Category Archives: Morocco

Demographics, Islam, Modernity

Development, Gender and Sexuality, Morocco


Photographic image source

by Anouar Majid, Tingitana, March 16, 2013

New reports are showing that Morocco’s fertility rates continue their rather dramatic downward trend. According to InfoMédiaire, Morocco’s High Commission for Planning says they have been halved since 1987, dropping from 4.5 children per women to 2,2 children in 2010. Part of the explanation has to do with the fact that people are marrying later.

Declining fertility rates is a global phenomenon and is particularly surprising in the Islamic world, perplexing observers who expect demographically-related doomsday scenarios of one kind or another. In 2011, David Goldman explained that civilizations without a strong religious faith lose the desire to procreate. Economic prosperity turns children into expensive and time-consuming propositions, since a child born to parents in Paris or New York would have to compete with dozens of other demands, such as the need for education, entertainment, vacations, and the like. And fertility rates are not helped when parents no longer expect to be supported by their children in old age. At least, Westerners have social security systems to rely on. Continue reading Demographics, Islam, Modernity →

Islam: The Chinese Connection

Calligraphy, Central Asia, China, Islamic Texts, Languages, Morocco


Arabic Paper #0972, University of Utah- J. Willard Marriott Library

by Anouar Majid, Tingis Redux, January 31st, 2013

After reading Jonathan Bloom’s splendid book Paper Before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World, published more than decade ago, I now think that there is a close relationship between Islam as we know it and the discovery of paper by Arabs in the 8th century. I also understand why natives of Tangier in Morocco call paper “kaghit.” Since it was the Chinese who invented paper some 2000 years ago, the Muslims who conquered Central Asia in the 8th century used that term, which was borrowed from the Persian kaghaz, itself originating from the Chinese guzhi.

The Muslims adopted paper with gusto and the technology of papermaking soon spread in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Spain. Europeans learned papermaking from the Moors who established the first paper mills in Spain. Paper eventually facilitated the printing process that was started by Johann Gutenberg in 15th-century Germany.

According to Muslim sources, the first Muslim paper mill was established in 8th century Baghdad either by the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur or by Harun al-Rashid. Regardless of who claims the honor, the use of paper soon led to the establishment of a Stationers’ Market (Souk al-Warraqeen). By the 12th century, according to one account, the Moroccan city of Fez had some 472 paper mills. No wonder papermaking has been associated with Arabs and Arabic. When one talks about “reams” of paper, one is using an Arabic term—rizma, which means bundle—via the Spanish resma and Old French rayme.

The discovery of paper by Arabs led to a major revolution in human civilization. Until then, most documents outside Asia were written on parchments (dried animal skins) or papyrus rolls—both laborious and expensive processes. Paper was easier to use. The Abbasids lost no time in making use of it to enhance their standing among world civilizations. They established a House of Wisdom (bayt al-hikma), commissioned the translations of foreign works in Greek, Hindu and Persian, wrote down the Hadith and codified Islamic law from what had been a mostly oral tradition. Libraries grew and played a major role in the dissemination of knowledge. The Shiite dynasty of the Fatimids in Egypt had an annual budget for library collections and activities. Continue reading Islam: The Chinese Connection →

Abdessadeq Chekara

Morocco, Music and Dance, YouTube Watch


by Anouar Majid, Tingitana

The late Abdessadeq Chekara, the Andalusian singer and violin virtuoso from Tetouan, close to my native city of Tangier, almost singlehandedly embodied the rich Moorish musical heritage that united Spain and parts of Morocco over the centuries. His son, Jalal, is working hard and creatively to keep his legacy alive, but I have never seen anything approaching the power of this performance, including Tom Cohen and Rabbi Haim Louk, with the participation of Alfonso Cid, which took place in November 2011 in Montreal. Tom Cohen and Rabbi Louk are doing a heroic job introducing the world to Moroccan culture and its musical traditions. In all the shows I have watched on YouTube, Mr. Cohen is always light on his feet and playful with his orchestra and audiences, while Rabbi Louk is invariably joyful and utterly moving with his heavenly voice—the perfect image of a religious man who celebrates the beauty of life. The rabbi’s patriotism and loyalty for Morocco are unmatched. Just listen to this performance of another Chekara song, warning his fellow Moroccans to watch out for ill wishers and preserve their precious legacy—a legacy that has been enriched by the country’s small but vibrant and enormously creative Jewish community.

Arab Constitutions and American Freedoms

"Arab Spring", Development, Egypt, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Morocco, Tunisia


Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom; source, Library of Congress

By Anouar Majid, Tingis Redux, January 8th, 2013

The deeply contentious referendum on Egypt’s new constitution last December 2012 gave me some hope that not all is lost to Arabs and Muslims in the aftermath of the revolutions that toppled dictators in the last two years. Given the rapid Islamization of the public sphere in much of the Arab world in the last few decades, I was expecting something close to a landslide, not a small voter turnout and a modest 63.8 percent in favor of the charter. As it turns out, there are still pockets of resistance that oppose the Muslim Brothers and their agenda, even though, as the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted at that time, the divisions are not necessarily between Islamists and secular liberals. The fault lines in Egypt seem to be more varied than what is broadcast in the United States.

Be that as it may, the thing that concerns me the most is what the Western media is talking about, i.e., the clash between those who want a nation governed by divine law and those who don’t want religion to be the absolute reference in legislation. In November 2012, I had the opportunity to make the case for the separation of state and religion to people who participated or are actually participating in the drafting of constitutions in Morocco and Tunisia, a person who ran in the last presidential race in Egypt, members of the Tunisian parliament, a leader of a major Egyptian political party, and many others who are playing some role in the future of North Africa and the Middle East. I also explained why, at this crucial juncture in the region, Arabs and Muslims can’t do better than learn from the American constitutional process and especially the reasons for separating state and religion.

Fewer documents explain more powerfully the reasons for doing so than the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, first written by Thomas Jefferson in 1777–only a year after he drafted the Declaration of Independence–and enacted into law in January 1786, with the crucial help of James Madison. Jefferson was so proud of Virginia’s Religious Act that he wanted it noted on his epitaph. Continue reading Arab Constitutions and American Freedoms →

Islam Without Red Lines

"Arab Spring", Islam and Christianity, Morocco, Muhammad

By Anouar Majid

The violence that erupted in the wake of the YouTube on the Prophet Mohammed is a wake-up call to all who care about the future of human civilization and, particularly, that of Arabs and Muslims living in Muslim-majority nations. (Muslims living in the United States are having the time of their lives—the land of what Iranian mullahs call Great Satan is the best place on earth for them.) Still, Muslims everywhere have been unable to unbind their ties to religious orthodoxy, clinging tenaciously to the decrees of religious scholars in mosques, as well as to the fatwas pronounced on the tube and the net alike.

I arrived in Morocco, arguably the most liberal country in the Arab world and a reliable partner of the West for decades, on the eve of the YouTube trailer controversy. As soon as I heard about the murders in Libya and the violent protests in Egypt and elsewhere, I chose not to be silent in the face of Islamist fury. I spent time explaining to cab drivers, unemployed youths, poorly educated workers, and highly educated professionals that the US government can’t control what people post on the Internet. I tried to get my interlocutors to understand that Muslims are laughably easy to manipulate—all one only has to do is draw a caricature of the Prophet or make a film about him to turn them into the world’s laughingstock. Continue reading Islam Without Red Lines →

Majid in Morocco

Conferences and Talks, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Morocco, Scholars


Street in Tangier, by Henry Ossawa Tanne, ca 1910

Tabsir Contributor Anouar Majid, will be giving two talks in Morocco in March. Details below:

“Todos somos moros: una invitación para un debate”
Conferencia de Anouar Majid

Fecha: 12-03-2012
Lugar: Salón de Actos. Fundación Instituto Euroárabe. Colegio de Niñas Nobles. C/ Cárcel Baja, 3.
Hora: 19:30

Anouar Majid, (Tánger, Marruecos), es director del Centro de Humanidades y director adjunto de Iniciativas Globales de la Universidad de New England, Portland, Maine, (EEUU). Reconocido analista del papel del islam en la edad de la globalización y de las conflictivas relaciones del islam con Occidente desde 1492. Autor de “We are all Moors: ending centuries of Crusades against Muslims and other minorities”,”A call for heresy:why dissent is vital for Islam and America”, “Freedom and Orthodoxy: Islam and difference in the post-Andalusian age”, “Si Yussef”(novela)…Ha sido descrito por el filósofo y profesor de la Universidad de Princeton, Cornel West, en su obra “Democracy matters”, como “uno de los escasos intelectuales islámicos de envergadura”. Dirige la revista norteamericana-marroquí de ideas y cultura TingisRedux y colabora asiduamente en el Washington Post, Chronicle of Higuer Education y otras publicaciones.

Su conferencia, que reflexiona a partir del lugar destacado que históricamente ocupa España en el clima de desconfianza secular entre árabes y occidentales, trata de demostrar que las claves de una transición democrática y de una política económica con la diversidad como lema en el mundo árabe e islámico deben ser halladas en los antiguos territorios de Al Andalus.

Understanding American-Muslim Relations
Professor Anouar Majid
American Legation, 8 rue d’Amérique, Tangier.
Friday, 16 March, 19:00 Continue reading Majid in Morocco →