Navigating Modernity

Lessons in Government and Statecraft in Precolonial Morocco

Bibliographic Data

ID12427488
AuthorsEtty Terem (Rhodes College, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume25
Issue1
Pages76-97
Publication date2017-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMediterranean Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1074-164X • E-ISSN: 2161-4741
PublisherThe Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5325/mediterraneanstu.25.1.0076
OpenAlexW2623906804
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited18

This article examines two letters of political advice written in 1911 by the Moroccan scholar Muḥammad al-Ḥajwī to the reigning Sultan 'Abd al-Ḥafīẓ. In his letters, al-Ḥajwī discussed the specific political, economic, and cultural difficulties facing Morocco during the first decade of the twentieth century, and offered a concrete program of reform designed to revitalize the state. My analysis explores al-Ḥajwī's discourse of political critique and delineates his reform initiative. By looking beyond the state and considering a project of reform conceived by a non-state actor, this article seeks to escape the limitations of a state-centered analytical framework and draws attention to the need to explore the ways in which other important political, economic, cultural forces in society negotiated the new historical conditions shaped by Moroccan modernity. I argue that al-Ḥajwī's letters underscore the dialectical nature of the modernization of Moroccan state and society. Al-Ḥajwī engaged the dramatic changes brought by modernity and introduced his understanding of becoming modern. I go further to argue that Moroccan modernization was a site of multiple, competing visions of reform resulting from debate and contestation

Geography · Government (linguistics · Modernity · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · History · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Multiculturalism, Politics, Migration, Gender · Philosophy

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