FASTING and FEASTING in MOROCCO an Ethnographic Study of the Month of Ramadan

PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/113158 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-10-11 and may be subject to change. FASTING AND FEASTING IN MOROCCO An ethnographic study of the month of Ramadan Marjo Buitelaar Fasting and Feasting in Morocco FASTING AND FEASTING IN MOROCCO An ethnographic study of the month of Ramadan. Een wetenschappelijke proeve op het gebied van de Sociale Wetenschappen Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Katholiek Universiteit Nijmegen volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op dinsdag 28 mei 1991, des namiddags te I 30 uur precies door Maria Wilhelmina Buitelaar geboren op 4 oktober 1958 te Vlaardmgen Promotores: Prof. dr.AA Trouwborst Prof. dr. J.R.T.M. Peters Co-promotor: dr. H. G.G.M.Driessen Typography & Lay-out: André Jas, T.VA-producties Doetinchem Cover-illustration: painted detail of the minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque in Marrakech. From: H. Terrasse & J. Hainaut Les Arts décoratifs au Maroc Casablanca: Afrique Orient 1988.Trouwborst For Leon Tíinyiar/ А Γ L A M ГІС OCH A M < Melilla СаааЫа El Jadi'Jä Map of Morocco TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowl edgements Note on the transcription Introduction 1 The argument Berkane and Marrakech Fieldwork Outline 1. Prescriptions on Fasting in Islamic law 11 The Koran on Fasting Fasting in the Hadith Interpretations by the Malikite School "The secrets of fasting" by al-Chazali 2. Shaban: preparing for Ramadan 25 Celebrating Shaban Warming up and catching up fasting Preliminary fasting Preparing and purifying the house Purifying the body Purifying the mind 3. Living Ramadan 43 Welcoming Ramadan Everyday life during Ramadan The preferred days: 15th and 17th Ramadan The concluding feast 4. Unification of the Umma, the Muslim Community 63 The fast as a religious duty for Muslims Fasting sets 'us' apart form 'them' Evoking the Umma Umma membership of women 5. Ramadan makes one healthy: the meaning of purity 79 Purity in Islamic doctrine Moroccan views on purity Fasting and purification The purifying quality of Ramadan and health Purity and women 6. Pathway to Paradise: collecting ajr, religious merit 93 The concept of ajr in Islamic doctrine Moroccan views on ajr Blessings, religious merit and the image of God Ajr during Ramadan Women's model in a men's world 7. A cycle of celebrations 107 Descriptions of the other feasts of the Islamic cycle The celebration of different levels of community Purity Religious merit and blessings Recognition of the feasts within dominant Islam Ramadan as a condensation symbol 8. The liminal month: Ramadan as a ritual complex 129 Themes of liminality The first fast Fasting as a calendrical rite Conclusions 143 Appendix: The folly fast 147 Glossary 153 Bibliography 155 Dutch summary 165 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the Nijmeegs Instituut voor Comparatieve Cultuur en Ontwikkelings Studies (NlCCOS)in whose research programme this project was embedded, and the Catholic University of Nijmegen and the Stichting Antropologie, who provided research facilities and financial support I am indebted to Karin Fierke, who faced the unrewarding task of trying to make my English sound less Dutch, and Jan Hoogland, who corrected my transcription of Moroccan Arabic words. Nothing seemed to escape their attention, and the errors that remain are to be blamed on unjust stubbomess from my side. I thank Wim Dieleman and Benno Meyer and Andre Jas from TVA-produkties for taking care of the lay-out and cover design. Each in his or her own way, my supervisors Henk Driessen, Willy Jansen, Jan Peters and Albert Trouwborst have guided me through the various stages of writing a doctoral dissertation. At difficult times, it was their faith in me that kept me going. I wish to thank them for their repeated readings, comments and encouragements to keep struggling to find my way through my material. I am also grateful to the members of Albert Trouwborst's "promovendi-overleg" for their critical comments. I would like to thank numerous friends, colleagues and relatives for the support, suggestions and 'time-outs' they offered. Some of them I want to mention in particular. The involvement and comments of Annemoon van de Broek, Cora van de Veere and my mother Aad Buitelaar - v.d. Berg have made me realize the importance of the contribution and involvement of friends from other professional fields. In the same respect, the advice and friendship of Francien van Driel, Miriam van Reisen, Wilma Roos, Maria Smetsers and Ellen Sprenger have been invaluable. The discussions in our "women's study club" of parts of my manuscript have helped me clarify my arguments. Without the help, hospitality, and sympathy of various people in the field, this book could not have been written. First I want to thank Moustapha Lemaamer for accomodating me during the first few weeks of my stay in Morocco. I owe a lot to Abdelmajid and Loretta Al-Chazouani for introducing me into some Marrakchi families and taking me in when I was ill. They provided a haven to which I could turn for distraction, encouragement, or simply a hot shower. I thoroughly enjoyed my visits to Jolijn Eikeboom and Rob Rutten in Rabat and Salé and I thank them for their hospitality and friendship. It is hard to imagine how this book could have come into being without the continous advice, support and friendship, both in the field and at home, of my dear friend Leon Buskens. His confidence and unfailing sense of humour and talent of being there when needed made this Moroccan adventure all the more rewarding. I owe him much more than ihtjubaniya that he was prepared to put at stake and it is to him that I dedicate this book. My most profound debt is of course to the people in Berkane and Marrakech with whom I lived and worked. I thank them for accepting me into their lives on a contemporary basis and teaching me the things I tried to convey in this book. In particular, I want to thank the women sharing the courtyard of the house in which I lived in Sidi Sousan. For reasons of privacy their names have been altered, in the book. Their willingness to allow me a prolonged look into their everyday world is the basis of this study and I am most grateful for their help. Note on the transcription Although the Moroccan Arabic dialect diverts from Modem Standard Arabic (M.S A) in several ways, I have chosen to transliterate Arabic words primarily according to the system in H. Wehr (1976) A Dictionary of Modem Written Arabic for two reasons. Having initially been educated in M.S.Α., this system is most familiar to me and I have used it in the field to write down Moroccan Arabic words. Also, adopting Wehr's system will make the Arabic phrases more accessible to a wider group of Arabisti than those who are familiar with the Moroccan dialect. In order to do justice to the authenticity of Moroccan Arabic, in all chapters except the first, which does not contain Moroccan terms, some adjustments will be made. These generally do not concern religious terms, which tend to be closer to M.SA than other words. Most adjustments concern vowels, which may sometimes disappear in Moroccan words or be pronounced differently from M.S.A. The bars over the long vowels a, i, and и will be omitted. The short vowels have been reduced to two: The 'e' is pronounced like the 'e' in the English word 'men'. The 'u' is pronounced like the 'и' in the English word 'put', but always very short Two consonants have been added which do not exist in M.SA: The 'g' is pronounced like the 'g' in the English word 'goodbye' The У is added to the emphatic consonants marked with a subscript dot under the symbol. The sound of such emphatic consonants are lower in pitch than their non- emphatic counterparts. Other consonants are transliterated as in Wehr's system. It must be noted that the Moroccan pronunciation of the 'f differs from M.SA It should be pronounced like the 's' in the English word 'pleasure'. For those not familiar with Arabic: The 'q' is similar to the 'k' but pronounced further back in the mouth. The '$' is pronounced like the V in the French name 'Paris'. The Ύ is pronounced like the 'ch' in the German name 'Bach'. The '£ is pronounced like the 'th' in the English word 'thumb'. The 'd is pronounced like the 'th' in the English word 'this', but lower in pitch. The 'S' is pronounced like the 'sh' in the English word 'shame'. The '" is the glottal stop. It is the break between vowels as heard in the exclamation 'uh oh'. The 0 is similar to the glottal stop but pronounced further back in the mouth. Except for words which appear more often in plural form than in singular form, such as culama' and ./nun, plurals are formed by the addition of -s. Names of persons, groups, places and months will be written as they translated into English in Wehr (1976). Those which Wehr does not include will be simplified in the same way. In quotations from other books, the author's transliteration will be respected. INTRODUCTION I INTRODUCTION The argument Fasting during Ramadan is one of the 'five pillars' or religious duties which Muslims must perform.

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