State responded to Yassine's letter with a dual strategy of repression and indifference. Yassine declared in a statement:

Our organization has been the object of judicial actions and continual harassment. [...] Official contacts have been made with us with a view to recognizing us as a political party in exchange for concessions, of which we have only accepted the one calling for us to work while respecting the current laws. This has been going on for three months and our activists continue to sample the delights of royal hospitality. (Burgat & Dowell 1997, 181)

When Mohamed VI became king, he lifted the house arrest order on Yassine, which meant that the latter was not as important and dangerous as was previously believed, or maybe Mohamed VI was trying a policy opposite to that of his father. According to Malika

Zeghal that I interviewed in spring 2009, the pardon weakened AWI's influence. The tone of the second letter that Yassine mailed to the new king and his pompous tour of different regional sections of the country was equally frowned upon by the public. Rachid Alami, 26 years, an ex-member of AWI told me in a 2007 interview: "Yassine was courageous enough to criticize the king but now he is touring the country like one." 235

The politics of space: informal politics

To understand Yassine's mobilizing capacities it is necessary to go beyond his discourses. Politics of space refers then to the articulations of the public/private divide. I look at these articulations through identification of Yassine's female members' reconfiguration of the private space of the home and family setting, and the public space of the schooling system. The activity of preaching is the most crucial entry to understanding these articulations. In her study of the mosque movement in Egypt, Saba Mahmood (2005) found that piety was the main motivator of women's activism engaging in preaching, yet it is a political piety different from how the average Muslim deals with his/her faith. AWI's female leaders open different settings of the home, the school and the community that bring religion into the heart of the debate on social change. I show in this section how these activists have politicized the private spaces through tactics of "subversion" "expansion" and

"fragmentation."

Subversion refers to women's disturbances of conventional settings with unconventional discourses and practices. It describes how, for example, family celebrations, and women's gatherings, etc. were reconfigured by Islamist activists as privileged terrains for building Islamist/political consciousness among women. In her work about the civil rights movement, Robnett emphasizes the 'conversion' process from one's personal identity to the political identity of a movement (1997, 16), and defines women activists in the Civil

Rights movement as "bridge leaders" that mobilized specific methods of recruitment to ease this conversion process. 236

Expansion describes the female members of Yassine's movement working to open the private home on issues of public concern. Sheller and Urry talk about "moments of publicness occurring within moments of privacy" (2003, 108). This politics of space is

entrenched in a symbolic that defines the family as the privileged spot for launching the process of political change.

Fragmentation refers to the task of bringing back religion to the allegedly secular

and predominantly westernized school curricula. It was the tactic that allowed these

activists to escape administrative control. It required the formation of small and dispersed units outside of regular course schedules.

Dream politics or hidden transcripts

Dreams are important registers- or frames- in Sufi rituals. I think that we need to

treat dreams beyond the issue of the validity of the dreamer's claims and outside of the

confines of psychoanalytic theory in order not to miss how these dreams reflect the

internal rhetoric of the movement as Amira Mittermaier argues:

To discard the sheikh as a narcissist or to call his visions and poems make believe, I ultimately decided, would simply miss the point. To explain the elsewhere as merely a metaphor for the unconscious seemed to betray the sheikh's understanding of reality. (2007, 244)

A dream is thought to be a glimpse of a reality that pertains to a higher realm. It is

a transfer from a sacred realm to a profane one, an invisible realm to a visible one, and

from the sphere of the impossible to that of the possible for "meanings are transferred

from their disengagement from substrata into a state of being clothed in substrata, like the 237

manifestation of the Real in the forms of corporeal bodies" (Chittik 1989, 120). For the famous mystic Ibn al-Arabi, during sleep, our souls travel to a reality known as the barzakh, an imaginal realm between the living and the dead. He sees in dreams pieces of perfection:

Sleep is a state in which the servant passes from the witnessing of the world of sense perception to the world of the barzakh, which is the most perfect world. There is no world more perfect, since it is the root and the origin of the cosmos; it possesses true existence and controlling rule in all affairs. It embodies meanings and changes that which does not subsist in it. It gives form to that which has no form. (1989, 124)

We cannot approach dreams with the tools of empiricism since "the exclusive reliance of social scientists on social networks to trace the dissemination of Sufi contacts and teachings overlooks the possibility of spiritual guidance through dreams"

(Mittermaier 2007, 231). In fact, dreams are used in my analysis as sites of resistance, as

"hidden transcripts" that inform us about both agency of the dreamers and the structure of the dream-world. A dream gives us access to an inner dream-world "out there" that becomes a repertoire of contention by all dreamers who share the same dream language:

"Whether the sheikh is reading from the original in heaven or whether words are put in his heart, a number of the vision narratives evoke imagery associated with the revelation"

(Mittermaier 2007, 240). In fact, "dreams do, and like all that does, they can heal, harm, or even kill" (Pandolfo 1997, 185).

A dream serves many purposes from on organizational perspective. One purpose of the dream is that it serves to prolong the sleep period according to psychoanalytic 238

Guru Sigmund Freud. In order to understand well this point let us listen to Freud narrate this dream made by a father about his deceased son before explaining his interpretation:

A father had been watching beside his child's sick-bed days and nights on end. After the child had died, he went into the next room to lie down, but left the door open so that he could see from his bedroom into the room in which his child's body was laid out, with all the candles standing round it. An old man had been engaged to keep watching over it, and sat beside the body murmuring prayers. After a few hours' sleep, the father had a dream that his son was standing beside his bed, caught him by the arm and whispered to him reproachfully: "Father, don't you see I am burning?" He woke up, noticed a bright glare of light from the next room, hurried into it, and found the old watchman had dropped off to sleep and that the wrappings and one of the arms of his beloved child's dead body had been burned by a lighted candle that had fallen on them. (1965, 547-48)

For Freud, the father subconsciously produced this dream in order to prolong his sleep after perceiving, while asleep, the flames through the open door. Instead of waking up, the father chose to dream. Between sleep and waking, the dream took place. In the same way in which Freud sees the father's dream as a desire to stay asleep rather than awakening, a way of prolonging his in-between world, I consider that the dreams "seen" by AWI's members and Abdessalam Yassine are produced to prolong the current condition of the movement in face of the changing political climate in Morocco. In other words, the Moroccan monarchy used to victimize AWI, which fed politically on such an iron fist to cultivate popular symbolic capital. When the current king Mohammed VI chose to lift the embargo on A. Yassine, AWI started losing ground as a victim of the regime. Hence, the dream is, psychoanalytically speaking, a way of prolonging the movement's status, a subconscious refusal to cope with the new political accommodation of the monarchy towards its opponents. 239

The structure of AWI, and its mobilization strategy, uses many Sufi tactics from the world of the paranormal. Dreams seen by Yassine's disciples and narrated in collective gatherings are a famous tactic that serves three purposes: conveying divine legitimacy to the movement, appealing to the ego of the new recruits and confirming the

Moroccan Sufi roots of the movement. Some dreams will be analyzed here, and they were collected from interviews with the members as well as from the movement's website (www.yassine.net). The website posts a collection of those dreams, often with the

Yassine's oral reaction during his weekly Majlis (Session) in his house every Sunday morning.

Some members narrated a story of angels protecting them with their wings while they were participating on November 20, 2005 in a manifestation of solidarity with the Palestinian and Iraqi people. Moreover, the protesters saw the prophet Muhammad distributing dates to them and inciting them to follow their leader Abdessalam. The movement used dreams as a protest strategy to provide its actions with a religious and mystical legitimacy. An analysis of the different reactions to the collective dream of Yassine's followers would help us establish the Sufi orientation of this apparently Islamic movement.

When a march of support for Palestine and Iraq was organized by another association on November 28, 2004, Al Adl participated massively and some members had premonitory dreams that they shared at the march or awakened visions that took place during the march. The political circle of the movement published many of these dreams on the website, hinting on a meta-discursive level at a political appropriation of Sufi techniques. A member participating in the march said: 240

I foresaw the whole march, from beginning to end, and suddenly I saw the sky being divided into two parts allowing some heavy rain to pour in, then I saw many angels descending, and I saw angel Gabriel covering with his wing, whose heavy light I cannot describe, the believers then I saw the Prophet Mohamed Peace be Upon Him wearing a long black turban with which he covered our brothers [...] After the march started, I saw Sidi Abdessalam Yassine with Sheikh Yassine May his soul rest in peace, along with many saints and martyrs whose blood was still fresh and nicely scented. (Al Ayyam 2004, issue 163, 6)

It is interesting here to notice how the context of the political event, i.e. the march, determines what heroes - dead or alive - will be part of the dream or the vision.

For example, in a march for Palestine, the Hamas Spiritual leader Yassine shows up

along the movement's Guru as if to establish a parallel between the two movements, hinting at another parallel between Israel and the Moroccan regime. Other members saw the prophet distributing dates for participants who were fasting while marching, and

angels shadowing with their wings the buses. Abdullah K, a member of the movement

who participated in the march told me that he saw the Prophet Mohamed during the protest: "I saw Prophet Mohamed coming out of the big flags that we were carrying telling us that the hour of victory has come and that we had to prepare for it" (Interview

December 2006, Marrakech). A third member, Soumaya, told me that she saw in a dream

the leader Abdessalam in Medina with the prophet before the march started: "Sidi

Abdessalam was asking the companions in Medina to perform Jihad, and when Sidi

Abdessalam went to the prophet's house to ask about Jihad, the latter told him that

whatever you do, as if I was doing it" (Interview January 2007, Rabat). In this account,

the aim is to make the march appear as an operation of Jihad. I do not doubt the validity

or the veracity of such visions. I am only saying that they have a political goal. 241

Another theme of dreams is the relationship between the movement's leader and the Prophet of Islam. A. Idrissi (34 years) saw in a dream that the prophet Mohammed was about to fall in a well when the hand of Sidi Abdessalam rescued him (Interview

January 2007, Rabat) He interpreted it as a symbol of revival of the Prophet's way by the

leader. Another one saw a different dream: "I saw Prophet Mohammed without a head,

looking in a pile of heads for his missing part until he came across Sidi Abdessalam's head and he put it on and walked among people." (Interview with Moulay Ali January

2007, Sale) The website of the movement has also many accounts of dreams relating

Abdessalam Yassine to Prophet Mohammed:

I approached from the prophet's caravan (convoy), and when I saw his nice smile I felt certain tranquility but I was still missing the curing dose, and then I found myself asking the prophet to show me the path to know God. He smiled and pointed to his right side, and when I turned right I saw an enlightened tent in which I saw Sidi Abdessalam Yassine May God protect him. The prophet told me: 'Ask him and he will guide you.'" (http://www.yassine.net, accessed 20 January 2005)

A third theme of these dreams and visions is that of the advent of the Islamic

Caliphate in Morocco in either 2006 or 2010. Badreddine from Oujda said that he had a

dream in which he saw a great map of Morocco and a great angel writing in all parts of

Morocco the word "Mighty Koran." (http://www.yassine.net, accessed 20 December

2004) Another member pointed to the divine protection of the movement's leader:

I saw a path of light and in its end appeared Sidi Abdessalam Yassine may God protect him, and he told me pointing with his finger: 'you have to follow this path and this man.' Then I saw Si Abdessalam's house and on it was erected a tent, with the size of a city, of blinding light with many angels. I entered the tent and asked one of the angels about it and he replied: 'it protects him from all evils, 242

including the satanic actions of the state to paralyze this movement. (http://www.yassine.net/, accessed 20 December 2004)

Another member I interviewed told me about a dream in which the daughter of the prophet entered - again with angels - with a white cloth on which was written: "the rule of AWL" However, the biggest dream achieved and used politically by AWI was the

2006 vision which predicted the fall of the Moroccan monarchy.

Vision 2006

Some of AWI's members dreamt that in the year 2006 (others said 2010) the monarchy will fall and Yassine will be the awaited Caliph (www.yassine.net, accessed

August 20 2005). Aside from premonitory dreams, visions can also come to you when you are awake (see Appendix one). Since 2005, many AWI members started seeing dreams about the fall of the monarchy in Morocco by 2006. Some members were so sure that the event was to take place that they retrieved all the money in their bank accounts, and others prolonged the payment of their annual taxes until the "final hour" arrived. By 2007, when the monarchy was fine and healthy, many members started doubting so Abdessalam Yassine published a letter on his internet website wishing his readers happy new year and citing an aphorism of the famous Sufi saint Ibn Ata' Allah about not doubting a promise because it does not get fulfilled. Later on, many AWI leaders started talking to the press and saying that the vision was an educational tool rather than a political act. Moreover, as Omar Aharshane told me, it was a vision imposed on the movement by the state to make it less credible (Appendix E). 243

According to Mohamed Tozy, the role of the 2006 vision was double. First, it helped

cement the relation between the two warring factions inside AWI, the political provocateurs

and the mystic dreamers. Second, it helped set a hierarchy inside the movement since the

dreamers were seen as having a higher status than the ones excluded from the dream world

(2009, 74). This analysis is not shared by AWI members who think that the whole 2006

vision scenario helped filter the movement from its non mystic elements. Hamid B, 26 years,

told me in this line of event: "in the same way Bashiri had left the movement, the members

who do not have faith in Sidi Abdessalam will be led astray and be excluded from this

community of grace."

Hamza's avatar: AWI and kryptopolitics

I argue in this section that while a visible politics approach defines AWI and

Abdessalam Yassine as the antithesis of the Boutchichi leader Sidi Hamza, a meta-hidden

politics approach relies on paranormal events to state that AWI is in fact just another branch

through which the Boutchichi order operates. Typical of the Sufi Boutchichi discourse that

makes all disciples just a loud speaker of the sheikh, I look at the Sufi roots of Yassine's journey and his movement. I precisely contend here that while Yassine visibly competes

with Sidi Hamza, the two saints join soldiers in the occult against the Moroccan monarchy.

Sufism is an important component of AWI's ideology, and one of its strong

landmarks. In fact, the Egyptian political scientist Emad Shahin states that "the Sufi

influences of Yassine and of the moral and spiritual program which he devised for his

followers make AWI attractive to a wider following, especially middle and lower classes,

civil servants, peasants, and workers, who are the usual recruits of Sufi orders" (1997, 244

195). Shahin considers Yassine's movement a Sufi order and sees this spiritual component as a key ingredient in the movement's appeal. Mohamed Taha el Wardi confirmed the Boutchichi ties of Yassine preceding his separation from the order:

In 1965, Yassine experienced a spiritual crisis and joined the Boutchichi zawiya, a popular mystical brotherhood, where he found salvation in Sufism. Nonetheless, the death of his mentor led Yassine to perceive signs of deviation among the members of the order. Therefore, he started to preach among them for the necessity to become more active in protecting Islam. However, he failed to convince his Sufi brothers and left to start his own career of militancy and activism. (2003, 21-22, my translation)

Yassine described in his book al-ihsan how he held the Boutchichi saint's father,

Haj Abbas, in high esteem:

After the death of my Sheikh, three years ago, Allah has blessed me with many disciples who seek only good-companionship. Before his death, may God bless his soul, he requested that I stand by his son and followers after him and I did. I saw the birth of bad practices within the circle of followers of Sufism who were around me. I discovered how the love of this world and fear of death comes to the hearts of the people of Zawiya. I saw how a truthful call becomes a crooked bond despite the sincerity of the Sheikh and his prestige between men. (1972, 210, my translation)

Coming back on the train from a visit of the sheikh one time, a faithful follower of Yassine, Mohamed B from Rabat, advised me to look carefully before choosing a master, and then went on to confirm that Sidi Hamza's father was a "real saint":

I was invoking God and then I saw a strong light before Sidi Abdessalam entered accompanied with Sidi Haj Abbas and Sidi Boumediene, may they rest in peace, and the prophet Mohamed appeared and told us that we were blessed with this companionship. 245

Moreover, Mohamed B told me about a dream he had after an AWI meditation ceremony: "I saw a green light, after which my leader Yassine entered, followed by Haj

Abbas and Sidi Boumediene, and then the prophet Mohamed accompanied by his four caliphs."

Yassine's religious tactics are borrowed from the repertoire of the Boutchichi brotherhood. However, he stripped these rituals of the aspects that upset him during his own membership in the Boutchichi order. He removed the controversial aspects of the

Boutchichi rituals: he removed anything that involved the use of voice in chanting; he took out the wadhifa, the collective psalmody of the Koran that after the sunset prayer; he

abandoned the samaa, the recital of elegies that incites the Sufi gatherers to enter an

ecstatic state because Yassine saw in such ecstatic manifestations folkloric and heretic

forms of Islam but he preserved other mystical rituals: Each follower must try to apply

the master's prescriptions to get closer to the ideal religious life as set out in a 1999 booklet, The day and the night of the believer. He also kept the habit of reading two hizbs

(l/60th) of the Koran daily as prescribed by the Prophet in order to finish reading the

Koran in 30 days. Of the dhikr rituals, Yassine maintained the sentence "There is no god

but Allah."

When Yassine adhered to the Boutchichi order, it had been ten years under the

leadership of Sidi Hamza's father. Closer to the master than his own son, Yassine already

saw himself inheriting the secret to this kingdom, for he had all the desired qualities:

intelligence, superiority, knowledge of Islamic scriptures and Gnostic knowledge of the

world into which he was initiated. For Yassine, the visit with his sheikh Abbas marked 246

the beginning of a new chapter and a rebirth that changed the way he perceived life. He performed the litany as prescribed by the sheikh and visited him in his house on a weekly basis in addition to giving his master his automobile. His wife, who could not keep up with this new lifestyle pleaded to Mohammed Chafiq:

I cannot do this anymore; it has been 15 days that they have been here. They are 70 living in a 3 roomed house, and the sheikh, whom I feed daily, is occupying the bedroom. The least of my husband's worries is that my children and I sleep in the kitchen.

When Mohammed Chafiq warned Yassine against his new cult, he replied:

You are exaggerating. You are seeing this from a westerner's perspective. For us Muslims, this is how it is. If she wants a divorce, so be it. I shall divorce her. But the children will stay with me and I will raise them as Muslims.

Yassine was coveting the leadership of the Boutchichi order could claim to be heir of his secret, as the sheikh's son did not appear to be qualified for taking over

anyone's religious guidance. In addition, the sheikh did not hesitate to consider and

appoint followers outside his family for succession. Head to head with a new and promising disciple, he said: "anta yaa bunayy sawfa takhlifuni lakin haafidh 'ala al-sirr"

[You, my son, you will be my successor, but be careful to keep it secret]. A day in 1972,

Yassine caught a glimpse of Chafiq one last time before destiny would separate the two

for over 15 years. The exchange, as told to me by a Boutchichi member, was as follows:

• I need to leave [...] the sheikh is dead. He left his testament in ajar, buried in the garden. We will go to the sheikh's house; we will dig out the jar to find out who has been appointed the sheikh's successor. 247

• Listen to me Abdessalam! You are going to take out the jar and extract the will. I will put my hand in fire if it is not the sheikh's son who is appointed successor.

• Mohammed, I see that you are always joking, you are never serious.

When the jar was dug up, it became evident that in the document, which sheikh

Abbas had created and certified with the authorities of the city of Saidiyya, had indeed appointed his son Hamza as his successor. His last will was read in public February 2,

1972: "huwwa al-waarith bilaa mu'aaridh wa laa munaazi' (Hamza is the inheritor, without any opposition or dispute)".

Yassine's movement has many Sufi characteristics, but fails somehow to fit the typical zawiya framework. Hence, it qualifies as what Olivier Roy (2004) has called

"neo-brotherhoods" defined as entities "headed by a sheikh (or Pir), who is more a modern guru than a traditional Sufi master; he is often the founder of the brotherhood

[...] He writes extensively (hundreds of books or, more precisely, booklets) and performs his role at meetings or even television" (2004, 222). AWI fits this profile of a neo- brotherhood and Yassine himself matches this description of a guru. Even the disciples of

Yassine fit the model of the neo-brotherhood since they are "not in regular contact with the Pir or his deputies, but with an organization that arranges public meetings with the

Pir [...] they often reject the term tariqat in favor ofjamaaf (Roy 2004, 222).

Yassine does not invite his readers to join orthodox Sufi orders because "he does not wish to rehabilitate Sufis as religious competitors; nor does he want to acknowledge

Sufism as an alternative to political Islam" (Lauziere 2005, 249). In fact, Abdessalam 248

Yassine rejects orthodox Sufism: "I do not propagandize Sufism; I like neither the noun nor the form [its practice takes] because I cannot find them in the book of God or the

Sunna of his prophet" (1998, 23).

The first Islamic movement in post-independent Moroccan history was the

Islamic Youth, whose leader, Abdelkrim Motii still lives in exile in Libya. Hassan Bakir, one of its exiled activists, considered, in his June interview with Al Ousbou'ia,

Abdessalam Yassine a puppet of the Moroccan secret services in the context of "a game played by the Moroccan secret service in the farcical political balkanization of Morocco since he was ordered to create his movement on what he imagined was our rubbles, in a complete agreement with the Moroccan regime via Dr. Zaki Mubarak, and his son in law

Mohamed Chafiq, the ex-member of the Royal Council" (2006, 9). According to Hassan

Bakir, Driss Basri, the ex-minister of interior, encouraged Yassine's movement in 1975 to "destroy the pillars of our movement" (2006, 9).

I argue that despite the apparent popular construction of Yassine as the saint who rebelled against his Boutchichi master, he is in fact an "Avatar" of Sidi Hamza. The latter was heard many times inside the zawiya repeating: "I respect him but I do not love him."

However, in many instances where Yassine would say something public about the

Boutchichi order, Sidi Hamza will remain silent. Confused about whether Sidi Hamza or Sidi

Yassine were on a right path, I started doing a special prayer to see the truth in a dream, and I had the following vision, one night that I was in a very peaceful mood. I saw a scene like that of the movie Avatar, where each human body has his double in another sphere or reality. I was sitting in a white house in Rabat full of technological devices and war machines. Sidi 249

Abdessalam was wearing the outfit of an army general preparing a battle against a despot. He asked me where the sleeping machine was, and I indicated it to him. After sleeping in it, he ushered to me to sleep in the adjacent machine, which I did. After a while, we found ourselves inside the Royal palace having a rich meal with red wine with King Hassan II. He was very relaxed and Abdessalam Yassine was showing him the plans of the war scenario.

We stayed with the king until dawn, and then we awakened in our machines. My dream was like a dream inside a dream. Following the Sufi ontology, dreams can also be vehicles of observation, and from it, I hypothesize that Abdessalam Yassine is an Avatar of Sidi Hamza in the realm of insurgent visible politics. Sidi Hamza occupies through his peaceful kryptopolitics the realm of invisibility, but then has the visible political realm within arm's reach. Thus, the survival of the avatar hinges on the life of the original body. In a similar vein, while Sidi Hamza makes public his rallying behind the Moroccan sultan, he gives the authorization, in a paranormal world, to Abdessalam Yassine, visibly an ex-Boutchichi but invisibly one of its high ranking members, to scorn the king.

Conclusion

King Hassan II divided the Moroccan structures of contestation by readmitting opposition parties into formal politics while prohibiting some leftist and Islamic parties in the late nineties. The choice of the structure of contestation influenced the conduct of opposition groups. For instance, opposition groups that were integrated into the official

Moroccan system had more interest in mobilizing alone and independently rather than with other groups because they did not need to make alliances to feel strong. Their

strength came from the state, their new ally. As a result, these opposition groups' margin 250

of activism is restricted in the sense that they start by respecting the red lines: they can denounce corruption but never name its icons; they can participate in the political game but not tailor its rules. In contrast, excluded groups preferred to mobilize with others because they needed to strengthen themselves against the state through alliances.

Alliances with the state apparatus come at the cost of narrowing the movement's reach because the groups could not question certain sacred political realities of the system.

AWI refused to play such a role, and refused to make alliances with other opposition groups. There are two informal strategies used by the regime to weaken opposition movements.

First, there is the moderation and division of political opposition by creating incompatible ideologies within the group. For example, in the same group one will find people advocating violence or adopting extreme ideological positions which creates moderates who want to split from the radicals. The goal of this strategy is to block the formation of coalitions since the status quo becomes the Nash equilibrium coveted by all sides. By balancing the strengths of all opposition parties and by widening the gap between them, the divide and rule strategy followed by the Moroccan state is successful.

Second, strengthening radicals to threaten the moderates can be a successful method as well. The key ingredient is to strengthen only weak radical formations. The more extreme the radical groups are, the less likely the moderate opposition will challenge the regime. It was this strategy that Hassan II followed in the late nineties. The late king tolerated Abdessalam Yassine, because he threatened the opposition operating within the system. 251

I have also shown that Abdessalam Yassine is the avatar of Sidi Hamza in an

occult realm. While the dreams are not made visible in the Boutchichi order since they pertain to the world oisirr, AWI dreams are made public and interpreted to the joy of the

Boutchichi order. The differences between AWI and the Boutchichi order are

summarized in the following table:

TABLE 14: Comparison of the politics of the Boutchichi and AWI

Fields Boutchichi AWI

Visibility Original body Shadow/Avatar Mode of production Superstructure Infrastructure Politics Kryptopolitics Parrhesia politics Politics Silent Talking Political action Symbolic/Virtual/Hyper-real Real Power Soft Hard Enemy of the state Long run Short run Ally of the state Short run Long run Gender Gender blind Gender semi-sensitive Ontology Becoming Being Agency Personal change Political change Structure God-driven Man-driven Positioning Dynamic Static Target sphere Private Public Emancipation Reformist Revolutionary CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MOROCCAN ANTI-SAINT AND HIS MASKS

ANTI-SUFI DICOURSES AND THEIR

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Most Muslims consider Sufism a branch of Islam that studies the more esoteric aspect of Islam. According to Sheikh Fadhlalla Haeri, a famous Sufi writer, "Sufism and

Islam cannot be separated; in the same way that higher consciousness or awakening cannot be separated from Islam [...] Sufism is the heart of Islam" (1997, 10). Other

Muslim thinkers, like the radical Salafi thinkers, introduced below, view Sufis as heretics who have been led astray from the path of Islam, claiming that the prophet of Islam was not the practitioner of Sufi teachings, or arguing that Sufis engage in polytheistic non

Islamic practices by putting the saints as intercessors between God and the common people. There are four types of anti-Sufi discourses; each one deconstructs an aspect or more of Sufi dogma or practice. The first discourse (Wahabi Salafi) takes issue with the dogma of Sufism, mainly the intercession of saints on behalf of their followers and the heretical invention of practices in which the prophet Mohammed apparently did not engage. The second discourse (Nahda Salafi) was represented by reformists such as

Mohammed Abdu and Rashid Rida, both of whom attacked Sufism on the front of its irrational metaphysical excesses. The third discourse is Moroccan nationalist Salafi paradigm represented by some key Moroccan resistance figures who blamed Sufism for 252 253

the pro-colonizer attitude taken by some Sufi orders. Finally, there is an internal Sufi discourse (Juridical Sufism) represented by Sufi jurists like Zarruq who had issues with the authenticity claims of Sufi saints. I will explain briefly each one of the above- mentioned schools of thought.

Wahabi salafi movement

At its core, original Wahabi thought rejected an Islam which incorporated folk beliefs or shrine worship in favor of studying the Quran and the sayings of Mohammed

(Maroney 2006). However, this spiritual conservatism turned into a political backlash against colonialism after World War Two. It interpreted scripture and Islamic law quite literally, and rejected inward spiritual practice for political action. Thus, Al Qaeda and its affiliates represent an extreme and savage manifestation of fundamentalist thought.

Further, the location of two of the holiest sites, Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, the

Wahabi adoption by the Saudis in the 1920s, and the subsequent discovery of oil gave the movement tremendous power and momentum.

Because 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 were of Wahabi Saudi creed, there is just cause for alarm in the West. According to the Rand study of Muslim networks, the success of Wahabi efforts may be attributed to several other factors besides oil money: Successful aggressive promotion of their ideological and political goals, successful campaigns to buy loyalty in poor areas, appeal to religious legitimacy and

Arab identity, a broader appeal to Islamic identity, network of Islamic schools whether madrasas or otherwise which promote extremism, wide availability and publications of 254

Wahabi ideology world-wide, and scholarships to Wahabi schools in Saudi Arabia

(Rabasa 2007). There were three stages to the influence of Wahabi ideology in Morocco.

First, eighteenth century Sultan Mohammed Benabdellah (1775-1790) adopted the Wahabi doctrine for strategic reasons: protecting the kingdom from the Ottoman expansion in light of the latter's enmity towards the Wahabi Saudi alliance. Moreover, this non-Moroccan ideology was adopted to resist Western colonialism, given the ideology's hard stance towards Europe as an abode of heresy and an axis of evil (Darif

1992,47).

During the second period under King Suleiman (1769-1822) the Wahabi ideology was imported to Morocco. At the time the Sufi orders had a strong presence, strong enough to threaten the king himself, which pushed the latter to adopt the inherently anti-

Sufi Wahabi ideology. In his letters, Suleiman never ceased criticizing the religious festivities the Sufis used to organize. He was ultimately ousted leaving his place to his brother Abdurrahman.

The third phase of Wahabi influence in Morocco began in 1970, when the

Moroccan government used Saudi ideology to counteract Marxism. Saudi Arabia was

Morocco's benefactor both financially and politically during the Western Sahara conflict.

Two schools within the Salafi framework saw light: the pro-Saudi Salafi tendency headed by Abdurrahman Maghraoui, and the Jihadi Salafi ideology headed by Mohammed

Fizazi. The grandson of Sidi Hamza and the second in line as spiritual heir of his aging grandson, Sidi Mounir, lives in Paris, France and holds two doctorates, one from

Morocco in Islamic studies and one in communication studies from the Sorbonne. He 255

always gives speeches in Boutchichi meetings and he loves to talk to journalists. Sidi

Mounir responded, when he came to my house for a dinner, to the critique of his detractors who see in the veneration of saints a form of pre-Islamic idolatry: "Here, there are no social barriers, we are all equal. And kissing the hand of the saint or a disciple is an educational act which makes it possible for the person-kisser to get rid of her pride."

He goes on to explain it very seriously:

It is said that we encourage idolatry, deification, and some people say that the sheikh ensnares people. These are speeches of jealous people's prejudices that must be corrected through mere observation, because all these disciples would not have acted in this way if they did not find their happiness there.

Many movements and parties did not like the dreams and the 2006 vision of the movement led by Yassine. Abdelfettah Rahmoune, the founder of an anti-Yassine website

(www.khorafa.tk) attacked him on the basis of harming the Moroccan monarchy and the crookedness of Yassine's dogma. Initially, the website www.khorafa.tk, founded by

Abdelfettah Rahmoune (known in the World Wide Web as "Jarkom"), started as a chat room called "a discussion with AWI" in a famous program called Pal Talk on August 5,

2005. The founder of the website enunciates his mission clearly:

We felt compassion and pity for a bewildered youth lost between the deviations and tales of AWI led by Abdessalam Yassine the self-proclaimed vicegerent of the prophet. Hence, we founded this website to uncover the real face of this movement and its path— that is far from that of our prophet—which is full of false dogmas that destroys the belief of Muslims and makes them sway from the correct path, (www.khorafa.tk accessed 13 September 2005, my translation) 256

Rahmoune describes Yassine's movement as a "satanic group" and its leader as a man who is "lost and who is destroying the dogma of Muslims" (Interview with the author in his house, August 2005). This website attacks the Sufi leader from the Salafi perspective, which is obvious in the type of anti-Sufi arguments used, as well as in the multiple references to salafi Saudi links. On this website, the references to famous Salafi attacks on Yassine are used strategically. Among the books that can be downloaded from the website, Abu Abdurrahman Dhoulfaqar's Mashayekh Soufiya (The Sufi

Masters: the Educational and Dogmatic Deviation, Abdessalam Yassine, Teacher and

Guru) stands out. Its introduction is written by Mohamed Boukhobza, a parliamentarian and member of the Islamic party PJD, and attacks Yassine, the Sufi master, criticizing his dogmatic base of Sufism as a heresy, forgetting its political shortcomings. It highlights the mystical ideology latent in Yassine's discourse and movement, and uncovers some details about the leader's early life. Boukhobza writes the following in his preface:

The great teacher Ahmed Cherkaoui, who had a much contact with Yassine, told me that he asked him during his years of fascination by European progress what his choice would be if given the opportunity to go to either the U.S. or paradise, and the latter replied: the U.S. This extreme ensnarement with European civilization brought upon him divine wrath, manifested in his being led astray in the path of philosophical Sufism.

(2005, 7) Later in that preface, Boukhobza explains the popularity of AWI by the imprisonment and victimization of its leader and the illiteracy and unemployment of its disciples (2005, 7). Dhoulfaqar deconstructs in this book the Sufi creed in general and 257

that of Yassine in particular, whose ideology he deems deviant, especially pertaining his paranormal powers, so common in Sufi terminology, such as having access to a divine secret archive, the immortal powers of saints, and meeting the prophet Mohamed while

awake (2005, 11).

Nahda salafi movement

The Salafi movement of Egyptian descent championed the idea of Islamic revival under the leadership of Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) and his Syrian-born disciple

Rashid Rida (1856-1935) who was a member of the Naqshbandi order before leaving it to become one of the fiercest enemies of Sufi orders. This Nahda Salafi movement

championed, through its magazine al-Manaar, ideas of French enlightenment while holding on the tradition the pious forefathers (Salaf Salih). It attacked Sufism on the basis

of its irrational behavior since it considered the supernatural deeds referred to by the

Sufis as karamaat as either outright fabrications or mere coincidences (Hourani 1981,

95).

The same resentment was expressed by the Turkish modernist leader Kemal

Ataturk who banned Sufi orders in 1925 due to their close association with the Ottoman

Empire. The ban was issued through a law passed on 13 December 1925 and asked for

closing the Sufi lodges and confiscating their financial assets. Ataturk also "prohibited the use of Sufi titles and the performance in public of the Sufi dhikr and other mystical practices, and made violation of this prohibition punishable by imprisonment" (Abun-

Nasr 2007, 244). The 1925 ban of Sufi orders resulted in the disappearance from Turkish 258

life of the Baktashi and Mawlawi orders, and the Naqshbandi order could survive only because of its 'silent' dhikr.

The existence of the supernatural register is a key factor in the success of the

Boutchichi order. However, it is this rather esoteric register that also presents the limitations of the order. It was due to its excessive reliance on supernatural and esoteric registers that many Moroccan intellectuals have not recognized the Boutchichi order as a legitimate social movement and deemed it highly irrational, which opened the field for extremist groups to recruit new members based on a new religious rationality. Margo

Adler's work showed the hypocrisy of the holders of negative stereotypes against the

supernatural:

I have noticed that many intellectuals turn themselves off the instant they are confronted with the words witchcraft, magic, occultism, and religion, as if such ideas exert a dangerous power that might weaken their rational faculties. Yet many of these people maintain a generous openness about visionaries, poets, and artists, some of whom may be quite mad according to 'rational' standards (1979, 5)

The resistance of modern Moroccan society to paranormal transcripts is

encouraged by the Moroccan monarchy to perpetuate the Salafi historical condemnation of Sufism, while at the same time hoping that this Sufi expansion blocks the expansion

Salafi Islam in a pure logic of divide and rule.

Many movements and parties did not like the dreams and the 2006 vision of the

movement led by Yassine. The leaders of PJD attacked the irrational character of the vision.

Abdelilah Benkirane said that foretelling the future is "unacceptable scientifically, 259

religiously, politically or logically" since the vision is "a shameful and ridiculous fairy tale"

(Interview with the author, July 2005). Moreover, Mohamed Amine Boukhoubza, a

parliamentarian and a PJD leader, called for the punishment of "those who claim to have

seen prophets distributing dates and guarding cars" because "they fall short of the respect

due to prophets" (Interview with the author, July 2005). Ahmed Raissouni, another PJD

leader, said that dreams cannot be the basis for legislation or political strategizing and when

it is the case one "either lives in the imaginary world or tries to exaggerate his importance

as is the case with sectarian and mystic competition" (Interview with the author, August

2005).

The answer to this charge was given by the Boutchichi philosopher Taha

Abdurrahman, who was the first person in the order to appear to me in a dream.

According to Dr. Abdurrahman there is not one single rationality but several rationalities.

With the advent of Chaos theory and quantum physics, the paranormal has gained new allies. The problem with those who criticize the Boutchichi order is that they base their deconstruction on a Newtonian concept of physics that is long gone. In an interview with

Taha Abdurrahman, He told me that unlike Americans who are esoterically very advanced, the French, whose influence is strong in Moroccan academia, still work with the mind of Descartes:

The American mind is at ease with telepathy, the direct access to another person's thought, out-of-body relocation, the movement in space of disembodied consciousness, clairvoyance, the ability to access information about the past, the present and the future, and finally psychokinetic power, where one controls material objects by psychological ways. 260

Nationalist salafi movement

Key figures of the Salafi Moroccan nationalist movement waged a war against

Sufi orders and built their critique on Moroccan history by citing and reprinting the letter written by sultan Suleiman against the mawsim celebrations of the Sufi orders. In the same way in which the Wahabi movement was used by the Saudi government which made it an official ideology, French colonial authorities used Salafi ideology to legitimate religiously its presence, and appointed one of the reputed religious Moroccan scholars,

Bouchaib Doukkali, as one of its ministers. In the same way that the Saudi-sponsored

Wahabi Salafi ideology gave way to its 'Frankenstein' rebellious Wahabi thought with

Bin Laden, the French promoted Moroccan Salafi movement gave form to its antidote, the Salafi nationalist movement headed by Doukkali's student Belarbi Alaoui who opposed French colonialism and later opposed King Hassan II, a member of his own family, giving birth to Salafi resistant nationalism. After few years as a disciple of the

Tijani order, Belarbi Alaoui became one of the main opponents of Sufi orders in Morocco based on their promotion of underdeveloped ideas and their collaboration with colonialism.

The Sufi Moroccan reaction towards colonialism was diversified between cooperation and resistance but was overall tainted with pragmatism since these Sufi saints could maintain their spiritual independence from the French or the Spanish while "they recognized the futility of resistance to the colonial rulers, and the advantages those rulers brought to their lands with their orderly system of government" (Abun-Nasr 2007, 217). 261

The attack of the nationalist Salafi on Sufism was mainly on religious than on political grounds, other than the issue of collaborating with the colonizer. For example, the council of religious scholars of al-Qarawiyyeen University in Fez, Morocco asked the sultan and his Salafi minister of justice to sentence the Sufi saint Muhammad al-Nazifi to death for apostasy for saying that the "Tijani prayer salat al-Fatih was part of God's

Qur'an" but luckily the recommendation was not acted upon (Abun-Nasr 2007, 239).

Sometimes the issue of contention among the Sufis is both religious and political as it is the case of the Tijani leaders who refused to help the Sufi Qadiri Emir Abdelkader of

Algeria in his jihad against the French and openly opposed him to the extent that he stormed their zawiya in Ain Madi in 1839.

The classic critique made by nationalist Salafi scholars, found also in later deconstructions of Sufism such as in the work of Abdullah Hammoudi (1997), is that Sufi belief in destiny and submission to the saint promotes reactionary social policies either through the internalization, by Sufi disciples, of the values that oppress them or instead to mark them into a religious withdrawn piety. The same attack against Sufi orders as carriers of colonial policies is found today with a replacement of colonialists with the state. Many voices today point to Sufis as agents of state's hegemony and providers of their religious legitimacy. The Moroccan king Hassan II, as we have seen in Chapter

Four, adopted a policy of promoting Sufism. Since the seventies, Hassan II "started to show interest in the revival of the Sufi brotherhood's influence. He made donations for the repair of important zawiyas, including the main zawiya of the Tayyibiyya brotherhood in Wazzan whose supreme head had sought to overthrow the Alawite dynasty with 262

French help in 1880s. And in January 1985 an international conference sponsored by the

Moroccan Ministry of Awqaf was held in Fez on the subject of the Tijaniyya brotherhood" (Abun-Nasr 2007, 250). In fact the story of the Tayyibiyya brotherhood is very interesting as it is told by Jamil Abun-Nasr concerning its leader Abdessalam who dreamed of becoming Morocco's king:

Since he relied on the French occupation of Morocco, he sought to persuade them to overthrow the Alawites and allow him to found a sharifian dynasty to rule the country under their control. He assured them that the tribes of northern Morocco already recognized him as their king, and in order to establish closer ties with them, he moved his residence from Wazzan to Tangier, the Moroccan town where the European diplomatic representatives resided at the time. He cultivated relations with Tangier's European community, and took as his third wife an Englishwoman, Miss Keen, who worked for an American family living in the town, and with the financial support of Ali Astat [...] he emphasized his princely standing by a life of luxury and pomp. (2007, 216)

The Moroccan nationalist resistance figures such as Allal al-Fassi and Belarbi

Alaoui attacked Sufi orders for their passive stance against the French or the Spanish colonizer. In the aftermath of the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, US foreign policy specialists and Arab governments began to play Sufis against radical

Islamists, and thereby consciously or inadvertently helped a new actor emerge in the post-Islamic political arena, namely Sufism in mystical brotherhoods.

According to the Moroccan anthropologist Mohammed Maarouf, popular

Moroccan myth "states that some saints fought against the Black Sultan and vanquished him. The Black Sultan stands for the symbol of terror and oppression in the popular mind

[...] For instance, Sidi Mas'oud Ben Hsin, one saintly figure in Moroccan history, is said 263

to have aborted the black sultan's (Sultan l-Khal) attack by sending him bees and stinging

flies" (2007, 4). One can see this quote as being symptomatic of the relationship between the saint and the sultan without fear of falling into an abusive generalization since "in

saints' pious legends, the Black Sultan has a mythic touch and tends to refer to any Sultan whose rule has been oppressive" (2007, 4). This encounter between the saint and the

sultan points to the political expression of sainthood where power stems from the saint's victory over the king.

Juridical Sufism

Some Sufi scholars have considered intoxicated Sufism as a branch external to

Islam, rejecting or ignoring Islamic rules, based on the example of some Sufi orders who

engage in practices forbidden by orthodox Islamic law. These scholars accuse Sufis of privileging the inward aspect of religion at the expense of outward religious rituals. This

is the case, indeed, with the Bektashi Turkish Sufi order, which allows its members to

drink alcohol, a beverage forbidden in Islamic law.

The case of the Tijani order represents the trend of Sufism that criticizes some

Sufis based on the lack of their reliance on Islamic law. As Esposito (1999) notes, the

founder of the Tijani order, Ahmad al-Tijani (1737-1815) was another North African

scholar who established an important tradition of activist Sufism. In Prophetic visions, al-

Tijani was instructed by the prophet Muhammad himself to "break ties with other orders,

and followers of the Tijani order path were restricted to affiliation with only the Tijani

order" (531-532). Abun-Nasr notes, "The founder of the Tijani order, Ahmad al-Tijani,

claimed for himself a unique place in the hierarchy of the Muslim sainthood and forbade 264

members of his order to join other brotherhoods" (1965, 37). The founder of the Tijani

Sufi order was Ahmed Tijani and the novelty of his method is that he ascribed his chain of transmission directly to the prophet Muhammad rather than to other spiritual masters.

In fact, Tijani claimed that the prophet appeared to him when he was awake and ordered him to launch his tariqa. He also said that the prophet asked him to break his links with other Sufi orders. He also made the repudiation of affiliation to any other Sufi order a precondition for new members to joining his order. The core of his teachings was that he was the seal of saints in the same way that the prophet of Islam was the final prophet.

This claim meant that his sainthood superseded all existing and previous saints. He even claimed that the saints to come after him will derive their spiritual sustenance from him.

The religious community of Fez was hostile to Tijani and the Moroccan historian al

Zayani said that an Algerian governor had imprisoned and flogged Tijani for counterfeiting coins, ultimately expelling him and pushing him to flee to Fez. However, the Moroccan Sultan Moulay Slimane (1792-1822) was very friendly to him and gave him a sumptuous house to live in while making him a member of his Consultative

Council. This sultan was known for his Wahabi inclinations and his attacks on Sufis and he liked Ahmed Tijani because he used him against the Ottoman Turks who did not like his order.

The support that the Moroccan sultan gave Tijani "seems to have followed from his determination to stifle opposition to the establishment of his authority as supreme religious head of the Moroccan community" and his plan to "counteract the politically

centrifugal influence the shaykhs of the Shadhiliyya-Jazuliyya tariqa exercised in various 265

parts of the country" (Abun-Nasr 2007, 151). Tijani said in a letter that he wrote to

Moulay Slimane that "he left Algeria because of the oppression of the Turks, and appealed to him for protection and help as a fellow Sharif (Abun-Nasr 2007, 151). Tijani did not lead a life of asceticism and poverty. He actually recommended that his disciples give one Dinar out of fifty as charity telling them: "Take good care of your money, for with it your faith is safeguarded, but if you give it away your faith would be destroyed"

(Jawahir Vol.2 1988, 175).

Ahmad Zarruq, a famous Moroccan jurist and saint buried in Libya, represents the prototype of the juridical Sufi in Moroccan history whose role is to maintain the balance between reason and revelation, as well as between esoteric and exoteric faces of Islam.

He was completely opposed to rebelling against the rulers, an action he came to view as

"opportunistic jihad" and to condemn as a sin disguised as piety:

They think all this to be piety and established religion on the approved moral path. That leads them inevitably to deviate from the truth, trespass beyond their rights and enter into secret plotting that conceals their true intentions to capture political power (riyasa) and suzerainty (istizhar). (Kugle, 2006 23)

Zarruq rebelled against his own spiritual master and left the city of Fez, but when the internal revolution against the sultan Abdelhaq erupted, he chose not to participate in it because he hated to engage in power-driven reform projects. In one instance, Zarruq gained access through kashf (unveiling) to the names of two of the king's aides that would perish and he kept silent (Kugle, 2006, 92-93) Abdessalam Yassine, as we have seen in the previous chapter, resembled a lot Ahmad Zarruq in his rebellion but not in his parrhesia. 266

This balance between spirituality and Islamic law is recuperated by the United

States, in a replication of the cold war logic of containment, to produce a Sufism that would be the counterweight to terrorism. I will show in what follows how the use of

Sufism as a policy tool by the United States spread to other countries, where presidents and kings sided with their Sufis to stop the expansion of radical Islam. I will give the example of Egypt, Algeria, and Iraq to show the diversity of the Sufi positions in the way they interact with political authorities, and to point to the diversity of state policies in

containing or fighting Sufism. I am not making the conspiracy claim that the promotion of Sufism is an American sin of commission but simply pointing to the influence of some

Sufi voices (Hisham Kabbani) on American policymakers. I will start with a quick glance

at the US promotion of Sufism and its decision to export it in Middle Eastern states, and then I will examine how this policy is carried out in Egypt, Algeria, and Iraq today.

If I have made the argument in Chapter Three that Sufism was not a monolithic voice in pre-modern Morocco and I have crafted the claim that it is a multiple reality in

Chapters Four, Five and Six, I am expanding my research in space (geography) to test this diversity claim. My informant H.D, an ex-Boutchichi represents this line of balance between Islamic law and spirituality, and most of his critique against the Boutchichis revolves around this matter. When I asked him about the way in which the Boutchichi

leaders deceive their followers, he said that it was through "chanting and food." He

emphasized the lack of religiosity inside the Boutchichi order:

Dr. Mohammed Genoun of Rabat, a Tijani leader, managed to convert 20 PhD Boutchich disciples to the Tijani order. He was a threat for them, and then they called him, Sidi Jamal and Ahmed Kostas and others. They told him that they 267

wanted to talk and they took him by car to Dar Tazi and then asked him to join the Boutchichi order. They tried to persuade him by all means but they failed. That's their technique. Even the Fassi brother who wrote the book of Dalil printed by the Boutchichi order has become Tijani. A friend of Dr. Genoun has heard Hamza himself saying: 'I wish my students are like Tijani followers because they never leave their sheikh.' Dr. Genoun told me that some religious scholars of the Kattani order went to see Hamza in Madagh. They arrived and entered and started to talk about Islam Fiqh. For so long Hamza was silent, then they asked him to share his thoughts, and after a while he said "Life is getting darker and darker". The Kattani scholars stood up and said 'may Allah reward us on the time we've lost to come here!'

US foreign policy and Sufism

There is an important document that was constantly referred to in my readings and interviews: The Nixon center report. In fact, Sufism became a transnational actor in the sense that the United States became aware of the role that it could play to counteract radical Islam. In a famous March 2004 study by the Nixon Center ("Understanding

Sufism and Its Role in US foreign policy"), US decision makers listened to many scholars of Islam including orientalists such as Bernard Lewis and Sufi masters like the

Naqshbandi Hisham Kabbani. This report recommended promoting Sufism in Muslim countries by the US government, mainly through refurbishing Shrines, publishing Sufi books, opening Sufi schools and supporting Sufi orders.

Dr. Hedieh Mirahamdi ruled out the possibility of US support for Sufis due to the secular nature of the American political system. However, she presented three ways in which the US government can help Muslim countries regain their authentic Sufi culture.

First, the US government needs to help these countries rebuild their shrines and mausoleums in the goal of boosting "old values" and encouraging spiritual tourism. 268

Second, the US government ought to promote the translation of Sufi manuscripts and spread their teachings globally. Finally, American decision makers can finance some schools that focus, in their teaching, on Sufi history in order to immunize the youth against Wahabi thought. Dr. Mirahamdi warned US officials against paying the "wrong groups," and the best way to avoid such a trap, according to her, is to only finance those movements who proved their tolerance of other religions.

Professor Alan Godlas proposed the US promote Sufism in Muslim countries with the careful attention to the specificity of each country. Hence, for Uzbekistan, Dr. Godlas specified that Americans should promote the Naqshbandi order in particular due to its popularity there.

Dr. Bernard Lewis viewed the potential of Sufis in a positive way although he guarded against a naive view that puts Sufis at odds with violent resistance, saying that

Sufis "are peaceful but not pacifists," as one could see in the armed struggle against

French colonialism in North Africa. However, Dr. Lewis ruled out the probability of a

Sufi resurgence of armed resistance. He proposed offering "soft support" to Sufis by providing funds that preserve Sufi artifacts, and shrines, and centers of learning.

Moreover, he suggested supporting government efforts to revive local Sufism and protect them with an emerging national identity as well as supporting moderate Islamic countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Morocco and others as they pursue their own particular paths away from political religion toward a more secular approach. On the other hand, there some scholars who find these suggestions to be anathema to the nature of Sufism itself: 269

To be true to the hearts of its initiates, Sufism must remain independent of political dictation; its insistence on spiritual autonomy makes it a model for pluralist Islam, not simply its "peaceful" counter position to the violence of the radicals (Schwartz 2008, 47)

The US promotion of Sufism was put in practice in Morocco as well as in other countries in order to stop the expansion of radical Islam. The technique of containment is a copy of the cold war scenario of financing Afghani Islam to stop the Soviet empire from widening its territorial grasp. This policy of promoting Sufism was thought of by some US policymakers under the influence of some Sufi lobbyists. The policy had some success in some countries but failed miserably in others. Below, we will examine its ramifications in three countries: Egypt, Algeria, and Iraq.

The Egyptian case teaches us about the institutionalization of Sufism by the government. "Sufism nationalized" describes the main characteristics of Egyptian Sufis in one governmental Sufi council whose head is appointed by the president of the republic. There are about fifteen million Sufis in Egypt, divided into twenty three Sufi orders. The institutionalization of Sufism in Egypt is a strategy devised by this country to subject the Sufis and politicize them in a way that does not threaten the regime. This strategy worked well for the state in the sense that many heads of Sufi orders started fighting among themselves for the presidency over the Sufi council.

In the beginning of 2009 a conflict between Alaa Abulazaim and Abdulhadi Al-

Qasbi erupted over who will preside over the Egyptian Sufi council and will be named

"Sheikh al Mashayekh" (Saint of the Saints), following the death of its holder Ahmed

Kamal Yassine in November 2008. After the burial proceedings, the fifteen members of 270

the council -ten of whom are elected and five of whom are appointed- decided to allow

Alaa Abulazaim as the temporary leader of the council, Abdulhadi al Qasbi (46 years) who is also a member of the parliament, replaced him through election. Abulazaim deemed his removal illegitimate and called it "betrayal," hence he called for a meeting in which the "fake" new board is changed.

The anger of Abdulazaim was based on the custom of choosing the oldest member of the Sufi council for its presidency, a claim that was denied by Abdulhadi Al-

Qasbi. The truth of the matter is that there are political sides to this apparently personal problem. Even if more than thirty Sufi Sheikhs aligned themselves on Abulazaim's side on the ground of the speedy and shady nature of his rival's election, Al Qasbi continued to head the council. Some rumors made a link between Sufis in Egypt and the US strategy to contain Islamism, meanwhile others saw in Sufism the backdoor through which Shia thought gains ground in Egypt1.

The head of the Egyptian Sufi council, the Saint of Saints, receives an annual salary of 4000 Egyptian pounds and 130 pilgrimage visas per year that he can distribute to the several Sufi orders as he wishes. Thus, the financial leverage of the saint of saints is a strong booster of competition among aspiring saints . Another characteristic of

Egyptian Sufis is the avoidance of public modes of "doing politics" such as protests and marches. For instance, in many occasions, the Sufi orders refused to participate in

1 The Egyptian cleric Yusuf Al Qaradawi addressed a link between Sufism and Shia thought, meanwhile the ex US ambassador to Egypt Francis Richardoni became an avid participant of Sufi festivals in Egypt.

The money collected from the Mawlid ceremony of every Sufi order is given to the ministry of religious affairs and Al Azhar (90%) and to the Sufi orders (10%) meanwhile the Sufi Muslim council receives ten million Egyptian pounds as a deposit. 271

marches of solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza that took place in Cairo. Sheikh

Mohammed Chabraoui, from the council, refused any participation in a protest whose goal is to champion Arab and Islamic Affairs.

Historically the Sufis in Egypt have been passive conformists who never formed a political party or used their power within the state. Egyptians Sufis were criticized for attending Sufi and Shia conferences because they were viewed as an attempt for

Americans to promote Sufi thought. Mahmud Ashour, a Muslim scholar affiliated with the Islamic Research Center said: "With their large gatherings and loyalty to their teachers, the Sufis are a true paragon of the genuine peaceful religious spirit, but I don't think they are capable of countering religious fundamentalism" (Maged 2008, 23).

Another scholar agreed with this skeptical view due to the lack of qualified Sufi scholars, and he urged Sufi clerics to declare themselves free from political influences and ambitions. Thus, there is an uneasy relationship between Sufi apolitical posture, and the fear of their power, should their strict adherence to a given leader ever be turned to political expression.

The Algerian case teaches us that Sufism can become the subject of interstate competition. Counteracting radical Islam with Sufi orders in Algeria was long suppressed by the local religious elite due to their support of French colonialism. But with the advent of the Islamic Salvation Front in 1991, Algerian officials became aware of the role that

Sufi orders can play in counteracting the Algerian Islamist awakening. At the time, two

Sufi councils emerged: The National Association of Sufi Orders and The National Union of Sufi Orders. Characteristically Algerian Sufis completely supported the president. The 272

National Union of Algerian Sufi Orders repeatedly expressed its support for the third presidential mandate of Abdul-Aziz Bouteflika and its demand to amend Algeria's

Constitution. On the other hand, The National Association of Sufi Orders is witnessing a battle between two camps: that of Kaddour Kouaich, the ex-advisor of the president of the Republic, who has been heading the association since 1992, and that of Badreddine

Charit, a Sufi Sheikh. The Algerian government, like its Egyptian counterpart, chose to remain neutral in this fight. The Algerian government's reliance on Sufism to back the head of the state matches the Moroccan regime's functional use of Sufism. The Religious minister of Algeria Bouabdellah Ghoulamellah belongs to a Sufi order, and in Morocco the minister of Religious Affairs, Ahmed Taoufiq, is a Sufi too.

Morocco uses Sufism also as a competitive advantage to establish its power in diplomacy in its long competition against neighbouring Algeria. One example of the instrumental use of Sufism to gain an upper hand in diplomacy was to appropriate

Sufi saints for better political positioning. After Algeria organized a conference about the

Tijani Sufi order on November 2006, the Moroccan kingdom waged a media propaganda war to assert the Moroccan "copyright" to the Tijani order on the ground that the Founder of this order, Ahmed Tijani, was Moroccan and was buried in Fes, Morocco. The

Algerians responded to this claim by saying that Ahmed Tijani was born in 1738 in Ain

Madhi in Southern Algeria. Hence, Sufism becomes a "player", to borrow the language of Game theory, in the diplomatic chess match between Morocco and Algeria. 273

The Iraqi case presents us with rebellious and violent Sufis, since multiple Sufi orders are active insurgents in Iraq. While it's been reported that Sufis became active insurgents against the coalition forces and the Iraqi state after the execution of Saddam

Hussein, Asia Times reported the sympathy of Qadiri and Jilani Sunni Sufi groups with

Osama Bin Laden in 2003. Further, sheiks of the Naqshbandi School of northern Iraq were linked to Mullah Omar, the founder of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Sufi Islam

"permeates" Iraq, but the long-time enemies of Salafis and Sufis found common ground against the occupiers (Shazad 2009).

Several different Sufi orders populate Iraq. There are: the Qadiri order, the

Naqshbandi order, and a minor order called al-Nabhania. According to information provided by the Jamestown Foundation, all three formed different Sufi insurgent groups.

First, there is Jaysh rijal al-tariqa al Naqshbandiyya (the Men of the Army of the

Naqshbandi order) known as JRTN. It formed in December 2006 after Saddam's execution. In an interview, Dr. Salah al-Din-al-Ayyubi stated the goals of the JRTN and claimed no interest in participation in the political process of the country, only in resistance due to the current military occupation: "we will fight for the integrity and unity of Iraq, land and people, to maintain its Arab and Islamic identity and we will be prepared for their projects of division" (Al-Ayyubi 2007, 10).

Second, there is katibat al-sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani al-Jihadia (The Jihadi

Battalion of Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani) which was announced in August of 2006. On the same date, guerrillas in the al-Jilani mosque are said to have attacked coalition forces in Ramadi. Reports differed as to whether Sunni insurgents or the Sufi insurgent group, 274

al-Jilani was responsible for the attack. Thus, the Sufi disciples may have participated in the insurgency in response to a weakening coalition, and protection against spiking Shiite violence. So, it argues that self-defense, not necessarily the goal of overthrowing the state drives Sufi Participation.

Finally, there is the Sufi Squadron of Sheikh Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani which was founded in April, 2005. This Squadron declared war on the American forces in April

2005, and took responsibility for road-side IEDS (improvised explosive devices) and sniper attacks in Mosul. In January 2006, the al-Jilani mosque in Baghdad received an artillery pounding. Analysts in the Jamestown report posited that the Salafis may have wanted the Sufis to blame the Shiites for this attack. Whatever the facts may be, the

Sufis aligned with the Salafi movement, their historical enemy. On May 27, 2007 the shrine of Jilani- known as "the sultan of saints"- in Baghdad was bombed by Salafi militants killing more than twenty-four people. The battles taking place over mosques are particularly significant because Salafis and Sufis in Iraq have historically clashed over shrines as religious sites. Salafis are anti-shrines, believing that physical death puts an end to the soul. Therefore shrines and intermediaries have no place in the religion. On the contrary, the Sufi disciples believe that shrines properly express the ongoing nature of life, and place great importance on them.

More recently, a Sunni militant group (Ansar al Islam) entreated the Naqshbandi

Army to join them along with the group of Imam Ibn Hanbal to escalate attacks against the United States and threaten the signing of the security agreement. It is difficult to tell if this is a new group, or one of the groups cited above such as JRTN and others, but it's an 275

indication of the alliances between Sunni militants and Sufi groups in Iraq for a common purpose. (CBS News Investigates 2008) Further, the Naqshbandi order has posted videos online showing stockpiles of a particularly deadly RKG-3, a mini-explosive that acts like a grenade. It is powerful enough to destroy a tank, but can do so without damaging Iraqis who may be mixed in with Americans (NPR 2009).

While Sufis say they are exercising their historical resistance to occupiers and

"unbelievers" in the words of the JRTN, the recent actions of Naqshbandi order suggest pursuit of political power. The multiplicity of Sufi insurgent groups, their dedication to expelling outside occupiers, and the shifting nature of the alliances between Sufis, Sunni insurgents and the Baathist party make it impossible to employ any "soft strategies" to fight extremism, because the Sufis themselves have embraced resistance to the American political aims.

Conclusion

I have examined four types of anti-Sufi discourses. The first one (Wahabi Salafi) attacked the Sufi idea of intercession of saints on behalf of their followers and deemed heretical the meditational prayers of the Sufis and their rituals in which the prophet

Mohammed apparently did not engage. The second discourse (Nahda Salafi) attacked

Sufism on the front of its irrational metaphysical excesses, and required that it conforms to European rationality. The third discourse is Moroccan nationalist Salafi paradigm represented by some key Moroccan resistance figures who blamed Sufism for the pro- colonizer attitude taken by some Sufi orders. Upon scrutiny, one finds out that not all 276

Sufi orders collaborated with the colonizer. Finally, there is an internal Sufi discourse

(Juridical Sufism) represented by Sufi jurists like Zarruq and the Tijani order who had issues with the authenticity claims of Sufi saints. I expect the Moroccan monarchy to promote the Tijani order because it has the potential of destroying the Boutchichi movement based on the claims that I discussed in this chapter and on the Boutchichi chapter.

I have also briefly surveyed the US foreign policy in the Middle East with respect to its promotion of Sufism based on one important document, the Nixon center report. I did not claim that this document spoke for the US diplomats nor did I argue that there is some kind of universal conspiracy by which US helmets are bringing all Sufis to power.

In fact, I argue that such policy is doomed to fail because one of the triggers of Sufi violence, the lacking perversion for which US headhunters like to hire it, is foreign invasion. I have shown through three case studies (Egypt, Algeria, and Iraq) that Sufis are not monolithic and behave in many different ways in the political arena. Meanwhile they were institutionalized in Egypt and used in domestic politics; they were used by the

Algerian president as a comparative advantage against its neighboring enemy, Morocco.

In Iraq, the foreign invasion of Americans pushed the peace loving dervishes to join their resistance with non Sufi radical Islamists to fight the colonizer. CHAPTER EIGHT

CONCLUSION

I wrote this dissertation about Sufism and the hidden secrets of the Muslim heart because during my spiritual journey with the Boutchichi order I was continuously exposed to politics even when I was plunging in deep spiritual meditations. I tried to show that supernatural and mystical registers and discourses form a cogent and potentially insurgent political view of the world that can be set against all the accounts that give credit only to what can be seen. Perhaps my dissertation is "a rude gesture in the face of the know-it-alls who make up our intellectual elite, the control freaks who would decide what is acceptable for us all to think and believe" but it is most probably a portrait of the "guardians of ancient streams of underground spirituality that may have something important to say to us" (Booth 2008,15).

Instead of terrorizing me into rationalizing every part and parcel of the stories that I tell, my readers ought to give their imagination a chance to be trained so as to become the organ of vision that it should have been in the first place. I only ask from my demanding readers to grant me the right to think backwards, and analyze texts upside down. In the end, much like the creators of movies such as The Lord of the Ring or The Wizard ofOz, I just do not want to be a bad mimic of established and conventional ways of thinking.

The thesis that Sufism is a crucial resource of mobilization in Morocco is not new.

However, the novelty in my argument is that we should place this common-knowledge claim in a political context. I contend that magical stories of spirits, demons, dreams, and altered

277 278

states of consciousness are rich political patterns that the conventional definitions of political science ignore as pure superstitions held by the nutty addicts of marijuana or other hallucinogenic substances. If mystics have used in the past techniques such as breathing, sleep

deprivation, sacred dancing, praying, and consuming some mind altering products in order to

change the way in which they see reality, then why don't we investigate how political reality

gets altered as a result of these techniques? The expert on Sufism Abdulaziz Said expresses

eloquently this concern:

The schismatic Muslim priests (marabouts) and the many religious fraternities (Sufi tariqahs) profess a more mystical and intuitive kind of religion than scholastic Islam, and one often associated with the worship of local saints and other local superstitions and customs. (1968, 34)

Sufis fill a political vacuum as well, and the political dimension of their activism must

be understood within the context of an authoritarian Moroccan monarchy which treats all

religious and social actors as guilty of seeking power and overthrowing it until proven

innocent. The Sufi institution has been ignored by reigning models of political participation

because it is not part of the visible realm. For this reason, I developed a theory of paranormal

politics arguing that Sufis can go around the constraints that the Moroccan security apparatus

places on freedom of expression and its methods of political co-optation both at the formal and

the informal level through engaging in what I called kryptopolitics, which is mobilizing the

Sufi register, in its meta-hidden dimension, to fulfill political aims. Sufis can still claim, in

plain view, to be non political but behind closed doors, they teach old secrets that have a

political dimensions in them, and these jewels of wisdom find themselves passed on orally to

next generations through sealed lips. 279

The usual dichotomized distinctions between the political and the non-political

spheres in the Boutchichi discourse are tenuous. Precisely because the paranormal register, not thought of by political experts as a site of politics, is so crucial in the Sufi knowledge claim, it becomes a natural vehicle of expansion of the Boutchichi order in all

the spheres of the Moroccan society, including the political sphere. Because the Sufis

engage in unseen and unspoken rituals pertaining to the paranormal register, they are

largely unrepresented, much to their satisfaction, in political analyses. Due to the absence

of the Sufis in state -sanctioned political institutions (political parties, interest groups) or

visibly oppositional politics, they are depicted as apolitical or politically quiescent agents used by the monarchy for self-legitimating purposes. This dissertation argued against this

view. Far from being politically acquiescent or apathetic, the Boutchichi order, not helped by the authoritarian nature of the Moroccan monarchy, engages in political action

through the use of code symbolism that the monarchy cannot decipher. Failing to use Sufi

symbolism as frames of reference in our political analysis will leave us with a false sense

of Sufi political or co-opted positioning.

My analysis shares with Diane Singerman the finding that invisible politics "is

always taking place" not only "at peak moment such as demonstrations" (Singerman

1995, 4). Hence, by examining Sufi registers as sites of political resistance to the state,

my dissertation hoped to present an alternative view of politics based on the occult and

the paranormal. Leaving out Sufism from political analysis, other than saying that it is a

policy tool of the state to counter radical Islam, replicates the invisibility of Sufi political

resistance, but Sufis play on the interplay of visibility and invisibility to erase all the 280

traces of their political 'walks' and whenever they share their legendary secrets in the visible realm, they make sure that these secrets are wrapped in encrypted 'texts.'

Moroccan politics is greatly fascinating by its cyclical nature. Sufism is no exception to such nature since it has been linked from the early days of political life in

Morocco to the tactics of the monarchy and political parties. For instance, the first nationalist organization al-jamaa al-wataniyya (created in 1930 and renamed National

Action Bloc in 1932) took the name "zawiya" to avoid the surveillance of colonial police on the premise that Sufis typically do not engage in nationalistic activism. This cyclically is explored from a historical perspective by Henry Munson in his book Religion and Power in

Morocco (1993). Munson's book responds to Clifford Geertz's book Islam Observed:

Religious Development in Morocco and Indonesia (1971). It investigates seventeenth-century

Morocco and focuses on the study of Hassan al-Yusi, the seventeenth-century saint and religious scholar, who defied his Moroccan sultan Ismail, the monarch with the longest rule in this dynasty. All dynasties that ruled Morocco experienced such challenges by holy figures, who claimed to be endowed with the same supernatural dispositions as the leaders, whose legitimacy they were questioning. Abdessalam Yassine's challenge to

Hassan II in 1974 in the form of a 124-page admonishing epistle is a good example of such contestation as we have seen previously since it is almost a copy of what al-Yusi had sent to his sultan Ismail, as we have seen in the chapter about AWI. Furthermore, in 1909, a tribesman attacked the sultan Abdelhafid while he was going to pray in the mosque, but this attempt failed and the tribesman was killed. The mosque became hence registered as a lieu d'attaque in the repertoire of contention of the then Moroccan suicide "bombers." 281

The mosque as a space acquires hence another function besides that of praying and playing (with words as a symbol of persuasive rhetoric): slaying. In fact, decades later, in the mid nineteen fifties, Ibn Arafa, the sultan who was installed by the French colonizer as a replacement of the exiled king Mohamed V, was assaulted- while going to the Friday prayer- by another suicidal Moroccan resistance figure (Allal Ibn Abdullah) but the attempt failed and the assailant was killed.

My quantitative survey comprised a group of 634 respondents randomly sampled across AWI and the Boutchichi order. Some important results came out of this experience. First, members of AWI are more pious than the Boutchichi followers in the sense that they engage more often in Islamic rituals. They also participate more in demonstrations but less in elections than Boutchichi members, and do not hold the king in high regards, while the Boutchichi disciples think that the king needs to remain a sacred and an untouchable person. Third, both AWI and Boutchichi members are harsh against homosexuals but this opinion softens for members who live outside of Morocco.

Hence, modernity erodes, so to speak, the harshness factor of Islamism. The findings of the survey do not stand the scrutiny of a deeper analysis of the two movements as

Abdessalam Yassine is unveiled as the avatar of Sidi Hamza, his weapon in the visible realm. It is in fact customary inside the Boutchichi order to hear people attribute their actions to their master. I was sitting one time in a room inside the Boutchichi headquarters in Madagh, and King Hassan II, whose portrait was on the floor in front of us, came in our discussion, and one informant said about him: "he is just a speaker

(bong)" referring to the fact that whatever he says or does is in fact motivated by Sidi 282

Hamza's gaze. When Mohammed VI became king, the same guy said that since his childhood "the camera spotted him" describing the gaze of the saint. Why couldn't A.

Yassine then become also a carrier of the saint's will?

AWI is known for its disobedient political behavior towards the monarchy and its resentment of open political participation in general, and the Boutchichi order is famous for a co-opted submissive attitude towards the Moroccan monarchy along with a public discourse that focuses mainly on persuading its followers to stay away from politics while nurturing their spiritual intelligence. Since the leader of AWI, Abdessalam Yassine, was a former member of the Boutchichi order, AWI relies on Sufism as a narrative and a frame in its mobilizing efforts. However, AWI is more interested in recruiting than its

Boutchichi counterpart, and this is partly explained by a failed communication policy implemented by the Boutchichi order. Yassine's life before mysticism was completely in line with modernist ideology:

Before his discovery of mysticism, he was a great admirer of European classical music and he wore Western suits and ties. When he decided to become a disciple of Sheikh 'Abbas, he gave away the things that pointed to his attachments to the western material world, such as his collection of issues of Time magazine. (Zeghal 2008, 90)

Yassine's life after mysticism pushed him towards political resistance but the mysticism stayed latent in his message:

After his master's death, Yassine entered into conflict with the sheikh's family because, according to his critics, his ambition was to accede to power in place of the descendants of the brotherhood's leader. There is obviously no mention of this episode in the hagiographic writings of the brotherhood. On the other hand, the 283

Budshishiyya now emphasizes the spiritual testament of Sidi al-Haj al-Abbas, which granted his son Sidi Hamza the role of 'spiritual educator.' (Zeghal 2008, 92)

The 'value' of a Sufi order increases when it is taken out of the 'market'. To inject Sufism in the visible market is to generate a mystical inflation. By integrating the

Boutchichi order in the religious market, the Moroccan monarchy puts a leash on its

symbolic expansion. What the Moroccan monarchy does is in reality to change the nature of the soul from a free 'good' to a marketable 'good.' Introducing the imaginary realm into the visible social, economic and political spheres is a tactic used by the Moroccan

state to dilute what is generally sought in the imaginary realm (happiness for everyone, minimum effort, phantasmagoric breaking of routine) in the harsh reality of daily life

(routine, misery, hard work). Let us recall the true a story of a disciple in the Boutchichi

order to illustrate this point.

A middle aged married male had done several medical tests that showed him his biological inability to have children. Confronted with the 'real' logic of medicine; this

Sufi sterile man resorts to the imaginary sphere as a solution to his real problem. He goes to see his Sufi master and expresses sadly his desire to have kids. The Sufi saint simply recites a verse from the Koran where a prophet, whose wife is barren, makes a prayer

asking God for children. The Sufi disciple believes in the paranormal power of his sheikh to cure the barren and make them fertile. After few weeks, his wife tells him that she is pregnant. He rejoices and understands her message in a slightly different way: "I will be a

father." The husband's family members, who do not share his mystical frame, starts pointing fingers at the pregnant wife because they are well aware of their kin's biological 284

inability to have kids. They try desperately to get him to question his wife's faithfulness but he is so certain that his sheikh intervened spiritually on his behalf that he only prays for his family members to be able to drop their skepticism one day and taste the bliss of

Sufi enlightenment.

The birth of the baby is a real act for both the husband and his family. However, the reality of the husband requires the mediation of the imaginary world to give it sense.

In other words, the thesis of mental infidelity is ruled out by the husband only through the intervention of the paranormal order. The husband's method is precisely to keep the reality of the baby 'hidden' in the secret of the saint. Without this saint, the man argues, I would not have had a son. This story derives its legitimacy and power from the fact that only few people know about it.

The strategy of the Moroccan state, in its curtailing of the saint's reach, is not to say that the wife had extramarital sex, but just to publicize the fact that the saint has paranormal powers that allow him to turn a barren man into a father. By publicizing the

'secret' the monarchy opens the door for skeptics to ask for a paternity test. The state does not ask for the test itself. It just continues to mention the paranormal so that it is no more a secret. By doing so, it will ultimately lead the 'father' himself to doubt. The answer of the Boutchichi order is that it precisely rides along the wave of visibility not as a visible invisible but rather as a performing visible, as if the Boutchichi order were to tell the Moroccan state: "you want to make our secret visible so we will beat you in your own game by appearing more royalist than the king." In fact, the Boutchichi leader sheikh

Hamza sent through the internet a call to Moroccans to "rally behind the symbol of the 285

nation's symbol of sovereignty, the commander of the faithful, his majesty the king

Mohamed VI and the monarchy which was made by God to create a union of the Moroccan people" (www.tariqaa.org, accessed August 03, 2005). Meanwhile AWI would inscribe itself in a visibility of dissidence; the Boutchichi order sheds light on its presence through a declared acceptance of royal patronage.

The Moroccan monarchy equips the Boutchichi order with the profit motive in its

Sufi practice, and by creating religion as an entertainment and a jouissance, it strips the Sufi discourse of one of its essential markers: the safe haven against materialism. The mystical order finds itself repackaging religion as fun and cool. The essential form of Sufism-if one is to espouse essentialism- will collapse under the tide of marketing. Sufism will become a name without a practice. The urge to widen the Sufi influence through a market model of advertising incorporated some doses of ethnocentrism. If Sufism sells, the Boutchichi disciples argue, it is because it is the best. However, the logic of the market has its own dialectic. In fact, by legitimating competition, the market model helps advance religious toleration. The public parrhesia of Yassine is an example of such market exposure.

Yassine sent a memorandum to King Hassan in 1974, at the peak of the monarchy's struggle with both the political left and the military, and this epistolary episode marked the birth of the movement. Saying the truth in front of the ruler is known as parrhesia, enjoining in good and forbidding evil using the genre of nasiha, started with Yassine but became a cornerstone of his movement's ideology. Yassine's house arrest in 1989 marked a historical moment for AWI and became a symbol of its struggle against the status quo. 286

In early 2000, Abdessalam Yassine sent the new Moroccan monarch Mohammed

VI a shorter letter of admonition under the title "to whom it may concern." This second letter was secular and less virulent in tone. The letter was made public on January 10,

2000 on the tenth anniversary of Yassine's house arrest. Yassine asked from the new king to redeem his father and fear the king of kings: "Redeem your poor father from torment by restoring to the people the goods that rightfully belong to the people" charging the late

King Hassan II and his government with embezzlement of billions of dollars in public funds, calling on the new king to use his inheritance to pay off Morocco's heavy national debt. On May 19, 2000 Mohammed VI released Yassine from his house arrest. A defining moment of Mohamed's reign was his decision to free Yassine. The policy that the Moroccan monarchy followed here was the concept of hegemony put forth by the

Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937).

Hegemony is a theory that explains why communist revolutions predicted by Karl

Marx had not occurred where they were most expected in Europe. According to Gramsci, the term hegemony refers to the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force. He argued that the failure of the workers to make an anti- capitalist revolution was produced by the successful capture of the workers' ideology by the hegemonic culture. In advanced industrial societies, hegemonic cultural innovations such as mass media, and popular culture had indoctrinated workers to a false consciousness. Dominant groups protect common class interests through the use of cultural institutions and alliances with other members of the elite, and not by coercion. 287

Cultural hegemony empowers certain cultural beliefs, values, and practices to the submersion and partial exclusion of others.

Hegemony is used in my dissertation to show how the Moroccan monarchy acted in such a way as to make sure that the 2006 insurgency (qawma) predicted by Yassine's dream had not occurred where it was expected. The failure of the dream of the saint was produced by the successful capture of its essence (invisibility) by the monarchy's hegemonic culture. Through mass media and popular culture, the fruit of insurgency was collected before it was ripe. The Moroccan king had indoctrinated Yassine's dreamers to a false consciousness.

In 1984, a new law gave the Ministry of Religious Affairs control over the mosques by giving it the right to close them in between prayer times. Moreover, in order to build a mosque, one needed a building permit from the governor of the province, himself an agent of the Ministry of Interior. Furthermore, the ministry of religious affairs could standardize the Friday sermon and the prayer of benediction for the king. The

Friday sermon imams are written by the Ministry of Religious Affairs with the approval of regional Councils oiulama and province governors.

Sufism has been shown in time (chapter three) and in space (chapter seven) to be a diverse phenomenon. The saint and sultan relationship is very complicated and should be analyzed beyond the formal register and below the informal and hidden dimensions.

One needs to delve into a meta-hidden dimension to locate dissent in silence and mute dreams. The US foreign policy is not doing such a thing and local regimes are more

efficient than it in incorporating the Sufis in heir tactical repertoires, because they share 288

with them a long history of cooperation and conflict. The Egyptian case showed that

Sufis can become institutionalized and lose their insurgent edge but internal conflicts over leadership will always inject Sufism with a sufficient dose of politics that would require the state's intervention. The Algerian case showed how two neighboring countries

(Morocco and Algeria) can use Sufism in their competitive "two-level game." The Iraqi

Sufis are a living example that Sufis can be "peaceful but not pacifists." In the end, the

US foreign policymakers need to know their target:

America must decide whether it desires to help governments or people. If its decision is to help governments then America will see the steady erosion of its influence (already under way) as these governments are replaced and their replacement is a certainty in a world in which the average lifespan of a regime is less than seven years. If we desire to help people-as we must as moral beings-then this must take place against the will of many national governments. (Said 1971 175)

Limitations of the study

It might be argued that I have ignored the question of politics that the formulation of agency as resistance addresses. According to Helene Shugart, critical scholarship is often written as drama with the marginalized communities cast as oppressed victims, the oppressor as villain, and the "cultural critics are the caped crusaders who step in to expose the dynamics of oppression resistance and 'save' the oppressed from their fate" (2003,

291). This drama fosters an essentialist view of oppressed communities. Shugart adds that "much critical theory reifies the very absolutist tradition to which its stands opposed— the critic, endowed with insight and expertise unavailable to the 'ordinary' experts, is constituted as sage and savior of the oppressed" (Shugart 2003, 292). To avoid such 289

essentialism, I was very careful as not to portray Sufis as victims but the reader will see that I described them many times as villains as well.

Another limitation is my status as an insider which might turn me blind in front of some biases. I recognize my bias but with time, my links with the order had loosened creating a distance not called for, and which will sorely be missed. In fact, my approach of critical rhetoric holds two assumptions: 1) that reality is socially constructed and 2) that this construction is shaped by power relations. I have not been objective, and that is because keeping a distance from the object of study is what leads to a polarized view between the public and academics. The critic needs to embrace self-reflexivity at all times in order to have a critical sensitivity to his participation within existing power structures.

Thus, the study of how power operates within social movements of the postmodern era, where identity and lifestyle, rather than economic and political structure, are key components of the movement, offers insights for the critical project.

Throughout the tedious process of writing this dissertation and gathering its data,

I have been struggling with the imperative of the Sufi traveler, whose gnosis is not

Aristotelian, and that of the academic researcher, whose practice is, to give credence to

Pierre Bourdieu, a "theory of practice." I started out as a meditating member of the

Boutchichi Sufi order, deriving pleasure from Sufi practices, and have become an agnostic postmodern cynic doubting even my own existence. At the end of this writing process, I felt that my identity was suspended in time like a pregnant mother giving light to a promising progeny. I ceased to exist as myself, and my energy which was once the motivation for my research has deserted me like a rich old man whose young courtesan 290

drops after his last penny is spent on her expensive jewelry. I might have lost time and money - my research was never funded by any foundation claiming interest in the

MENA region or any other region, I have never received any merit, lineage or minority scholarship, and as a foreign student, I did not have access to loans - but I gained a stomach hernia and a chronic depression, and most of all, I gained a distance with the object of my research that was begging me to paint it other than in black. Whether I succeeded or not in this portrait is a judgment that others will make, but I have successfully engaged in a long enough (five years) ethnographic research which allowed me to gain distance in proximity.

Because of my deep involvement in a spiritual path that some external observers see as authoritarian and hegemonic, I might have been engaging, perhaps heedlessly, in the role of the intellectual who is seduced by 'the authentic' experience of Sufi totalitarianism, trying my best to give it a theoretical legitimization. Maybe I am a madman walking in the footsteps of some intellectuals who were duped by local manifestations of violence: Heidegger and his romance with Nazi authorities, Foucault and his engagement -at least at the beginning of the event- on behalf of the Iranian revolution, Sartre and his fascination with Stalinism. Perhaps I am just an engaged reader of the writers of fantasy literature such as Jonathan Swift or George Orwell for whom the supernatural realm is a given. Whether I will remain in the minds of my readers as a spiritual lunatic or a fan of authoritarianism is of no major importance as I am sure that I was not a loner in my pathos. As I have shown in chapter three, throughout Moroccan history, many kings and courtiers cultivated the esoteric way of life, and still many others took it as their enemy. After weaving all these stories together into a continuous historical 291

narrative, I analyzed in the following chapters how this imaginary realm gets realized in today's politics by being called upon as a political and cultural frame by the two Sufi orders that I studied.

I showed how identity issues prevail in the Boutchichi agenda over economic or butter-and-bread issues. Instead of focusing on changing the political regime or challenging the economic class system, the Boutchichi order prefers to emphasize the purification of the heart of its members and their relation to divine truth. Hence, the target of transformative action for the Boutchichi leaders is the taming of the self or ego of the members. One of the oral "tropes" among the Boutchichi disciples that shows hidden registers of political activism is the story of Haj al-Mokhtar who used to leave his prison cell, after being captured by the French, for ablutions and prayer, only to return voluntarily to abide by God's decree. In other words, if the French colonizer could tame the Sufi master Mokhtar by putting him in jail, God gave him freedom by granting him

some supernatural powers such as the ability to walk out through closed gates. Political participation in the Boutchichi frame of reference is linked to a cyclical concept of divine time: time for political participation comes when God wants it to come. Other than time,

Boutchichi masters continuously stress the importance of silence and absence as political practices.

I devoted a portion of my work to silence and its importance in political expression,

or what the Japanese call haragei (wordless communication), and what westerners call nonverbal communication. Since almost all Sufi rituals (meditation, contemplation,

dreaming) require silence, it was legitimate to look at silence as a mode of political 292

activism. The politics beyond words that I have described was not making the argument that we should value silence precisely because it brings speech more to light as a contrast, but I emphasized the importance of reading silence as an eloquent mode of speech in a culture that relies more and more on noise. Silence represents, for the Sufis, a realm of the unnamable that is untouched by time or thought. It is precisely because of this emptiness in silence that political resistance can inhabit its interstices. For the western mind, silence carries the image of sites like libraries and cemeteries. For the Eastern mind, it carries the weight of places like sanatoriums and mosques. Thus, silence might be synonymous of doing as it might be of not doing.

In some instances of this dissertation, I might have sounded arrogant when I said that it is impossible for outsiders to decode the ways in which Sufis communicate their secret, but by the mere fact of writing about it and exposing it, I might have participated in creating an academic political discourse about the "secret." However, I have refrained, in this writing journey, from describing all what I have seen in numerous occasions out of fear that the 'men and women in white coats' (I hope you know who I mean) or the ones

'who occasionally wear black ones' (Nah! I did not mean priests or lawyers) would take me away, and I have silenced my voice also out of respect for some solemn oaths that I have promised myself and others not to break.

Whether my Sufi impulse is dismissed as a temporary effect of an 'authentic' experience or as an enduring aberration grounded in my thought, I can only promise to engage in my own parrhesia: I hereby repent from my unplanned mystical pregnancy to engage in an American witch-hunting career by sincerely surrendering my "never land" 293

bench to the foreclosing agents. I have looked in my dissertation at the voices that deconstruct the Boutchichi order and present its shortcomings. I looked precisely at the voices that question the nationalistic nature of the order during colonial times as well as voices that argue that the chain of spiritual transmission of the order is not historically legitimate. I even toyed with the gender blindness of the Boutchichi order showing how its misogynistic flavors will hurt its savory taste in the future.

I genuinely hope that in the future my new sanctuary, academia, will save me from my 'cult' with the least damage -despite lacking any insurance coverage- and will push me to take a measured approach winking at the everlasting enchantment of liberal and rational democracy. The fact that I am turning into a selfish Machiavelli or a calculating Hobbes neither prevents the mystics from having their inner life hide in the shadows only to pop up at turning points of history when its decoders unveil it, nor gives their revealed words the upper hand over their concealed whispers. My sole consolation would be to have successfully, and pleasurably, bended the square minds that were reluctant to accept my ideas as an explanatory framework not only for events that I wrote about but also for incidents that habitually surround these square minds so as to become routines, conventions, and habits. From the still stubborn minds that keep sending my work "where it belongs" (an epic phantasmagoria), I do not ask to switch gear to surrealism in a heartbeat, but just to inject their reading of my 'escapist fiction' with a dose of kindness. Some people will read my dissertation as a record of sultans and might complain that the monarchy did not get enough sovereignty. Others will be more interested in the lives of saints, and might dislike my work for making them appear too 294

human. It does not matter if the stories that I told were hallucinations or real occurrences. It only matters that they are not mine, even if I happened to be involved in many of them, because they were devised by greater minds that 'speak' below the conscious realm, and that convey messages that stick to my lips but surpasses my mind. The politics that is celebrated by some analysts as a presence might be considered by others as politics. What might be brandished by some voyeurs as non politics might be perceived by some exhibitionists as politics. Kryptopolitics is the absence of politics and the presence of politics. In the end, I leave my judges with a wisdom that I nurtured throughout this project: politics is in the eye of the beholder. APPENDIX A

Sufi glossary

Abd: servant or slave

Abdal: substitute, used to designate a rank in the hierarchy of Sufi saints

Abid: worshipper

Adab: correct behavior, inward and outward

Adhan or Azan: the public call or prayer summons to prayer

Adl: justice

Afrad: the single ones, used to designate a rank in the hierarchy of Sufi saints

Ahl al bayt: the people of the house, the immediate family and descendants of the Prophet Muhammad

Ahl as suffah: the people of the bench; the poor amongst the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad. They lived on a verandah in a courtyard next to his house.

Akhlaq: character, manners and ethics

Allah: A proper name that designates the Muslim God

Amir al mumineen: commander of the faithful, a title of respect given to a Muslim ruler.

Arif: one who knows, a Saint who achieved the knowledge of the self and its masks

Baqaa: The opposite of Fanaa. It is everlastingness or Continuance.

Batin: inner truth

Baraka: blessing or divine grace

Bay'ah or be'ya: pledge, oath of allegiance with a king or a spiritual master 295 Bidaah: a negative innovation in religious matters

Chisti: Famous Indian Sufi Order founded by Khawaja Muineddine Chisti [d. 1236] whose shrine is in Ajmer, India

Dhawq: taste

Dervish: Faqir or spiritual seeker who is a disciple in a path

Dhikr or zikr: remembrance of God, silent or loud repetitive meditation

Fana: passing away and annihilation in God

Fakir (pi. Fukara): Poor, it refers to a Dervish or a Sufi disciple

Fanaa: passing away and annihilation of the self

Hadra: Divine Presence or Trance

Hal [pi. ahwal]: status. The spiritual state that results from meditation (example: ecstasy or illumination). Ahwaal are temporary and they change with progress along the Sufi path.

Halal: permissible, allowed

Haram: prohibited, impermissible

Hurm: sanctuary. It is a sacred and inviolable space associated generally with the shrine of a saint. It provided a place of refuge for dissidents and fugitives.

Ihsan: Perfection, awareness of God

Ijtihad: After acquiring the required competence, deducing rules of law through juristic reasoning from original sources (The Koran and the practices of the Prophet)

Insan al kamil: The perfect or universal man, a fully realized human being who is generally the great spiritual teacher of the age, also referred to as pole (Qutb).

Irfan: Gnosis karama [pi. karamat]: a miracle attributed to a saintly person. It is different from Mujiza, a miracle operated by a prophet. 297

Khirqa: cloak, a Sufi patched garment representing renunciation of worldly value

Majlis: spiritual gathering majzub or majdub: ravished, one who is totally absorbed in God's contemplation in a way that affects his behavior in this world.

Malamati: a Sufi who would engage in a blamable action only outwardly for the purpose of taming his ego. For example, he would carry and drink publicly a bottle of Vodka in which he puts only water.

Makhzan: a term that designates the Moroccan state or monarchy.

Muraqaba: monitoring of one's actions to be in the presence of Allah and absent from all else.

Murid: Disciple, follower, student.

Murshid: Spiritual guide, Pir, Sheikh, Guru, Master.

Mushahada: Witnessing, Vision. It's the lifting of veils of obstruction between the worshipper and his God and a vision that happens in an awakened state.

Nafs: Ego. It's the enemy number one of Sufis who try- through their practices- to align it with God's commands.

Niyyah: intention

Nur: light

Qutb: the highest rank in the Sufi invisible government. It means the spiritual axis of the time.

Ruyaa: An authentic Vision in a state of sleep.

Salik: a person who walks in a spiritual path. To become a salik, one must follow both the outer path (exoterism, sharia) and the inner path (esoterism, haqiqa) of Islam. It is the opposite of Majdub.

Sama: Chanting and hearing of Sufi poems.

Sidi: My Lord, a title offered in respect to one's fellow companions in the Sufi path

Silsila: the chain of succession by which a Sufi order traces its lineage to the prophet Sirr: secret

Suf: wool

Sufi: follower of the mystical path

Sukr: intoxication not with wine but with spiritual contemplation. Ecstatic divine union and joy

Tajrid: remaining aloof and alone with God even in the midst of a crowd

Tajalli: theophany Taqwa: piety

Tariqa: spiritual path, Sufi order

Tawajjuh: orientation, direct attention upon Allah and saints with all one's spiritual strength.

Tawakkul: Trust in Allah and not in causes of the world

Tawhid: Oneness. Everything is a manifestation of the One, in all its different aspects.

Ta'wil: Spiritual hermeneutics

Ulama: learned men and scholars of Islamic legal and religious studies.

Wadifa (Wazifa): a collection of collective loud recitation of Sufi prayers.

Wahy: revelation

Wajd: finding Allah or feeling him.

Wali: Friend of God, Saint. A person who is near to god

Wird: a unit of dhikr constructed to contain in it, mantra or litany.

Zawiya: literally a "corner". A Sufi meeting place where a spiritual master may live and train his disciples. It is also called khaneqahs, tekkes, or ribats.

Ziyara: A visit to a holy place/person, or shrine of a dead saint. It is also the amount of money that a Sufi disciple gives to the master during a visit.

Zuhd: Asceticism APPENDIX B

Survey questions

1. To which religious movement do you belong?

Boutchichi order

Al Adl wal Ihsan

Other

2. Do you believe that your leader/cheikh is the saint of saints (moul lwaqt)l

Yes

I do not know

3. Can you cite three paranormal powers of your leader/cheikh?

Power over nature

Power over people

My leader has no paranormal powers

4. Do you have a leadership position in your spiritual group?

Yes

5. Do your children also belong to your group?

Yes

No 299 300

Not Applicable

6. Do your parents also belong to your group?

Yes

Not Applicable

7. Are you still in touch with some ex-members of your group?

Yes

Not Applicable

8. Do you discuss problems related to the management and the leadership of your group with people who are external to the group?

Yes

9. According to you, why is the movement Al Adl wal Ihsan popular?

Because it is a gift of God

The Moroccan monarchy is behind it

It speaks up against oppression

It is Moroccan Islam

It is a networking society for its members

Because of the support of the West

10. According to you, why is the Boutchichi movement popular?

Because it is a gift of God 301

The Moroccan monarchy is behind it

It speaks up against oppression

It is the real Islam

It is Moroccan Islam

It is a networking society for its members

11. Do you think that freedom of expression applies to everyone including groups of extremist ideologies?

Yes

12. Do you think that we need to disobey a country's law if we deem that it is unjust?

Yes

I do not know

13. According to you, political parties in the Moroccan scene need to have:

A Big role

Some role

A small role

No role

I do not know

14. Do you think that Morocco's king needs to stay a sacred and an untouchable person?

Yes

No 302

15. According to you, the Moroccan state needs to allow the members of Al Adl Wal Ihsan to protest publicly:

Yes

16. According to you, The Moroccan state needs to allow the members of the Boutchichi order to protest publicly:

Yes

17. According to you, Do Muslim Moroccans who convert to Christianity have the right to practice freely their religion?

Yes

18. According to you, Should the movie «Marock» have been forbidden in Moroccan cinemas?

Yes

I do not know

19. Do you think that Sufi groups should be visible in the Moroccan public scene (Newspapers, TV, radio, Journals)?

Yes

20. According to you, among these celebrities, what is the person that follows most justly democratic practices in their environment?

Abdessalam Yassine

Hamza Boutchichi 303

Mohammed 6

Abdelilah Benkirane

21. Do you think that homosexuals have the right to express freely their ideas in Morocco?

Yes

I do not know

22. Did you vote in the last two national elections?

Yes

23. Are you a member of a political party or association?

Yes

24. Have you ever participated in a public march not organized by your spiritual group? Other

Yes

25. Have you ever participated in a public march organized by your spiritual group?

Yes

26. Have you ever participated in an activity of civil disobedience (Strikes, sit-in, Boycott)?

Yes 304

27. How often do you pray?

5 times a day

Less than five times a day

Once a week

I do not pray

Rarely

28. How often do you pray in the mosque?

5 times a day

Less than 5 times a day

Once a week

Rarely

Never

29. Since you joined your spiritual group, have you had intimate relations outside of marriage?

Yes

Not Applicable

30. Do you drink alcohol?

Rarely

Never

Social Drinking 305

31. Do you use psychedelic substances in your meditation?

Yes

32. Do you wear a Muslim beard? (This question is exclusive to men)

Yes

Not Applicable

33. Do most men in your spiritual group wear a Muslim beard?

Yes

34. Do you wear a veil? (This questions is exclusive to women)

Yes

Not Applicable

35. Do most women in your group wear a veil?

Yes

36. Do you think that a Sufi woman has to wear a veil?

Yes

Not Applicable

37. Since you joined your group, how many new members have you recruited?

1-10

11-50

More than 50

38. Do you perform your Dhikr every day?

Yes

Not Applicable

39. How often do you see mystic dreams?

Often

Rarely

Once

Never

40. How much money do you regularly donate to your group?

Nothing

Very much

Average

Insignificant

Other

41. How often do you read the Koran daily?

More than 2 Hizbs 307

One or two Hizbs

I do not read Koran every day

I rarely read the Koran

42. Do you often pray over Prophet Muhammad?

Yes

Not Applicable

43. Would you be ready to conduct Jihad in Palestine?

Yes

Only with my money

Not Applicable

44. Must we cut the hand of thieves?

Yes

I do not know

45. Do you think that Morocco should forbid, as Tunisia did, polygamy?

Yes

I do not know

46. It is important for you that women's inheritance be equal to that of men:

Yes 308

47. Most members of your group are:

Easy to contact

Hard to reach

Dedicated to serving the order

Hypocrites

48. The leader of your group is:

Easy to contact

Unavailable

Always ready to help poor people

Always ready to help rich people

49. The activities inside your group are:

Interesting

Well planned

Badly planned

Pleasing to the majority of the members

50. According to you, does a non working woman have the same merit as a working one?

Yes

51. According to you, the leader of a Sufi order or a religious movement can be a woman:

Yes 309

It depends

52. According to you, is a married woman worth more than a single one?

Yes

I do not know

53. Choose one of these Moroccan feminine celebrities:

Fatima Mernissi

Nadia Yassine

Hanan Fadili

Saida Mnebhi

54. Do you think that the meetings of collective Dhikr can be mixed (Men and Women at the same room)?

Yes

I do not know

55. Do you believe that your leader/sheikh will intercede for you in Judgment day?

Yes

I do not know

56. Choose one of the following Political leaders:

Abdelkrim Khattabi 310

Hitler

Gandhi

Hassan El Banna

57. Do you think that Morocco will be better off with one unique Political party?

Yes

I do not know

58. How do you best define yourself?

Muslim/Christian/Jewish...

Arab/Berber

Sufi

Yassini

Hamzawi

Adli

Boutchichi

Slave of God

Human

59. Are you a:

Female

Male

60. What is your age? 311

24-30

31-36

37-43

44-55

56-70

61. What is your mother tongue?

English

Arabic

French

Amazighe

Other

62. What is your highest degree obtained?

Secondary school/High School

Bachelors Degree

Masters Degree

PhD

Other

63. What was the highest degree of education of your father/provider?

Elementary school

Secondary school/High School

Bachelors Degree

Masters Degree 312

PhD

Other

64. What was the highest degree of education of your mother/provider?

Elementary school

Secondary school/High School

Bachelors Degree

Masters Degree

PhD

Other

65. How do you describe the economic condition of your family?

Very well

Well

Middle Class

66. Are you?

Married

Single

Divorced

67. How has Sufism been seen in the family in which you grew up?

Very praised

Somehow Praised

Average

Not praised APPENDIX C

Chronology of Moroccan dynasties

Idrissi dynasty (788-985)

Fatimi dynasty (909-1171)

Almoravid dynasty (1042-1147)

Almohad dynasty (1145-1269)

Merinid dynasty (1215-1465)

Wattasi dynasty (1421 -1549)

Saadi dynasty (1511-1660)

Alawi dynasty (1666-present)

Muhammad al-Rashid bin Sharif (Muhammad I) 1635-1664

Abul 'Abbas Ahmad Al Harrani 1664-1672

Ismail al-Rashid bin Sharif 1672-1727

Abul 'Abbas Ahmad al-Dhahabi 1727-1726

'Abdul Malik 1728

Abul Abbas Ahmad al-Dhahabi 1728-1729

'Abdallah bin Abul 'Abbas (first rule) 1729-1735

'Abdallah bin Abul 'Abbas 1735-1736

'Abdallah bin Abul 'Abbas (second rule) 1736

Muhammad bin 'Abdallah (Muhammad II) 1736-1738

Al-Mostadi 1738-1740

'Abdallah bin Abul 'Abbas (third rule) 1740-1745 313 'Abdallah bin Abul 'Abbas (fourth rule) 1745-1757

Muhammad bin 'Abdallah (Muhammad III) 1757-1790

Yazid bin Muhammad 1790-1792

Sulayman bin Yazid 1792-1822

'Abdul Rahman bin Sulayman 1822-1859

Muhammad bin 'Abdul Rahman (Muhammad IV) 1859-1873

Hassan bin Muhammad (Hassan I) 1873-1894

'Abdul'Aziz bin Hassan 1894-1908

'Abdul Hafith bin'Abdul 'Aziz 1908-1912

Yusuf bin'Abdul Hafith 1912-1927

Muhammad bin Yusuf (Muhammad V) 1927-1961

Hassan bin Muhammad (Hassan II) 1961-1999

Muhammad bin Hassan (Muhammad VI) 1999-

Yazid bin Muhammad 1790-1792

Sulayman bin Yazid 1792-1822

'Abdul Rahman bin Sulayman 1822-1859

Muhammad bin 'Abdul Rahman (Muhammad IV) 1859-1873

Hassan bin Muhammad (Hassan I) 1873-1894

'Abdul'Aziz bin Hassan 1894-1908

'Abdul Hafith bin'Abdul 'Aziz 1908-1912

Yusuf bin 'Abdul Hafith 1912-1927

Muhammad bin Yusuf (Muhammad V) 1927-1961

Hassan bin Muhammad (Hassan II) 1961-1999

Muhammad bin Hassan (Muhammad VI) 1999- APPENDIX D

Boutchichi discourses and actions

What Boutchichis say What Boutchichis think they are doing they are doing

What Boutchichis are What the state is doing really doing

315 APPENDIX E

Interview with Omar Aharshan, one of the key executives of the political circle of AWI (Casablanca, 28 July 2008)

Abdelilah: What are the characteristics of AWI?

Omar: Joining Justice and Sufism is what characterizes AWI and makes it distinguished from other Islamic movements. It is separate from the Boutchichi order in the Justice component, a missing link in sheikh Hamza's movement. The mystical dimension appears in our movement in the writings of its members and in our programs such as the visits to our leader and the meditation sessions. The difference between our movement and the Boutchichi order in mysticism is that mystical activities in the latter have as a goal to produce ahwaal (spiritual states) meanwhile, as our leader says, the goal in our movement is to produce righteousness and the best of states is crying. Our prayers are only those that one finds in sayings of the prophet, and not those that the mystical master invents as it is the case in the Boutchichi order. Furthermore, in the Boutchichi order, the disciples cannot pick the prayers they say even if these prayers came through the prophet.

They have to originate from, and be approved by, the spiritual leader. In our movement, we only follow prayers that were approved by our prophet.

316 317

What are the main characteristics of the Boutchichi order?

One of the main critiques towards the Boutchichi order is that it could not maintain its neutrality vis-a-vis the state as one can see with the different members of the order being present in the ministry of religious affairs whose head, the minister Ahmed

Taoufiq, is a Boutchichi member. Another problem is the privileging of quantity over quality in the Boutchichi order since one finds members whose religious practice is lax and those who are rich are privileged by recruiters. The mosaic of the order is so diverse that one can find a Boutchichi disciple who approves violence and another one that condemns it. In our group, you will not find a single member who condones violence or who criticizes Sufism. A third problem is keeping the spiritual leader Hamza away from the day-to-day activities of the group.

Why was the political circle created by the movement recently?

One needs to know that there is a unity of vision in our movement. Organization and structure of the movement are just means to an end. Since the movement is engaged in multiple fields and it is very hard for one institution or organ of the movement to be engaged in all these sectors, the political circle was created. There are two common erroneous readings of our creation of the political circle. The first one argues that the political circle was created to solve the internal conflicts and please some people by giving them managerial positions. Our answer to this explanation is that the political circle is composed of the same members that were in managerial positions before the creation of this circle. The second argument says that the creation of this circle was a signal by our movement to the state officials that AWI is ready to enter the political 318

game. Our answer to this second argument is that after creating the political circle, we did not make any move towards political participation in Morocco.

What are the details of the vision by some members of the movement that 2006 was going to be the end of the monarchy in Morocco?

The dream about 2006 by some of our members was exaggerated by the media in their interpretation. The vision should be interpreted in light of the red lines of our movement: no compromises with the government, no secrecy, no violence and no working for a foreign government or party.

What is the background of the coming out of al Bashiri, the former co-founder of the movement to criticize your leader Yassine and his depiction as a tyrannical master? What are the effects of that coming out for the movement?

In the magazine al jamaa (issue 4) there is a section about the meeting between

Yassine and Bashiri. The latter was a respected member of the order who was not friendly with Sufi practices. He tried many times to resign and finally it was accepted. At that time, he said: "No, I was using my resignation just as a pressuring card." When he was told that his resignation was accepted he was shocked which pushed him to overreact in his answer so he publicly criticized the leader and AWI.

What made Abdessalam Yassine send his second letter to the new Moroccan king

Mohammed VI?

After the new king was enthroned in 1999, everyone was saying that this is a new cool king who is the friend of the poor people. We did not want to sign a blank check and we published that letter asking the king to prove how he is different from his father. 319

What are for you the time periods that one can trace in the development of the

Boutchichi order?

The first period is the expansion of the Boutchichi order with Hajj Abbas. The second period is the development of the order with Hamza. In this period the order opened its gates and started recruiting massively without conditions. With the appointment of Ahmed Taoufiq as a minister of religious affairs there was the third period of cooptation by the state.

What is the link between the Boutchichi order and AWI?

Abdessalam Yassine never contested the choice of Hamza as the successor of

Abbas. He left the order for other reasons such as the predominance of materialism in the group and the lack of political initiative in its ranks. If the Boutchichi leaders invite us to attend one of their gatherings, we will not attend because our presence will be read by the

Boutchichi order as an act of submission towards their leader Hamza.

What is your evaluation of Ahmed Taoufiq as a minister of religious affairs?

Ahmed Taoufiq is a good historian but the claim that he privileged our members is not true. In fact, he stopped 90% of our members who were Friday preachers in mosques from preaching. Moreover, he did not let one preacher to read the mikyal awfa prayer, a prayer we are used to reading in our movement, in a mosque. APPENDIX F

Chronology of Religious events in Mohammed VFs Morocco (M6)

November 2002: M6 appoints Ahmed Taoufiq as the new minister of Islamic Affairs

December 2003: M6 signs the decree related to the reorganization of the ministry of Islamic Affairs

30 April 2004: M6 gives a speech regarding reforming the religious field in Morocco

16 October 2004: Beginning of Radio Mohammed VI of Koran's recitation

02 November 2005: Launching of the TV channel M6 for Koran

19 June 2006: M6 launches the TV programs of preaching inside mosques

27 June 2007: Letter of M6 to the general assembly of the Tijani order

15 October 2007: Ahmed Taoufiq stays as minister of Islamic Affairs when the king appoints a new government

19 September 2008: M6 sends a letter to the participants of the Sufi conference Sidi Chiker

27 September 2008: M6 delivers a speech about religious reform in front of religious scholars and proposes for them a pact of scholars

06 November 2008: M6 creates a religious Moroccan council in Europe

27 February 2009: M6 gives to the leaders of the Kattani and Tijani orders their decrees of appointment

320 APPENDIX G

Interview with a previous Boutchichi member

(July 2009)

Abdelilah

For how long have you been with the Boutchichi order? Describe your experience? What are the good points you liked? What are the critiques to be said about their followers?

What are the critiques to be said about their master? Why did you join the Tijani order?

What do you think of Abdessalam Yassine? According to you, what is the future of the

Boutchichi order? Why did the Moroccan monarchy take the Boutchichi order as an ally?

H.D:

Sidi... Listen to me...I am a Tijani now not a Boutchichi. Sheikh Hamza and all the Sufi activities of his zawiya are dunya-driven.

Abdelilah:

I have already discovered that because my mother is from the Rif and Hamza's wife- deceased now- is from the Rif and one time his son Sidi Jamal denied that because they know it is a breach of the Sanad, since if Lalla Taos, Sidi Hamza's wife is Berber, Sidi

Jamal cannot be Sharif.

321 322

H.D:

No listen! The Sanad has nothing to do with al-Hajja. Sheikh Hamza is Qadiri Sharif but it stops there. There are 3 conditions of the Tijani Path: Not to mix the Tijaniya Tariqa with another. Not to mix the Tijani Wird with another. Not to visit dead or alive saints besides the prophets -as- or the companions of the Holy Prophet. These three conditions are the backbone of the Tariqa Tijaniya. The Boutchichi order has breached all of them.

Now the second observation: Sheikh Ahmed Ibn al-Aryan did not initiate the Tijani Wird to Sheikh Boumediene. He rather gave him a litany of 1000 Surat al-Sharh a day. The

Tijani litany is different (100 of Istighfar; 100 of Salat al-Fatih, 100 of Haylala). The third observation: Sheikh Ahmed Ibn al-Aryan have not ordered Boumediene to go to Fez and meet with Shaykh Lahlou because if Ibn al-Aryan were a Tijani master he would have been the first to keep the conditions of the Tijani Tariqa that does not allow the

Tijani followers to visit and take from non-Tijani masters. The 4th observation is that Ibn al-Aryan did not give an Ijaza to Boumediene to teach the Tijaniya because Taqdim requires a written Ijaza as the tradition of Tijani muqaddams. Do you know how

Boumediene received the fathl He drunk the spit of sheikh Ibn al-Aryan during the latter's ablution.

Abdelilah:

Excuse me here, the spit story from where did you get it?

H.D:

I got it from Sidi Mohammed as-Sufi, the student of Boumediene. 323

Abdelilah:

Is he a Boutchichi member?

H.D:

He was among the first students of Boumediene in Figuig before al-Abbas and Hamza took his Tariqa. He became a sheikh after Boumediene's death and migrated to Algeria where he founded a zawiya. He died in 2004. I talked to al-Ghazali of Fez and he approved the story. The book of Abdessadaq Qadiri Boutchich, Nubugh Sufi fi Qabail

Bani Yaznasen, is backed by dozens of documents and provides the following

conclusions:

1. That the current Boutchichi Qadiri chain of authority -Sanad- is corrupt and unsound because Boumediene did not take the Qadiri secret from Sheikh al-Mokhtar and

Boumediene refused the states of al-Mokhtar and accused him of laziness and passivism

and it was Sheikh al-Mazuni al-Tijani who corrected these mistakes after al-Mokhtar's

death by telling him that al-Mokhtar was a sound Saint and that he saw light between his

forehead and the sky whenever he passed before his sight.

2. The current Sanad of al-Mokhtar to Abdul Qadir al-Jilani which is given to the public

is not sound. Al-Mokhtar, grandfather of al-Haj al-Mokhtar, died very young and left a

child in the belly of his mother who called him after his father when he was born. This is

a proof that the chain of father from father to Abdellqadir is not sound. Furthermore, al-

Haj al-Mokhtar's real sheikh was an Algerian who took the secret from the muqaddam of

Emir Abdellqadir al-Jazairi, whose father Shaykh Mohyiddine had initiated the father of 324

al-Haj al-Mokhtar himself. In a letter, sheikh al-Haj al-Mokhtar received a permission from the Emir Abdellqadir's cousin, where he asked him in the paper to direct the

"Futuhat" (monetary donations) he received to his muqaddam al-Haj Bou'alam. The

Boutchich leaders do not want anybody to know that their Sanad in the Qadiri lineage is

Algerian. The Tariqa is the Sanad. If you do not possess a sound Sanad your claim of

Sainthood is false. And if your claim of Sainthood does not have a ground then you're there for something other than God, and naturally the litanies and the feeding and the lectures and the predication and all the order's activities are not meant for the Face of

Allah, but on the contrary, instead of curing they destroy. The first victim of Sheikh

Hamza and His Tariqa are the poor ignorant followers who do not mix knowledge with action and I have heard of so many cases when Boutchichi followers become unhealthy

'thanks' to the litanies given to them by Hamza. The Boutchichi order is a zawiya of materialism: everyone from Hamza's order from the leader to the small student talks and sings about money and life and 90 per cent of his followers are there to eat food.

Abdelilah:

Why does the monarchy then encourage the Boutchichi order and not another Sufi order?

H.D:

The Moroccan monarchy is present in every Sufi festivity even the corrupt one like Ben

Hamdouch. The state knows the secrets of the Boutchichi order, and I happen to know many of those dirty tricks. Politics is politics and religion is religion. Anyway, who do you think the state will support more: the Tijani order that has more than 300 million 325

followers in Africa and Asia and Turkey and Asia or the small tiny 100.000 Boutchichi followers? Since the death of Mawlana al-Qutb al-Maktum Tijani and the Ghawt is Tijani and I have all their names. Ten of them are Moroccan. The claim that Hamza is the

Ghawt is false. Guess what! He is not even a member of the diwanl I have contacts with the saints of the Diwan for your information and through them I took this Tijani Tariqa.

Abdelilah:

But did you raise those points that you have mentioned here with Sidi Hamza himself?

H.D:

Some Tijani scholars have discussed with him the subject but he keeps brainwashing ignorant people with the slogan "we come from the same water," and he spoke with his

Berkani Arabic what he had to speak. Moreover, the points were made by the cousin of

Sheikh Hamza himself. I also know Tijani disciples who work in the Royal Palace at

Rabat and who have state secrets. Hamza was a great human being at the time of Hassan

II. He was lovely and cool and hot and nice and impressive and real and the Tariqa was full of personalities and scholars and gentlemen, but when Hassan II died and Hamza received the go ahead of King Mohammed VI he became a rich man he showed his real face and started to sit in the Mawlid like a pharaoh. More than 20 scholars have recently left the Boutchichi order and joined the Tijani order. Master Dr. Mohammed Genoun of

Rabat managed to convert 20 PhD Boutchichi disciples to the Tijani order. He was a threat for them, and then they called him, Jamal and Kostas and others. They told him we want to talk and they took him by car to Dar Tazi and then asked him to join the 326

Boutchichi order. They tried to persuade him by all means but they failed. That's their technique. Even the Fassi brother who wrote the book of Dalail printed by the Boutchichi order has become Tijani. A friend of Genoun has heard Hamza himself saying: I wish my students are like Tijani followers because they never leave their master. Dr. Genoun told me that the Kattani religious scholars went to see Hamza in Madagh. They arrived and entered and started to talk about Islamic law. For so long Hamza was silent, then they asked him to share his thoughts, and after a while he said "Life is getting darker and darker". The Kattani scholars stood up and said "may Allah reward us on the time we've lost to come here!"

Abdelilah:

How about the Boutchichi intellectual Faouzi Skalli?

H.D:

I expect him to wake up very soon. According to my information Jamal hates him and

always pray against him because he never pay attention to Jamal. I have contacts with

some disciples who are residents in Madagh. I hear news. I was told by a great unknown

Tijani saint that the Boutchichi order in ten or fifteen years will be no more. Sheikh

Shaarani himself assured that real saints conceal themselves in the garments of the masses because they see that tribulations are coming and shall continue to rain heavier until the end of life. If the Boutchichi order calls for the strict Islamic law and stops food

and singing guess how many will come to it the next day. 327

Abdelilah:

Who introduced you to Sidi Hamza and the Boutchichi order?

H.D:

I attended the Boutchichi order with my father at the age of 14 when I made my first trip to Madagh in 1997.1 knew nothing of the zawiya until I left Morocco and started to research it. I was active on the web and made contacts. I rejected to join the circle of

Mounir and preferred to stay independent. When I talked to my Boutchichi friends they told me how Hamza filled his Mawlid with drug addicts who took drugs in buses on the way to Madagh and even kissed girls and so on in the bus. My last trip to Madagh dates to 2006 when I entered into the sheikh's room and talked to him for 5 minutes, and then I asked permission to leave the room. Mounir used to look for me and take me with him but I preferred to sleep in the mosque rather. Then I joined later the Tijani order after many istikhara prayers. I saw sheikh Tijani in a dream he came to me and ask me to sit on his right after that I saw the Prophet Mohammed and showed me the face of Tijani then he became himself in the shape of the Tijani.

Abdelilah:

Why didn't you like to join Mounir's circle?

H.D:

All the people around him are mercenaries. He goes to night clubs in Paris. 328

Mounir wants me around because I'm Sharif from Fez, and a professional, so he wanted to use my name and origin and resources. Besides whoever comes around is considered by them like a dog. Well, some very recent sound news: they have found Boutchichi gays in Madagh.

Abdelilah:

How come the rebellious master Abdul-Aziz Bin Seddiq made his testimony in favor of sheikh Hamza before his death?

H.D:

Ben Seddiq would never have made that testimony if he had seen the states of the

Boutchichi order today. Remember that Sidi Hamza was very lovely before and his zawiya was somehow orthodox. When King Hassan II died, things have changed and materialism entered to the cements of the zawiya. Hamza was oppressed all his life. The police used to make jokes about him in the road. Until the early nineties, he had to report to the minister of interior Driss Basri all his movements outside Berkane. He had no passport, and he was really controlled very tightly. He could not breathe, but when the king died and the new one was faced with 9/11 he decided to give birth to Sufism. This policy made the Boutchichi order very rich and the king himself became aware of the existence of the Boutchichi presence and the ambitious dream of sheikh Hamza, to say nothing of the grants and gifts and deals the monarchy offered him. The Boutchichi order will be soon an illusion as the alleged found oil of the eastern regions. 329

Abdelilah:

What I do not understand is the reason why Mohamed VI will use the Boutchichi order and not another zawiya, if the Boutchichi movement is dying.

H.D:

No, the Boutchichi order is not the only one in the scene. It is the only group that seeks to appear, that seeks to persuade the monarchy of its importance and size and activity. There are more than 100.000 Tijani disciples in Morocco. There are three times more Tijani orders in Morocco than those of the Boutchichi order, but Tijani members do not want to appear. Sheikh Tijani rejected leadership even though he was a complete sheikh and had an Ijaza from the Qutb al-Madam" and Qutb Mahmud al-Iraqi and Qutb Wazzani and others, but he went to live in the Sahara, where he saw the Prophet -saw- in broad daylight who authorized him to initiate his Tariqa after he gave him its litanies. His followers kept this tradition and became masters in their own right that hide and conceal their station, because they reject leadership. Sidi Mohammed Bin Ahmed Akansous al-

Jaafari was the minister of the sultan Mawlana Suleiman. He was a historian and went to fez to study in the Qarawiyyin. He later died in Marrakech. This saint was the ghawt zaman for 19 years, but was heavily involved in politics and history.

Abdelilah:

It is the same with the Boutchichi minister of Islamic Affairs Ahmed Taoufiq. 330

H.D:

Taoufiq belongs more to al-Haj al-Abbas than to his son. The deputy of Ahmed Taoufiq, the 2nd head of the ministry is Tijani. Taoufiq is very loyal to his master al-Abbas and sees his attachment with his son as obligatory. When he became minister Hamza talked to him and asked him to offer his grandchild (mu'atazz) a job. Taoufiq answered, "Sidi. All the eyes are on me. Be patient and soon I shall do that" then Hamza said: "God and the

Prophet and the Saints and I are dissatisfied with you." Taoufiq started to cry and say "O

Sidi please I'll do that" then he offered him a job in Fez then Hamza told him "God and the Prophet and the saints and I are happy with you".

Abdelilah:

Does the Boutchichi order take a lot of money from the state?

H.D:

Sheikh Hamza said to a group of British Boutchichi followers that he has never taken a penny from the state but the poor guys believed him. You can't measure royal support though the size of donations but through al-rida al-malaki (the king being happy with you). My father knows an agrico-business man in Berkane who took him around and showed him the lands that sheikh Hamza owns. He told him that Hamza has many brokers and as soon as he spots a peasant who would sell his land he approaches him with sweet words and tries to get the land very cheap. You know how much he bought the

N'ima land? 10 MAD per meter!!!! In the fine land of Laayoune, such price is almost a gift. His grandchildren are already rich my friend. 331

Abdelilah:

Those who marry into his family are closer to him like Ahmed Kostas.

H.D:

I know Kostas very well. He's a business man. He claimed that he was a Sufi master in the US. I tell u now a secret: Dr. Genoun told me that Hamza had a companion and disciple who was a general in the army in the 80s, and once Hamza told him: "when you go to France and buy military equipments for the army, buy and bring for me that device by which you guys can hear voices from 5 km." The general brought him that device so that Hamza used it to listen to his visitors and guests, and then he would tell them things that they've talked about in the way. People thought it's from sainthood, when it was from the device. The general eventually realized the game of Hamza, so he left him.

Abdelilah:

How come all those people join the Boutchichi order if it is lying to them? What is their deceiving tool?

H.D:

Singing and food, unawareness of Islamic law, nice talk of course and witchcraft spells that they put in food and Hamza's connection with the Jinn. Stop food in the Boutchichi order and 95 per cent of its followers will leave. Hamza gave orders to the Muqaddams to do Lila and give food. Do you know that Hamza's daughter was haunted by a Jewish devil? A close disciple of Hamza, who used to live in Europe, had problem with his 332

litany. The litany created troubles for him as he almost felt snakes in his interior, and he was full of water and wood and iron. Then he talked with Hamza to help him for three years. The sheikh told him that what he experienced had nothing to do with him, and asked him to go search for the cure. In the fourth year he came back and Hamza asked the man to go to Skhirat to see a psychic, and when he went there he found a very long line. He waited then he entered and spoke with the fortune teller who answered him:

"Hamza sent you to me. Hamza and his son Jamal and Hmida came to me once and asked for my help when their daughter was haunted by a Jewish devil. I slapped her many times to take the jinni and finally I succeeded." If Hamza were a saint and if his father were a saint would their very daughter be haunted?

Abdelilah:

How come all the people that leave the Boutchichi order never speak about them in public and are afraid to confront them?

H.D:

It is much better to leave it to Allah. Many Boutchichi followers think that Hamza is God.

Hamza once said that a king of Jinn became his student and asked him to give him a wird. He told him that this litany was to protect his students.

Abdelilah:

Ok and how come Ahmed Tijani befriended King Suleiman Alaoui who was known as the Wahabi king and who attacked all Sufi orders? 333

H.D:

He was indeed a salafi but never a Wahabi. Among his masters we find the Sufis Tayyeb

Ben Kiran, Ibn Suda al-Murri, al-Hawwat, and many other saints. He has himself become a Wazzani disciple before he met with sheikh Tijani in Fez. The father of the sultan

Suleiman, Sidi Mohammed, was himself the student of Sidi Ali Bin Nacer ad-Dar'i.

Tijani gave the Tariqa to King Suleiman at the order of his grandfather who told him to write a letter to the sultan and initiate him the wird of the Tariqa. Once the sultan heard some Sufi saint claiming that his zawiya is superior to the Kaaba, he destroyed it to the ground. He was concerned about the Berber saints who took many bad innovations to their zawiya. Another great saint is the sultan Mawlana Abdelhafid. First, he opposed the

Tijani order fiercely and then when he met with al-Qadi Skirej al-Fassi he softened his position and become a strong disciple of the tariqa.

Abdelilah:

Sultan Abdelhafid loved red wine, and it is documented in French archives.

H.D:

Dr. Genoun who possesses today the greatest Tijani bibliography on earth including the rare documents and epistle of sheikh Skirej has lately told me that he possesses more than

100 letters of the sultan to sheikh Skirej discussing with him in high levels of sainthood.

Sultan Abdelhafid was among the most conservative Alaoui kings. 334

Abdelilah:

What about Sidi Jamal, the future heir of Sidi Hamza?

H.D:

Jamal, son of Hamza, is a religious businessman. BazzafAlih Fes. I heard him say: it will come a day when I will cut their legs in Fez since there are no men in Fes. One of

Hamza's followers in Fes told him that some people are making TAWAJJUH to his son

Sidi Jamal and not to him. He told them: "HAPPY HE WHO MAKES TAJJUH TO

JAMAL" and when the brothers said that in Sufism one needs to have one master Hamza said: "DO U KNOW BETTER THEN ME DO U KNOW BETTER THEN ME?"

Abdelilah:

From where does the Boutchichi order get money to feed its followers?

H.D:

In every city there are rich followers who have blind faith in Hamza.

Abdelilah:

What do the Boutchichi followers of Algeria say?

H.D:

They say that Bin Laryan did not give the Tijani permission to Boumediene but he only gave him a traditional Baraka because he drunk his spit and God rewarded him for his intention. They also say that Boumediene visited Ben Alioua and stayed with him 35 335

days and when he asked him the permission to teach his order he asked him to go back to the Qadiri order. Boumediene refused to have Haj al-Mokhtar as his master when the latter was alive. The chain of the the Qadiri order is very complex. The head of the

Boutchichi order in Algeria, Mohammed al-Sufi, died in 2004 and had once visited

Hamza in 1988. Al-Sufi told his followers that Hamza took the permission from him and

Hamza tells his followers the same thing. Both of them hold no secret except the Baraka of their ancestors. They do not have permission to use the greatest name of God (al-ism al a 'dam) and the litany given by Hamza is devil-driven and empty of any secret. REFERENCES

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