Understanding Morocco

The first book gave you the keys for arriving. This one tells where Morocco comes from: thousands of years of history, landscapes that change every hundred kilometres, arts and music handed down from master to apprentice.

One thread runs through every chapter: Morocco was built where the Amazigh, Arab, African, Andalusian, Jewish and Mediterranean worlds meet. Its Constitution says so itself.

At Jebel Irhoud, between Safi and Marrakesh, archaeologists found the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens: about 300,000 years old.

The first inhabitants known to history are the Amazigh, once called Berbers. The Phoenicians, then the Carthaginians, set up trading posts on the coast; in the north, Amazigh kingdoms arose, such as Mauretania.

Rome made it a province. Its finest ruins are at Volubilis, near Meknes, with their mosaics still in place.

Islam arrived at the end of the 7th century. In 788 Idris I founded the first Moroccan dynasty; his son made Fez his capital. There, in 859, Fatima al-Fihri founded al-Qarawiyyin, one of the oldest universities in the world.

Then came great empires born in the Sahara and the Atlas, ruling as far as Andalusia, then the Saadians and, since the 17th century, the Alaouites, the dynasty of the present king.

In 1912 the Treaty of Fez put Morocco under a French protectorate; Spain held the north and part of the south, and Tangier later became an international zone.

In the Rif, Abdelkrim el-Khattabi defeated the Spanish army at Annual in 1921. In 1944, the Independence Manifesto demanded an end to the Protectorate.

In 1953 France sent Sultan Mohammed V into exile: the whole country rose up. He returned in 1955, and Morocco regained its independence on 2 March 1956.

Hassan II reigned from 1961 to 1999. In 1975, the Green March led 350,000 volunteers towards the Sahara.

Mohammed VI succeeded him in 1999. In 2004 the Equity and Reconciliation Commission looked back on the human rights abuses of the “Years of Lead”, and a new Family Code strengthened women’s rights.

In 2011 a new Constitution made Amazigh an official language. In 2017 Morocco rejoined the African Union.

The north: the Rif, its green mountains and Andalusian towns, Tetouan, Chefchaouen, Tangier, facing Europe.

The Atlantic plains: Rabat, Casablanca, El Jadida, and the great farmlands.

The Atlas: the Middle, High and Anti-Atlas, their cedars, earthen villages and snowy peaks.

The south: the oases of the Drâa and the Tafilalet, the kasbahs, then the Sahara and its towns on the Atlantic, Laayoune and Dakhla.

In the medina, houses turn their backs to the street: behind a studded wooden door, everything opens onto an inner courtyard. A riad is a house with an inner garden; a dar, a house with a patio.

On the floors and walls, zellige; above, carved stucco and painted cedar ceilings; in the hammam, tadelakt, a lime plaster polished with a stone. Every surface is the work of a craft.

In Morocco, music goes with life: weddings, religious feasts, harvests, evenings together. It is rarely played alone, and the audience joins in, clapping or dancing.

Gnawa (2019) and Malhun (2023) are on UNESCO’s list of the intangible heritage of humanity, as is Marrakesh’s Jemaa el-Fna square, with its storytellers and musicians.

Family is at the centre of everything. People often live near their parents, ask their advice, look after them as they grow old. Their blessing, rda, matters a great deal.

Births, weddings and mourning bring everyone together. A wedding often lasts several days: henna night, the bride carried on the amaria, outfits that change through the night.

On the seventh day after a birth, the child is given its name: the sbou’.

Islam is the state religion, and the king holds the title of Commander of the Faithful. Moroccan Islam is Sunni, of the Maliki school, and shaped by Sufism, its brotherhoods and its moussems, festivals around a saint’s tomb.

The country also has a Jewish history going back to Antiquity: mellahs, synagogues and cemeteries, many of them restored, bear witness to it.

Nearly two Moroccans in three live in towns and cities, and half the population is under thirty.

About five million Moroccans live abroad, mostly in Europe. Every summer, Operation Marhaba welcomes those coming home for the holidays.

Many also go abroad to study: in France, Spain, Canada… and Switzerland, at EPFL, where APML welcomes them.