Abstract
The nineteenth century was an era of trial for the Maghrib. The Exmouth expedition was launched in 1816 against Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripolitania; Algiers was occupied in 1830; Tunisia was invaded in 1881; and the century witnessed the beginning of the process that would end in the occupation of Morocco in 1912. In 1815, the Maghrib was moving into its precolonial era, brought on by demonstrations of force that would eventually impose the European order. The regencies were forced into a situation of dependency in fact if not in law, obliged to submit and to recognize the established power.
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Notes
Letter from Hussein Bey of Tunis, July 28, 1824. See Chater, Dépendance et mutations précoloniales: La Régence de Tunis de 1815 à 1857 (Tunis, Publications de l’Université, 1984), p. 211.
See Chater, “Islam et réformes politiques dans la Tunisie du XIXe siècle” in Maghreb Review, vol. 13, no. 1–2 (1988): 77–83.
The sultan consulted the ‘ulama of Fez and asked them to draw up fatwas on the question. The majority recommended that he reject this bay’a. The fatwa of Tlemcen rejects the arguments of the Fez fatwas and justifies the bay’a. See Ahmad al-Naciri, Al-Istiksaa fi akhbar af-maghrib al-aqsa, Jaffar al-Naciri and Mohamed al-Naciri, eds. (Casablanca: Dar al-Kutub, 1956), book 111–9, p. 27.
This fatwa letter was published by al-Naciri, ibid., 27–29.
Ibn Abi Dhiaf (vulgo Ben Dhiaf), Ithaf ahl al-zaman fi akhbar muluk tunis wa ahd al-aman 8 vols. (Tunis: Kitabat al-Dawla li-Shu’un al-Thaqafiyya, 1963–1965), book 3, p. 175.
See the text of the letter in Muhamad Larbi Zbiri, Mudhakkarat Ahmad Bey (Algiers: SNED, 1973), pp. 21–23.
See Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, Touhfat al-za’ir fi tarikh al-jaza’ir wal-amir ‘Abd al-Qadir, Mamdouh Haqqi, ed., second ed. (Beirut: Dar al-Yaqdha, 1964), p. 155.
Ibid., 156.
See the text of the bay’a, Ibid., 157–59.
The texts of the second bay’a and the fatwa letters of support use the same arguments. Ibid., 159–65.
Max Weber with reason disagrees with these two positions: both the existence of an “ethics of conviction,” which takes positions in the absolute, and the existence of an “ethics of responsibility.” Max Weber, Le savant et le politique (Paris: Plon, 1963), pp. 172–73. Raymond Aron notes that “the morality of the man of action is truly one of responsibility.”
See Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza’iri, Touhfat al-za’ir, op. cit., 191–205.
Abdallah Laroui evokes the rich discussion that this question aroused. See Abdallah Laroui, Les origines sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocain (1830–1912) (Paris: Maspero, 1977), pp. 272–84.
Laroui presents the principal arguments of this response in his analysis. See Laroui, op. cit., 280–281.
See Laroui, op. cit., 266–71.
See Laroui, op. cit., 294.
See al-Soussi’s analysis of the fatwa in Ahmad Amari, “Nadhariat al-tahdith wal-muwajahat min khilat al-Simali,” Actes du colloque réformisme et société marocaine au XIXème siècle (Rabat: Publications Faculté des Lettres, 1986), pp. 91–111.
This question was studied in Chater, “Islam et réformes politiques dans la Tunisie du XIXème siècle,” Maghreb Review, vol. 13, no. 1–2 (1988): 77–83.
Ibid., 78–79.
Khair al-Din al-Tunisi, Réformes nécessaires aux états musulmans; Aqwam al-masalik, Moncef Chennoufi, ed. (Tunis: MTE, 1972), 331 pages.
Ibid., 82–83.
César Bénattar, al-Hadi Seba’i, and ‘Abd al-’Aziz al-Thaalbi, L’Esprit libéral du Coran (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1905), 100 pages.
Ibid., 19.
Personal translation of Tahar Haddad, Imra’otuna fil-shari’a wal-mujtama’, second ed. (Tunis: MTE, 1972), pp. 22–23.
Khair al-Din, op. cit., 82–83.
Ali Merad, “L’Idéologisation de L’Islam dans le monde musulman contemporain” in Islam et politique au Maghreb, Ernest Gellner and Jean-Claude Vatin, eds. (Paris: CNRS, 1981), pp. 151–60.
See Laroui, op. cit., 294.
See Mohamed Mansour, “Les oulémas et le makhzen, dans le Maroc pré-colonial,” in Le Maroc actuel, une modernisation au miroir de la tradition (France: IREMAM, 1992), pp. 3–15, especially p. 15.
See Laroui, op. cit., 301.
Ali ‘Abd al-Raziq, Al-Islam wa usul al-hukm (Beirut: Maktabat al-Hayat Editions, 1965), 245 pages. See the conclusion on p. 201.
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© 1996 Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
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Chater, K. (1996). A Rereading of Islamic Texts in the Maghrib in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Secular Themes or Religious Reformism?. In: Ruedy, J. (eds) Islamism and Secularism in North Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-61373-1_3
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