mercer (patricia)_palace and jihād in early ‘alawī state in morocco

Palace and Jihād in the Early 'Alawī State in MoroccoAuthor(s): Patricia MercerSource: The Journal of African History, Vol. 18, No. 4 (1977), pp. 531-553Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/180831 .

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_ournal of African History, XVIII, 4 (1977), pp. 531-553 531

Printed in Great Britain

PALACE AND JIHAD IN THE EARLY 'ALAWI STATE IN MOROCCO

BY PATRICIA MERCER

ISMA ('L IBN AL- SHARIF IBN AL-HASANI, who was sultan of Morocco, the Maghrib al-Aqsa or Muslim 'far west', between I672 and I727, was seen by European contemporaries as a remarkably capable tyrant: a despot 'at whose orders, throughout his vast empire, everything trembled'.' Twentieth-century commentators have put forward a very similar view of Isma (1l,2 seeing it apparently corroborated in brief and stylized introductory passages to the indigenous chronicles of al-Zayyan1, written down a century after Ismd (il's day.3 Al-Zayyini looked back to the latter years of Ismi "lI's reign as an idyllic era of established law and order, during which the peoples of the Maghrib al-Aqsa, abandoning their habitual truculence towards authority, had become 'like the falldaufn of Egypt'.4 There is thus a 'received version' of Ismi cil's government: that it was an ascendancy over the Maghrib al-Aqsa that was punitive in its efficiency and unsurpassed until the imposition of the French Moroccan Protectorate. Modification by its more moderate proponents has gone only so far as to reject the idea that Isma'l could ever have eradicated opposition to his makhzan, or central government, throughout the daunting High Atlas.5 Closer examination, however, reveals Isma (il's makhzan as far more lightweight than his reputation. Contemporary report and later chronicle are alike in yielding evidence that Isma 'il's was a palace and a tribute state, administratively diffuse, and exhibiting a dual face comparable with that of contemporary Muslim African states further to the south.6 This

1 H. de Castries et al., Les Sources Inedites de l'Histoire du Maroc (Paris, from 1905 and in progress), DeuxiZeme Serie: France, Iv, no. 144, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, Oct. I698), 687.

2 Cf., for example, Ch.-A. Julien, History of North Africa from the Arab conquest to I830 (London, I970), 242-62; H. Terrasse, Histoire du Maroc, ii (Casablanca, 1950),

244-78; J. Brignon et al., Histoire du Maroc (Casablanca, I967), 238-55; A. Laroui, L'Histoire diu Maghreb: un essai de synthe'se (Paris, I970), 252-6; J.-M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib (London, I97I), 224-3 I.

al-Zayyani, 'Al-bustan al-zarif fi dawlat awlad mawvlay 'all al-sharlf' (MS. D 1577, Bibliotheque Generale, Rabat), is the more important of the two relevant chronicles. See I-46 for the introductory section. Much of this chronicle has been reproduced, with modifications, within a well-known indigenous history: al-Ndsiri, Kitdb al-istiqsd Ii- akhbdr duwal al-maghrib al-aq.d (Cairo, I894), IV, tr. E. Fumey as 'Chronique de la dynastie alaouie du Maroc', Archives Marocaines, Ix and x (I906-7); see Ix, I-I38, for the introductory section. For the relevant material in al-Zayyani's alternative chronicle, 'Al-turjuman al-mu'rib 'an duwal al-mashriq wa'l-maghrib', see 0. Houdas, Le Maroc de I63I Li I8I2

(Paris, I886), for an edition and translation of its thirteenth and final chapter: introductory section, text I-33, translation I-55.

4 al-Zayyaini, 'Al-bustan al-zarif', 44. 5 Cf., for example, Terrasse, Histoire, 263-4; Abun-Nasr, History, 228. 6 Richard Gray (ed.), The Cambridge History of Africa, Iv (London, 1975), 9.



532 PATRICIA MERCER

polity was Islamic in its ceremonies, in its political vocabulary and in its palace-trained slave-army. But it was not an 'oriental despotism'. In its rudimentary administrative mechanics it was comparable more with a warrior kingdom along the lines of Dagobert's Gaul7 than with the contemporary eastern empires of the Ottomans or Safavids. 8

Isma (il was the second sultan from the 'Alawi line of shurafd' (claimants to descent from the Prophet) from the oases of Tafilelt, a family whose heir reigns in present-day Morocco. But in i672, Isma (l's only real claim to supremacy was that he was a brother to the first sultan of the dynasty, al-Rashid. This al-Rashid, the meteoric ruffian 'Tafiletta' of Restoration Tangier literature, began his career as an exiled soldier of fortune9 whom the city of Fez, the Maghrib al-Aqsa's greatest economic metropolis,10 adopted as sultan, during a period of crisis, in order to obtain a military champion of the city's economic interests.11 When this champion died, Fez did not accept the younger brother without an initial succession struggle, concluded with a ceremony of reconciliation that was unusual in that it implicitly enforced terms upon the new sultan. Hand in hand with the city's paramount religious oligarch, Isma (il was led to swear peace with Fez upon al-Rashid's tomb.12 But Isma 'il was unwilling thus to don his brother's mantle as 'sultan of Fez'. Soon afterwards, he made a crucial decision of state: to remove his seat of government from the city, and make a bid for personal autonomy. Within a year of the formal reconciliation with Fez, the sultan initiated the building of a new palace in the prosperous market-town of Meknes,13 the personal appanage he had

7 See J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West (London, 1952), 79-82, and the same author's The Long-Haired Kings (London, I962), 206-3I.

8 For recent accounts of these empires see H. Inalcik, 'The State', in The Ottoman Empire (London, I973), 55-Ii8, and A. K. S. Lambton, 'Persia: the breakdown of society', in P. M. Holt, A. K. S. Lambton and B. Lewis (eds.), The Cambridge History of Islam, I

(London, 1970), 434-8. 9 For accounts of al-Rashid's early adventures, see G. Mouette, Histoire des Conquestes

de Mouley Archy ... (Paris, I693), ed. de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, II, I-20I (hereafter: Mouette, Histoire), I5-I9; al-Qadirl, Nashr al-mathdni li-ahl al-qarn al-kddi 'ashr wa'l thdni: mid-eighteenth century manuscript, lithographed (Fez, I892-3), vol. I (part 2), ed.ftr. E. Michaux-Bellaire, Archives Marocaines, XXIV (19I7), 97-IOI;

al-Ifrani, 'Nuzhat al-hadi bi-akhbar muluik al-qarn al-hidi', early eighteenth-century work, ed.Itr. 0. Houdas as Nozhet el-hadi: histoire de la dynastie saadienne au Maroc (I5II-I670) (Paris, edition i888, translation I889), text 30I-2, translation 499.

10 Mou&tte, Histoire, I83-8; cf. F. Pidou de St. Olon, L'estat present de l'empire de Maroc (Paris, i694), tr. P. Motteux as The Present State of the Empire of Morocco (London, I695), 140. For copious earlier notes upon the society and economy of Fez and its orbit of supply and trade, see Leo Africanus (Ijasan ibn Mubammad al-Wazzmni al-Fasi) (ed. G. B. Ramusio), Della descrittione dell'Africa et delle cose notabili che quivi sono per Giovan Lioni Africano in Delle navigationi et viaggi (3rd ed., Venice, I563), I-5 passim. For an accessible modern French version, see A. tpaulard et al., Description de l'Afrique, z vols. (Paris, 1956).

11 For examples of al-Rashid's activities in this role, see al-Qadirl, Nashr al-mathdni (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 20I; al-Zayyfni (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text i i, translation 22-3; Mouette, Histoire, i85 and I86-7; State Papers, Public Record Office, London (hereafter S.P.), 7I (I3), fo. I96, memo. of Robert ifarindaill (Tetuan, I9 Aug. I669); M. Lakhdar, La vie litte'raire au Maroc sous la dynastie 'Alawide (I075-I3III = 664-I894) (Rabat, I971), 48. 12 Mouette, Histoire, 74. 13 Mouette, Histoire, i i r.



THE EARLY 'ALAWI STATE IN MOROCCO 533

received from al-Rashid.14 Forty miles away from Fez, 'the general Store- House of all Barbary',15 Meknes, as a junior rival, was traditionally at odds with the great city.16

The bid for independence succeeded. When Isma cil died in Meknes, more than half a century afterwards, his dynasty had been firmly locked into the apex of western Maghribi politics. Fez, in a series of tussles"7 had been mastered from a distance. Its commercial life was sapped by the privileges granted to the estancar, an exclusive merchant monopoly in the sultan's gift.18 As 'sultan of Meknes', Isma ClI had become a figure of political significance over a vast area. Geographically his nearest Muslim rival was the Dey of Algiers, who observed the Ottoman Hanafi rite, rather than that of the Malik! law-school accepted in most of Muslim Africa. Isma cil was recognized as sultan as far away as the oases of Dar Ca, Tuat and Figuig,19 and at the end of his reign he maintained a small garrison at Cape Blanco.20 Even in Timbuktu it seems to have been con- venient for an 'Orman' party to acknowledge his suzerainty.21 Contem- porary western European monarchies were obliged at intervals to deal with Ismalcil upon equal terms, as a sovereign whose envoys must be granted full diplomatic status.22

Isma'il first took up residence in Meknes in I677, after five years of battling for recognition as sultan within the region bounded by the arc of the Atlas mountains. He was an upstart. His authority was uncertain and his finances were insecure. Outside the 'Alawl home oasis of Tafilelt, where Isma 'il seems always to have been able to dispose of land,23 there was as yet no array of hereditary crown estates off which the sultan might

14 Mouette, Histoire, 28; cf. D. Busnot, Histoire dut regne de Moulay Ismael (Rouen, 1714), 36. 15 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, 140.

16 Leo Africanus (ed. Ramusio), Descrittione, 31; cf., for comparison, Epaulard edn., 175-7-

17 For discussion of the major tussles between I697 and I720, see P. A. Mercer, 'Political and Military Developments within Morocco during the early 'Alawi period (I659-I727)' (Ph.D. thesis, London, I974), ch. 4, 2II-I3, and ch. 5, passim.

18 J. de Leon, Didlogo (Spanish manuscript of I743), ed., with paraphrase, Ch. de la Veironne as Vie de Moulay Isma'il, roi de Fes et de Maroc (Paris, I974), I49 (fo. 225). This and other references to this work henceforward are to the Spanish text. Cf. J. Windus, A Journey to Mequinez (London, I72I), 207-8; de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Se'rie: France, VI, no. 52, P6rilli' to Boyer (Sale, 2i Dec. 1705), 329-30.

19 al-ZarhCini, 'Rihlat al-wafid fi akhbar hijrat al-walid', eighteenth century manuscript ed./tr. F. Justinard as La Rihla du Marabout de Tasaft (Paris, I940), i67-8.

20 J. Braithwaite, The History of the Revolutions in the Empire of Morocco (Londoti, 1729), 335.

21 Anon., 'Tadhkirat al-nisyan fi akhbar mulfik al-sfidan', ed./tr. 0. Houdas and is. Benoist as Tedzkiret en-Nisian (Paris, edition I899, translation i90i), text 74, translation i I9; cf. (for the acknowledgement of al-Rashid in Timbuktu), text I 58, translation 257-8.

22 For the entertainment of 'Moroccan' ambassadors by Charles II of England and Louis XIV of France, see, for the former, E. M. G. Routh, Tangier: England's Lost Atlantic Outpost, I66I-I684 (London, I9I2), 223-8; cf. P. M. Hoit, 'An Oxford Arabist: Edward Pococke, I604-91', Studies in the History of the Near East (London, I973), i6; and, for the latter, de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, v, passim.

23 al-Qadirl, Nashr al-mathani (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 338; cf. Windus, Journey, 190;

de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), 98 (fos. 54-5).



534 PATRICIA MERCER

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THE EARLY cALAWI STATE IN MOROCCO 535

live.24 He possessed the remains of al-Rashid's treasury,25 and seems to have managed lands and private business interests in Meknes26 which he took care to augment, for example by bargaining for the acquisition of town houses.27 Otherwise his revenues were defined as tribute28 and were consequently uncertain and negotiable. Later he would be remembered as having established his empire while dependent upon loan money from his dhimmi or 'protected' Jewish community29 whose members accompanied his major early expeditions.30

Western Maghribi Jews were a mixture of both 'Ladino', or Peninsular, and African descent. They included townsmen and rural people, and communities of both traders and craftsmen, particularly workers in metal. But for makhzan administrative purposes these were all bound together under one shaykh or community leader, in a legal and fiscal union, and in the common suffering of wearisome daily public insult.3' The wealthier Jews had commercial links stretching as far as Amsterdam and London,32 although the bulk of their foreign trade was with Spain. Its staple was arms-dealing, both legal and contraband.33 Yet although the Jews dealt in arms, they were prevented by Muslim law from bearing arms in self-defence. And so they were quite literally a 'protected' community, dependent for their safety in the great cities upon detachments of the sultan's soldiery who guarded the gates of their Jewries34: a clear demonstration of the useful client status of the inhabitants. For as the 'Coiners and Melters'35 of the Maghrib al-Aqsa, the Jews were vital to the empire's finance.

Finance was tied to the problem of coin. At this period, most continental European currencies were starved of precious metal, and had largely gone over to vellon or copper, with a coinage set uneasily alongside the fiduciary

24 Mouette, Histoire, I64. 25 Mouette, Histoire, 59. 26 Busnot, Histoire du regne, 36. 27 al-Qadiri, Nashr al-mathani (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 349. 28 Mouiette, Histoire, I64. 29 ... . the Jews, particularly Memaran their Governour, ... supplyed him with Money

to carry on the War against his Opposers'. Windus, Journey, I 7.

30 Chronicle of Sa'dya ibn Danan, text no. 2I (part 2); G. Vajda, 'Un recueil de textes historiques judeo-marocaines', Hesperis, XXXVI (I949), I41.

31 Moueitte, Histoire, I76-7; cf. Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, 8o-i; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 63-4, 250, I90 and 348; de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), I56-7 (fos. 249-52).

32 G. Mouette, Relation de la captivitd du Sieur Mouette dans les Royaumes de Fez et de Ill roc (Paris, I683), 3I; cf. S. Ockley, An Account of South-West Barbary (London, 17I3), Preface, xiii-xiv. See also H. I. Bloom, The Economic Activities of the Jews of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Williamsport, Pa., I937), 75-82 and 209.

33 Anon. (initialled S. L.), A letter from a gentleman of the Lord Ambassador Howard's Retinue (London, I670), 3; cf. Mouette, Histoire, I77: de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, III, no. 23, Naval instructions to galley admiral the Duc de Mortemart (Versailles, 9 May I687), 55; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, io6 and I68-9.

34 Mouette, Histoire, 177; cf. Windus, fourney, I84-5. 35 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 373.



536 PATRICIA MERCER

paper note.36 But the Maghrib al-Aqsj, although it could manipulate a 'money of account',37 still clung for major finance and business purposes to a sound coinage, checked off in the market place with eye and scales.38 Yet precious metal was scarce. Its availability was partly dependent upon the affairs of the mountainous southern region of the Sus. The coastal hills of the western Sus were traversed by the Maghrib al-A qsd's major gold- route from across the Sahara, which was still in sporadic usage throughout Isma "l's reign.39 Even more significantly, the nearest working silver mines to Fez or Meknes were in the Susi region of the High Atlas,40 a region whose vibrant and semi-autonomous economy was associated with a local export trade based around Agadir,41 and whose jagged terrain and gun-bristling Berber communities42 ensured that it would never accept strong government for any length of time. Yet Isma i'l found it politically appropriate to issue even gold coins, although these 'ducats' were extremely rare.43 The staple of political and commercial finance was the little quarter- ounce silver muzuina or 'Blanquille', valued at two eighteenth-century English pence,44 and issued from a number of mints, of which the main establishment in Meknes was continuously at work.45 Since al-Rashid's 'Rashidiya' issue of i66946 the prestige of the new 'Alawl dynasty had been bound up with the soundness of the 'Blanquille'. It was 'stampt . .. with the Emperor's name'47 and the outer limit of its acceptability was, in the minds of contemporary travellers, one determinant of the outer limit of the sultan's territorial sway.48

But the sultan himself had to be sparing in the use of the coinage he backed. The essence of Isma "l's governmental style was conspicuous display at minimal expense, and the wielding of pressure outside the cash

36 For notes upon European and Mediterranean currencies during this period, see F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II (London, I972), I, 537-42; cf. F. P. Braudel and F. Spooner, 'Prices in Europe from I450 to I750'

in E. E. Rich and C. H. Wilson (ed.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, iv (London, I967), 386.

37 Windus, J7ourney, 65; cf. Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 373. For an analysis of the mechanism of the 'money of account' see Braudel and Spooner, 'Prices in Europe .. 378-86. 38 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 372-3.

3 Mouette, Histoire, I97; cf. de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: Franzce, iv, no. ioi, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, 29 July I697), 529; cf. Busnot, Histoire du regne, 84; de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), 152 (fos. 234-5).

40 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iII, no. 93, memo. of Perillie on Moroccan trade (Sale, Jan. I689), 234; cf. Leo Africanus (ed. Ramusio), Descrittione, I3 and i6 (compare Epaulard edn. I, 84-5 and 94-5); J. Grey-Jackson, An account of the Empire of l/Jorocco (London, I809), I26-7.

41 Mouitte, Histoire, I96-8; cf. W. Lempriere, A Tour from Gibraltar (London,179I), I23-4, footnote reproducing an anonymous manuscript of I737.

42 'Ils y ont chacun deux ou trois armes ... en quoy ils fondent leurs richesses. Les Susis sont plus adroits aux armes et plus guerriers que tous les autres Barbares', Mouette, Histoire, I98. 43 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 373-4.

44 Windus, Journey, 65; cf. Braithwaite, History of the Revoluttions, 372-3. 45 de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), I56 (fo. 247). 46 al-Qadirl, Nashr al-mathdnm (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 20I; cf. al-ZayyanY (ed. Houdas),

Le Maroc, text i i, translation zi. 47 Windus, Journey, 65. 48 al-Zarhfini (tr. Justinard), Rihla, i68.




nexus. This style was epitomized by the construction and workaday running of the palace of Meknes, the biggest single economic unit of Isma'il's empire. This palace was an open-plan complex of lime-white walls and green-tile roofs, 'on-the-build' in protean metamorphosis throughout Isma 'il's reign. By the 1720S it verged on four miles in circumference.49 Unlike the Maghrib al-Aqsa's previous great architectural pile, the sixteenth century 'al-Badi "' palace of Ahmad al-Mansiir al-Sa "di in Marrakesh, to which it was regularly judged aesthetically inferior,50 it made no use of independent foreign craftsmen or Carrara marble,51 but was instead a product of self-sufficiency. Its style was stolidly derivative from a more gracious and expensive Moorish past.52 Its architect was the sultan himself, working by eye and summarily ordering the demolition or alteration of what he did not like.53 The requisite building materials were local: chiefly 'tabby', an earth-lime mortar pounded between wooden boards.54 And the whole was built 'without the Emperor .., expending a Blankill'55 towards it. Financial responsibility for the palace 'works' was delegated to the qa'id or foreman of the buildings. It was typical of Isma 'il's administration that he was granted not a salary, but a benefice: an office open to enterprise and exploitation. In this case the benefice was a prosperous provincial governorship whose profits were to defray all the expenses attendant upon his palace post.56 He in his turn was rarely required to make cash payments. The builders' lime came from requisitioned lime- kilns; wood and earth were free.57 And labour, massively required for transport and for the intensive 'tabby' work, was for the most part provided by forced labour levies, severally sent in by towns and tribes to a monthly turn of duty that was held to represent a 'working off' of tax responsibili- ties.58 The 'running expenses' of the palace were similarly subject to delegation of a colossal simplicity, which combined weighty demands with the sloughing aside of the relevant bureaucratic paper-work. Responsibility for provisioning the palace during all but the last years of Isma 'il's reign devolved entirely upon the shaykh of the Jews of Meknes, who was also

49 For a quaint and detailed contemporary account of the palace, see Windus, J7ourney, II2-I5; for comparison, the stylized indigenous appreciation in al-Na$irl, Kitdb al- istiqsa, IV (tr. Fumey), Archives Marocaines, IX, 7I-4.

50 For notes on this earlier palace, demolished by Isma'll's order in I695, see al-Ifrani (ed./tr. Houdas), Nuzhat al-hadi, text I02-4, translation I79-95; cf. de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iv, no. 67, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, 29 Sept. I695), 385. For a modern architectural analysis, see Terrasse, Histoire, II, I95-6.

6' a1-Ifrdn! (ed./tr. Houdas), Nuzhat al-hadi, text I02, translation i8o. 52 Terrasse, Histoire, II, 266-9. 53 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present state, 72-3; cf. Busnot, Histoire dut

regne, I62-3. 54 Busnot, Histoire du regne, 155-6; cf. Windus, Joturney, II2-I3. 5 Windus, J7ourney, I I 5.

6 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, II6-I7; cf. Windus, Journey, II5 and I23.

67 Busnot, Histoire du regne, I3, i6. 58 al-Zayyain (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text I3, translation 25; cf. Pidou de St. Olon

(tr. Motteux), The Present State, 73; de Leon, Dia'logo (ed. de la Veronne), I44 (fos. 207-9).



538 PATRICIA MERCER

responsible for the quartermastery of the sultan's military expeditions.59 This shaykh's benefice was the tax-farm of the entire western Maghribi Jewish community.60 The nexus through which the palace provisions were obtained seems to have been the Meknes open market, which was naturally well-endowed. Early in the sixteenth century Leo Africanus had described the orbit of Meknes as producing a third of the revenues of the 'kingdom of Fez'.61 Within this market the Meknes Jews, as metal-workers and money-changers, were well placed to stand as middlemen. It seems that it was only at the end of Isma iil's reign that the palace community became so gross in size that Muslim revenue was needed to supplement Jewish arrangements for its provisioning.62

Certain additional requirements were met by communities desirous of the sultan's goodwill and patronage. Thus the sultan's hundreds of womenfolk were for the most part clad in garments that came as 'gifts' from the Meknes guilds of cloth manufacturers.63 Other items were produced within the palace itself. By the end of Isma 'II's reign there were palace workshops for the manufacture of weapons and tackle, often ornate: saddles, guns, swords, lances and slippers, decorated for the most part with solid gold.64 These were destined to display to advantage the sultan's wealth, and his ideal status as a warrior cavalryman. Of more direct inilitary purpose was a foundry for the casting of mortars, shells and cannon, under the command of an Irish renegade whose benefice was command of the Meknes Jewry guard.65

It was said of the sultan Isma cil that 'his Government being altogether founded on the Sword' he 'made none but military Men be encouraged'.66 In this he conformed to the western Maghribi tradition of recent centuries, analogous with the early sixteenth century Wattasid government in Fez, as described by Leo.67 But, in a parallel with the dark faces of the first 'Alawl sultans themselves, the hallmark of 'Alawl as distinct from earlier military government was the employment of dark-skinned troops. This was a new departure for the period, as the previous Sa'di dynasty had relied chiefly upon white soldiery: renegades or Moriscos.68 There were

5iBusnot, Histoire du reLgne, I7-20; cf. de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e S6rie: France, IV, no. I3, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, ii Aug. I693), III; cf. Anon., Relation... de la Mercy (Paris, I724) (ed. de Castries, Les Sources Ine'ites, 2e serie, France, vi, 613- 8I2), 749. 60 Relation de la Mercy, 749.

61 Leo Africanus (ed. Ramusio), Descrittione, 3I (cf. Epaulard edn., I, 176). 62 de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), I35-6 (fo. i8o). 63 ibid. I36 (fo. i8i). 64 Anon. (pseud. 'A.-M. de Mairault'), Relation de ce qui s'est pazses dans le royaume de

Maroc depuis l'annee I727 jusqu'en I737 (Paris, I742), 53-5; cf. Windus, Journey, I05; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 254, 264.

65 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, i86, I96. 66 ibid. 35 I . "' Leo Africanus (ed. Ramusio), Descrittione, 43-4 (cf. Epaulard edn., I, 235-41). 68 For two closely parallel accounts of the army of al-Mansar al-Sa'di, see al-Ifraim

(ed./tr. Houdas), Nuzhat al-Iadi, text I I5-i8, translation I95-20I; de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, Ie Serie: Angleterre, II, no. 83, H. Roberts to James I (Marrakesh, n.d.), 224-5. For renegades in the service of the later Sa'di, see de Castries, Les Sources Ine'dites,




indeed renegades serving Isma cil in what was effectively military slavery.69 But they were for the most part 'poor whites',70 a downtrodden minority reflecting a collapse in the quality of white manpower available for North African service. They seem to have numbered hundreds rather than thousands7' and were soon numerically swamped by black and mulatto troops. These last were formed into two separate corps, differentiated by status rather than colour. Neither fully represented a 'standing army' dependent upon the sultan for food and keep. The first corps was the free cavalry and bore the Saharan name Udaya. Although of heterogeneous origin,72 this body was formally a kinship group defined as both noble and alien in that its members claimed clan-fellowship with the sultan's chief wife, the 'Black Queen'.73 For most of the reign, the mass of the Udaya were quartered in New Fez,74 traditionally the site of makhzan or government presence in the metropolis. Their communal benefice was the rough- handed tax-farm of the city's agricultural environs.75 The second corps, of relentlessly increasing significance, was the army of cabid or black slaves, part cavalry and part infantry.76 From the beginning of Isma cl1's reign it was this force which provided the sultan's major sanction for the mainten- ance of law and order in and around Meknes. Round estimates of cabid numbers may be inflated, but clearly demonstrate expansion. Thus in I672, when Isma cil first bid for power, the black guards whom he had inherited from al-Rashid were said to number two thousand77; in i68o, eight thousand78; in I698 twenty-five thousand79; and, for the end of the reign, the most conservative estimate was fifty thousand.80 But a majority of these last cannot be counted as part of a 'standing army' as they were

Ie Serie: Angleterre, III, no. 93 (Leconfield MS. no. 73), 467. For a modern discussion of Sa'di forces, see A. Dziubinski, 'L'arm6e et la flotte de guerre marocaines 'a l'6poque des sultans de la dynastie saadienne', Hesperis Tamuda, xiii (1972), 6I-93.

69'. . . pas moins esclaves qu'ils estoient auparavant .. . le Roy en fait ses gardes des portes de son palais', Mouette, Histoire, I75.

. . . sad, drunken, profligate Fellows, half-naked and half-starved', Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 349-50.

71 Cf., for example, notes on the use of renegades in Mouette, Histoire, I25; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, I56.

72 For the stylized indigenous account of Udaya origins, see al-Zayyan1, 'Al-bustan al-Tarlf', 4I; cf. version in al-Nasirl, Kitdb al-istiqsd, IV (tr. Fumey), Archives Marocaines, ix, 66-9.

... todos Mulatos obscuros de un linage, que llaman ludeas que son Cavalleros de el Rey, y oy los mas estimados, porque son parientes de la Reyna Negra'. F.-J.-M. de San Juan Del Puerto, Mission Historial de Marruecos (Sevill, I708), 6i6.

74 Del Puerto, MIission IIistorial, 6i6; cf. Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), 25; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, I 57. 75 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, I 57-8.

76 Mou6tte, Histoire, I76; cf. de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), I40 (fo. I95). For a modern discussion of Isma'il's deployment of his army, enthusiastic as to its efficiency, see M. Morsy, 'Moulay Isma'il et l'armee de metier' in Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, xiv (May-June I967), 97-I22.

77 Mouette, Histoire 68. 78 Mouette, Histoire, I76. 79 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2 e Se'rie: France, Iv, no. I44, memo. of J.-B. Estelle

(Sale, Oct. I698), 692.

80 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), I40 (fo. I95); cf. the grosser estimate of 'sixty thousand, half horse', S.P. (7I) fo. i62, Butler to Russell (Tetuan, 29 July I728).



540 PATRICIA MERCER

jaysh troops:81 a reserve of fiscally favoured black military peasants, quartered upon land outside Sale, 82 and, according to one account, transmitting their Qur'anic tithe in grain to Meknes83 as one more contribu- tion to the gobbling palace economy.

The sultan who sat atop this economy was nearly always in palace residence. His government was not as a rule itinerant84 and he was a cautious warrior, who rarely took the field in person after I687, and never did so after 1701, when he met defeat in the Regency of Algiers. As a private individual his daily interests lay in directing the progress of his buildings, or in smoking a pipe while contemplating his horses.85 But his style of government demanded that he act out a pageant of authoritarian- ism and terror that implied sweeping political power and yet cost little in terms of worldly goods. For apart from the decorated warrior's gear in the treasury there was no refinement of luxury in Meknes. The sultan's dress was undistinguished and sometimes dingy. 86 His meals were served out of doors, wherever he happened to be sitting. 87 He had no throne or jewelled regalia of audience, apart from a dagger,88 although in public appearances of particular solemnity he might appear seated on a warhorse, with a parasol above his head, and a lance, the weapon of authority, in his hand.89 His pomp lay in grisly ceremonial: the ritual abasement of his attendant subjects. Great officers walked shabby, barefoot and deeply obeisant in their master's presence, and attendants contorted their bodies in accor- dance with his physical movements.90 Minor offenders might be cut down on the spot, by his orders and frequently by his hand9l: a practice which gave him the reputation of a blood-boltered ogre in contemporary Europe. As well as ritualized indignity and blood-letting, there was ritualized inculcation of personal insecurity. Leading officers might be treated to an alternating exhibition of familiarity and degradation, being 'hugged, kissed and preferred' one day and 'stript, robbed and beaten' the next.92 Even the sultan's personal guard came out on parade with no dignity of demean- our. For it was made up, not of trained soldiers, but of a throng of adoles-

81 For twentietlh-century analyses of jaysh groupings and their pattern of land tenure, see R. Mauduit, 'Le makhzen marocain', in Bulletin du Comite' de lA'frique Franfaise: (Renseignements Coloniaunx) (I903), 300-2; cf. J. le Coz, 'Les tribus guichs au Maroc: essai de geographie agraire', Revue de Ge'ographie du Maroc, vii (I965), 3-52.

82 al-Zayyani, 'Al-bustan al-zarif', 32; cf. al-Zayymni (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text i6, translation 30; de Leon, Diadlogo (ed. de la Veronne), 140-I, 142-3 (fos. I96-7 and 2OI-5).

83 Windus, Journey, 84. 84 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 286. 85 Busnot, Histoire du regne, 46 and 57; cf. Braithwvaite, History of the Revolutions, 203.

86 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, 65; cf. Windus, Journey, ioo. 87 Mouette, Histoire, I63; cf. Busnot, Histoire du regne, I67-8. 88 Windus, Journey, IOO; cf. Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 175-6. 89 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites. 28 Serie: France. iII, no. I I, memo. of J.-B. Estelle

(Marseille, 6 July I690), 300; cf. Windus, Journey, 76 and 95. 90 Mouette, Histoire, I63; cf. Windus, Joutrney, 95, I24-5. 91 de Castries, Les Sources Innidites, ze Serie: France, III, no. ii2, memo. of J.-B. Estelle

(Marseille, 6 July I690), 300.

92 Windus, Journey. I47.




cent slave page-boys, the musket-toting 'little Blacks',93 whom the sultan could keep in rough tutelage, and either reward with fistfuls of dates,94 or turn out to work, together with senior guards, on the palace building site. 9

The sultan had no formal council96 or bureaucracy on the Ottoman pattern, and in his service there was little theorization of precedence. Most officers were given the blanket title of quwwad (sing. qa'id): the 'Alcaydes' of European commentary. A qa'id who lacked any distinctive post was a qd'id ra'sihi or 'qa7'id-of-his-head'.97 As a plain title 'qa'id' was so undiffer- entiating that it covered socially debased civilian 'bosses', such as the 'Alcayde' of the Christian captives98 as well as Muslim military commanders. A magnate of exceptionally wide authority might bear the heavier arabicized-Turkish title basha, but this was not clearly distinct from qa'id. Of the two governors of this period best known to European commentary, the Hammami of Tetuan, father and son, the father was always qa'id, the son always basha.

Aliens who struggled to delineate government in Meknes would list a highly eclectic team of standing officers. A typical grouping was a 'Grand Mufti for Affairs of Religion', identifiable with the qdIi or chief judge of Meknes99; a chief eunuch; a treasurer; the superintendent of the palace building works; and, in a late list, as 'supreme Alcayde', the town governor or basha of Meknes.100 The prominence of these men points to a government in which the 'household' far out-ranked the 'civil service'. There were of course clerks in the palace,101 but humane literacy and book- keeping were not treated as governmental skills of the first rank. The sultan's seal was kept in the women's quarters by an 'arifa or female chamberlain.102 There was no minister fulfilling the European imaginative

"I Mouette, Histoire, 176; cf. de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, i, no. 112 (Marseille, 6 July I690), 300; Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, I3, 50; Windus, Jtourney, I39-43.

94 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Vronne), I4I (fo. I98). 95 Windus, Journey, I40-I; cf. de Leon, Dia'logo (ed. de la Veronne), i4i (fo. I98).

For the stylized indigenous account of this mason-work as 'training', see al-Zayyani, 'Al-bustan al-zarif', 37; cf. version in al-Nasirl, Kitdb al-istiqsd, IV (tr. Fumey), Archives Marocaines, IX, 94-5.

96 'Son Conseil est tout entier dans sa tete', Busnot, Histoire du regne, 45. I'll... if he remains by him [the sultan] without any Employment ... he is called

Alcayde of his Head, which is a sort of an Alcayde titular or Reforme. ..', Windus, J7ourney, 144.

98 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, passim. '9 The Maghrib al-Aqsa had no 'grand mouphity' as such (de Castries, Les Sources

Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iv, no. 144, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, Oct. I698), 697. In Fez it was customary for the function of mufti (legal3adviser in chief) to be subsumed within that of qdai (chief judge): al-Qadirl, Nashr al-matheni (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 26I.

100 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, iI 4-I6; cf. Windus, Journey, 122, 155.

101 de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), 133 (fo. 17I). 102 de Leon, Dia'logo (ed. de la Veronne), 133 (fo. 17I); cf. the 'great fat Mulatto Court-

Lady. . . a sort of Gentlewoman-Usher', noted at the court of Isma'il's son by Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 17I.



542 PATRICIA MERCER

mould of the 'Grand Vizier', as drawn from the Ottoman court in Con- stantinople. The conventional clerical companion of Ismna 'l was described by aliens as a simple tdlib or scholar.103 The term wazir, signifying minister, was in administrative use, and a handful of such ministers are known by name. But none seems ever to have held outstanding court rank. Al- Yahmadi, who was wazir during a period of heated correspondence between the sultan and certain religious and civic notables,104 was a capable penman who enjoyed later reputation as a bibliophile and literary figure.105 But he founded no administrative tradition. For the 'sword' drove out the 'pen'. During Isma "il's closing years, his chief associate in government was the 'abd or black general Musahil, his last bdshd of Meknes, who was effectively 'mayor of the palace'.106

The treasury was a hoard rather than the fund for an orderly exchequer. For while it was not entirely true that no 'Salary, Pension nor gratuity in Money"07 attached to the sultan's service, in workaday circumstances it was unusual for the sultan to pay out in coin even to members of his own family. His own sons, of whom there were hundreds, were brought up as urchins 'thievish and ravenous as kites"l08 and, excepting favourites, distinguishable in outer appearance from the page-boy guards only by a pearl ear-ring.109 As they grew to manhood, the vast majority would be sent off to a palm plantation in the family oasis of Tafilelt."10 Most of the daughters were married off to Tafilelt shurafa', often with only their father's prestige for dowry."' Only outstanding sons received any substantial financial aid toward setting up for themselves."12 A life pension might be granted to certain family dependents, such as the widows of a notable son.113 But most payments from the treasury were slight or occasional 'goodwill' gifts, such as a purse apiece for a party of High Atlas shuyiukh or 'headmen', brought to Meknes to make their token submission,"14

103 Busnot, Histoire du regne, 48. 104 Three texts carrying al-Yahmadi's name, as recipient of the first and author of the

second and third, are included in M. El-Fasi (ed.), 'Lettres Inedites de Moulay Ismael', Hespe'ris Tamuda (special edn. i962), as nos. 20, 23 and 24 (67 and 69-7o).

105 Lakhdar, La vie Litteraire, I72-3; cf. Muh.ammad Akansuis, quoted al-Nasiri, Kitdb al-istiqsd, IV (tr. Fumey), Archives Marocaines, ix, 86-7.

106 Windus, Journey, 122; cf. de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), 88 (fo. 2I) and 133 (fos. 170-I); al-Zarhfini (tr. Justinard), Riila, 154; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, passim.

107 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, II5. 108 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, 97; cf. Busnot, Histoire diu

regne, 55-6. 109 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), 98 (fo. 55); cf. J. de la Faye, Relationt enforme

de journal de voiage pour la redemption des captifs aux roiaumes de Maroc et d'Alger pendant les anne'es I723, I724 et I725 (Paris, 1726), i6o.

11 Windus, Journey, i9o; cf. de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), 98 (fos. 54-5). 111 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iv, no. I44, memo. of J.-B. Estelle

Sale, Oct. I698), 694; cf. de L6on, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne). 98 (fo. 55). 112 For notes on payments in silver to Ismi'il's sons Zaydan and Mulhammad al-'Alim,

see Busnot, Histoire du regne, 66, 8i and II0. 113 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 158-9. l4114 al,ZrhfinY (tr. Justinard), Rihla, 112.




or the annual gift of one hundred quintals of silver, to be shared out between approximately thirty thousand 'abid officers and men.115 Only at times of acute political crisis, such as the I692 invasion from the Regency of Algiers, did the sultan become desperately open-handed.116 Thrift enabled him to die solvent, but not the miserly Croesus European commentators took him to be.'17 The treasury at his death contained, besides a modicum of gold and ornaments, 2,500 quintals of silver'18: equivalent, as will be seen, to the booty in coin of twenty-five good tribute caravans.

For revenue extraction in the early 'Alawi state was of a simple mechanism and moreover could only work at a low efficiency. It has been argued that Ismai'il's reign was a period of fiscalite ecrasante-'swingeing taxation'-in which revenue could be massively gathered in by the sultan's reorganized 'standing army'."19 But it will be seen that, apart from the Udaya in the region of Fez, only a token proportion of Isma (II's personal soldiery were engaged in the extraction of revenue that was ever likely to reach the sultan. The mass of those slave soldiers who were not tilling for themselves in the reserve played either a 'praetorian' role in Meknes, or a 'legionary' role in the major towns, or in rural forts 'upon the Confines of the Country'.'20 When engaged in rural garrison duty, they represented a makhzan or government presence, but were fiscally irrelevant to Meknes in that they consumed the 'taxes' they gatheredl2l: as hostile commentary put it, they were 'obliged to rob for their Subsistence, until the Country People' knocked 'them on the Head'.'22

The vital motors of Isma'il's tribute state were not these provincial rabid or renegade troops, but those provincial quwwad who, after the summary court command 'Go, govern such a country..."23 were the sultan's men in a given territorial sphere. Under their command might be (abid who had been commended to them.'24 These guards, whose colour was like a makhzan uniform, represented legitimation from the central

115 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), 142 and 143 (fos. 202 and 204). The sum was worth approximately ,I2,000 in English money of the period. For the value of the Maghribi silver quintal as I20 lbs Troy w,eight, see W. Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte umgerechnet ins metrische System (Leiden/Cologne, 1970); for comparison, showing the stability of sterling coinage throughout the period, see Braudel and Spooner, 'Prices in Europe', Appendix, Fig. 4, 458.

116 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, Iv, no. 144, memo. of J. B. Estelle (Sale, Oct. I698), 695-6.

117 For examples of such commentary, see Busnot, Histoire du regne, 40; Windus, Journey, 123. 118 'de Mairault', Relation, 54.

119 Cf., for example, Terrasse, Histoire, II, 262; Laroui, L'Histoire du mnaghreb, 254-5. 120 For reliable references to ad hoc and occasional makhzan fort-building of the period,

see, for example, Mouette, Histoire, I25, I26; al-Zarhfini (tr. Justinard), Rihla, i68; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 20, 335, 350. The comparatively well-known chronicle data giving details of planned and comprehensive building of garrison forts under Isma'il's personal direction seem to be based upon confused and unreliable source material. For a critique, see P. A. Mercer, 'Political and Military Developments', 283-6, 294-309.

121 al-Zayymni (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text i8, translation, 35. 122 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 350. 123 Windus, Journey, 121. 124 Windus, Journey, 143.



544 PATRICIA MERCER

authority. They did not automatically use brute force, but seem often to have proceeded calmly about their business, working singly or in pairs.125

It is impossible to estimate the combined territorial reach of the provincial quwwad. Very little is known of the interior of the Maghrib al-Aqsa at this period.126 The empire wound its way between areas of 'mountain freedom'127 where the only authority that would normally function would be local. The Ahansali 'Saints of the Atlas' seem already to have been a notable clan in their Central Atlas sphere.128 Even relatively accessible regions of the empire must be seen as honeycombed with waqf or, in the local terminology, hubus territories, islands of fiscal or even administrative immunity, tied to pious foundations. Thus many of the market-gardens around Fez belonged to the major mosques, as did all the city's commercial premises129; and around Wazzan, on the inland shoulder of the Rif, there was already developing the great 'azib or immunity of the shurafd' of Wazzan.130 But wherever a sultan's qd'id could go, the spear of command set outside his tent or carried at his horse's head131 represented makhzan authority, according to the pattern of 'government by political association'.132 Certain quwwad did of course originate as local chieftains. But such a chieftain could still be identified as a makhzan man in so far as to be murdered at the sultan's death, as was 'All ibn Yshshii of the Zimmur, a 'tamazight'-speaking Berber from the foot of the Middle Atlas.133 For white governors, one conventional expression of identification with the sultan was the myth of their own humble birth. This was attached, for

125 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iII, no. 113, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Marseille, I9 July I690), 314; cf. Busnot, Histoire du regne, 202.

126 A lone exception to this generalization is provided by the glimpse of tension between Marrakesh and the Tinmal region of the High Atlas, in the second decade of the eighteenth century, delineated in the narrative of the rural cleric al-Zarhuni of Tasaft, the Ridla (tr. Justinard), passim.

127 A concept put forward by Braudel in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World, I, 38-4I, less clinical in its positive and negative dichotomy than the alternates of makhzan and sTba. The noun siba seems to have been quite unknown in the early 'Alawi period.

128 M. Morsy, Les Abansdla: examen du r8le historique d'une famille maraboutique de l'Atlas marocain au XVIIIe siecle (Paris, I970), 9-II. The twentieth-century Ahansall have been brought into singular focus in an anthropological study: E. Gellner, Saints of the Atlas (London, I969). 129 Mouette, Histoire, 183 and I85.

130 Wazzan in the I720S was 'the seat of a living Saint', the people of whose region were 'all his Vassals, and the Produce of the Country all round the Town, at his Disposal, the People paying no other taxes but to him'. Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 129 and I31. For the tarjama or hagiographical biography of Mawlay 'Abd Allah, sharif of Wazzan, see al-Qidirl, Nashr al-mathdni (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 262-6. For later studies of the Wazzan immunity, see E. Aubin, Le Maroc d'aujourd'hui (Paris, 1904), 453-92;

cf. 'Ouezzan', Mission Scientifique du Maroc, Villes et tribus du Maroc, iII (Paris, I920), 22I-54. 131 Windus, Journey, 76.

132 For an analysis of this 'open' pattern in regal government, to which the key lies in royal appointment, see P. C. Lloyd, 'The political structure of African kingdoms', Political Systems and the Distribution of Power, A.S.A. monographs 2 (London, I965), 102-4.

133 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iv, no. 6i, J.-B. Estelle to Pontchartrain (Sale, Journal for Aug. I695), 355; cf. al-Zayymni (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text 24-5 and 30, translation 45 and 56.




instance, to the IHammami of Tetuan and to cAbd al-Karim, bdshd of Marrakesh in the early eighteenth century.134 For black governors who had risen through the palace guard135 their training was sufficient makhzan identification.

It was popularly believed that a sultan's qa'id began his political career destitute, in order to enable the sultan to 'make a careful Computation'136 of the scale of his later profiteering, as balanced against the justification for his office: that preferably annually and preferably in person he should bring in to Meknes a hadiya or tribute caravan, timed if possible decor- ously to coincide with the festival parade of cId al-Kabir, the greatest celebration in the Muslim religious calendar.137 The caravan theoretically represented the minimum due in terms of religiously legal taxationl38 and was expressed in terms of a variety of valuables: slaves, horses and other beasts, bolts of cloth and, above all, coined money, weighed out as quintals of silver.139 One hundred quintals seems to have been considered a suitably handsome sum.140

European commentators tended to believe that hadiya invariably entailed crude extortion. In practice, the fiscal methods of the quwwad varied with the region. In areas of 'mountain freedom' the sum collected in taxation would come from ad hoc and occasional bargaining, conducted perhaps with civility, but heavily backed by the immediate threat of armed force.141 But in the plains, towns and oases there was a regimen of orderly and assessed taxation, with the ghardma or 'extraordinary' tax, identifiable with the eastern Muslim maks, supposedly assessed at one per cent in specie.142 Town governors maintained relevant tax-rolls.143 Similarly the records of Saletin customs dues were worked out by the governors of Sale port, and usually maintained within Sale, although they could be summoned to the sultan's notice as evidence in case of query.144 For it was the habit of Meknes, with its ethos of warrior simplicity at the summit of government, to treat revenue bureaucracy as a menial chore, wide open to abuse, and therefore suitable for delegation to the level of provincial administration. Certain documents from the oases of Tuat admirably illustrate the

134 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, ii6 and I2I; cf. Windus, Journey, 202; al-ZarhiAni (tr. Justinard), Ri!la, 34.

135 Mouette, Histoire, 176; cf. Busnot, Histoire du regne, 203; Windus, Journey, 144; al-Zarhini (tr. Justinard), Rih.1a, 153.

136 Windus, Journey, 146. 137 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iv, no. i44, memo. of J.-B. Estelle

(Sale, Oct. I698), 694-5; cf. Windus, Journal, passim. 138 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), I49 (fos. 223-4). 1 Mouette, Histoire, 98, 99, i I I; cf. de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France,

iv, no. 25, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, 12 Sept. I693), 22I; cf. Del Puerto, Mission Historial, 59; al-Zarhfini (tr. Justinard), Rihl1a, i i6.

140 Mouette, Histoire, 99; cf. al-Zarhfuin (tr. Justinard), Ri4la, 48; Windus, J'ourney, 2i6.

141 al-ZarhuIni (tr. Justinard), Rih.la, 34-156; cf. Windus, Journey, 77-8. 142 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), 149 (fo. 224). 143 de Castries, Les Sources In6dites, 2e Serie: France, iv, no. i44, memo. of J.-B. Estelle

(Sale, Oct. 1698), 695. 144 Ibid. 709.

35 AH XVIII



546 PATRICIA MERCER

administrative format by which paper-work was localized. Incoming open letters from the makhzan contain demands for the Qur'anic zakah, or a proportion thereof, expressed in the most amiable and general terms.145 By contrast the documents drawn up locally to record the make-up of a difa or fiscal 'meal' for the sultan are detailed and complex,146 listing contributions as gathered from various groupings within the oasean population. Variation between the sums as tallied implies care in local assessment. This documentation stayed in Tuat.

When tribute caravans reached Meknes they were accompanied only by a brief written summary of their contents147 for their acceptability was determined by a judicious glance. Occasionally the sultan demanded more.148 But generally there was a gracious receipt: the gift of a caftan or a queen's ribbon,149 together with permission to stay in office. It was highly unlikely that a major qa'id, particularly one who had built his clan into his territory, would be stripped of office. In the event of his death or removal it was likely that a clan-fellow would succeed. Thus for fifty years of Isma "l's reign there were Ruisi governors in Old Fez, jammami in Tetuan: makhzan sub-dynasties. The Hammami entrenched themselves in local government so extensively that there were seventeen major clan- fellows to accompany the hadiya of 1721 into Meknes.150 The only practic- able discipline for such a clan was token short-term destitution of the incumbentl5l or his exemplary execution as prelude to his immediate replacement by a clan-fellow.152 The sudden death of a powerful qd'id who had not had time to build up clan control of his territory could be disastrous for makhzan authority within the region Thus at the death of 'Abd al-Karim of Marrakesh in 1718 'the Emperor. . . seemed so con- cerned that none durst speak further about it.'153 For the death of this magnate led to the collapse of the network of personal allegiance he had built up throughout the vital silver-bearing Susi High Atlas: the evapora- tion of a political power 'as if it had never existed'.154

With such evanescence an ever-present political threat, it was necessary for the sultan to reinforce his authority upon a plane that would survive

145 Translations of open imperial letters to the inhabitants of the Tuat oasean complex with Hegiran dates corresponding to July I685, and 7 Aug. I699, in A.-G.-P. Martin, Quatre siecles d'histoire marocaine (I504-I9I2) (Paris, I924), 65, 74.

146 Translations of manuscripts from Timmi and Aoulef, itemizing their contributions to Tuat taxation; Timmi material with Hegiran dates corresponding to 1687-8 and Feb. I698; Aoulef material, from Oct. I696, in Martin, Quatre siecles, 65-7, 72.

147 de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), I52 (fo. 236). 148 Windus, Journey, 200; cf. al-Zarhuini (tr. Justinard), Rizla, II2-14.

149 de la Faye, Relation, 240. 1'0 Windus, Journey, 8i. 151 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, VI, no. 68, Busnot to Pontchartrain

(Cadiz, 15 Apr. 1708), 403; cf. Windus, Yourney, 200-2. 152 al-ZayyTni (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text 26, translation 48-9; cf. al-Qadirl, Nashr

al-mathdni (Fez lithograph, II, first notation I70). 153 S.P. 7I (i6) fo. 563, memo. of Hatfield (Tetuan, ii Aug. 17I8); cf. al-Zarhuni (tr.

Justinard) Rilla, 153. The chronology of the former is to be preferred to that of the latter, who gives a seasonally equivalent Hegiran date for the previous year.

154 al-Zarhfini (tr. Justinard) Rihla, 154.



THE EARLY ALAWI STATE IN MOROCCO 547

the rupture of the simple human tie between a lord and his man. The sultan must play a religious as well as a political role. As lord of a Muslim community, amir al-mu'minin or 'Commander of the Faithful',155 this meant that he must be imam of his people and defender of their religion. Yet he must pursue this ideal without thereby undermining his own power-base.156 This entailed activity. For the baraka or 'numen' of an upstart dynasty had to be earned. It is impossible to attribute to the early cAlawi sultans that icon-like religious prestige conventionally attributed to the otherwise tepid sultanate of the immediate pre-Protectorate period.157 The sultan was of course a sharif, claiming descent from the Prophet. And it is likely that, since the establishment of the Sa "di shurafa' as the ruling dynasty of the Maghrib al-Aqp7 in the sixteenth century, 'sharifian' birth had been a sine qua non of pretension to western Maghribi sovereignty. Al-Rashid, after he had been made sultan by Fez, certainly exploited his status as a sharif for propaganda purposes.158 But 'sharifian' birth was not a rare or unusual distinction. It was shared, for instance, by many members of the religious oligarchy of Fez,159 by the mu]jhid or 'warrior for the faith' al-Khadir Ghaylan, whom both al-Rashid and Ism5cil met as an early rival for power in the far north-west of the empire,160 and by entire communities in the cAlawi home oasis of Tafilelt.161 Balanced against this 'sharifian' birth was the close association of both the early 'Alawi brothers with the western Maghribi Jewish community. Al-Rashid had first entered Fez as a night raider who with Jewish connivance had clambered over the Jewry wall into the Muslim town162; his short reign was remembered within the Jewish community of Fez as a period in which 'the Lord restored His people Israel'.163 Ism 'Il himself has been noted as having made his empire's Jewish community integral to his palace and government.

155 For examples of Ismi'll's use of the title amir al-mu'minin, see de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, VI, no. 57, Ismi'll to the English diwdn (Parliament) and Admiralty (n.d., tr. I3 June 1707), 350; ibid., no. 8o, Ismi'll to Louis XIV, (Hegiran dating corresponding to 15 July I7II), 464.

156 For discussion of this potentially dislocatory problem within Islamic states, see M. Brett, 'Problems in the interpretation of the history of the Maghrib in the light of some recent publications', J. Afr. Hist., XIII (1972), 498-9.

157 Mauduit, 'Le makhzenmarocain', 293-304; cf. Aubin, Le Maroc d'aujourd'hui, 133-7. 158 ... and that he might oblige the People to a greater obedience he hath given out

that he is of the Race of their Prophet Mahomet, and that according to that Law none ought to command in Chief, but one lineally descended from Mahomet', 'S.L.', Letter from a gentleman, 28.

159 G. Salmon, 'Les Chorfa Idrisides de Fes', Archives Marocaines, I (1904), 425-53; cf. G. Salmon, 'Les Chorfa Filala et Djilala de Fes', Archives Marocaines, III (1905), 97- I I8.

160 For the discreet and posthumous erasure of Ghaylan's family from the register of shurafa', in May of I699 (Dhu 'I-Qa'da II io A.H.), see A Nretie, 'Le RaYs El-Khadir Ghailan', Archives Marocaines, xviii (1912), 12.

161 Thus, of 'Tafilet' . . . 'Les peuples de cet Etat sont de trois sortes, et sont composez de cherifs, d'Arabes et de Barbares. Les premiers sont descendus de l'imposteur Mahomet . . . ' Mouette, Histoire, I195 .

162 Mouette, Histoire, 25; cf. Sa'dya ibn Danan (tr. Vajda), text no. 21 (part 2), in 'Un recueil de textes', 139; al-Qadirl, Nashr al-mathdni (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 177.

163 Sa'dya ibn Danan (tr. Vajda), text no. 21 (part 2), in 'Un recueil de textes', 139.



548 PATRICIA MERCER

It is likely therefore to have been quite essential that Isma cil should conduct his public life with Muslim integrity.

It is known that the sultan showed careful and well-publicized honour for the sharica or Muslim law. He went about accompanied by a tdlib, carrying a copy of the Qur'n'164 as mute guarantee of the legitimacy of his government. In the palace, he built up a substantial religious library, whose contents were locked up as treasure, to be ostentatiously consulted upon rare occasions, in the sultan's own presence.165 Extraordinary public honour was granted to the qadi or chief judge of Meknes. He was the only functionary to be excused the ritual of public barefoot self-abasement in the sultan's presence. He might ride to the palace on horseback, accompanied by retainers, and sit down beside the monarch, or accompany him to the mosque.166 But he did so in the role of acolyte. It was the sultan who led the faithful in prayer,167 as he did in the palace yard at the dawn of each public day, requesting divine guidance for his government.168

Religious sanctions were allowed to hobble the more brutal activities of state. The sultan maintained an overall if not impeccable regard for the convention of sanctuary.169 He would justify political executions on grounds of public decency. Typical victims were accused of sexual immorality, or of riotous living in Christian company.170 Most significantly, the sultan would take care to obtain fatawd, or statements of legal opinion, upon vital matters of state. For these he would go beyond his 'pocket' qd1i in Meknes, and back to Fez, the traditional religious and academic capital, whose qidIi and companion culama', or community of the learned, con- tinued to be regarded as the empire's supreme body of appeal.171 Between I697 and I 708 there was grumbling contention between the sultan and the Fez lawmen, which an alien commentator could interpret in terms of constitutional crisis.172 The point at issue was the sultan's policy of aug- menting his black guard of 'abid by the mass impressment into makhzan slavery of those of his subjects who were 'of a duskier Complexion than ordinary, if they could not produce long Scrowls of their Genealogies, notwithstanding their having lived free for Ages'.173 The threat that this

164 'Il fait toujours porter devant lui l'Archoran par son Talbe, comme la regle de ses Conseils, et le niveau de sa Conduite', Busnot, Histoire du regne, 48.

165 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), 117-I8 (fo. 115). 166 ibid. i i 8 (fos. I I 8-I 9). 167 Busnot, Histoire du regne, 48. 168 de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Veronne), 87 (fo. I7).

169 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France III, no. 113, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Marseille, I9 July I690), 316; cf. Busnot, Ilistoire du regne, ii5'; Windus, Journey, 6o-ii.

170 Mouette, Histoire, I24; al-Zayyani (ed. Houdas) Le Maroc, text I9, translation 34; Windus, journey, 156-7.

171 de Leon, Didlogo (ed. de la Veronne), i i6 (fo. i i i). 172 Windus, Journey, 2I6.

173 Windus, Joturney, 215; cf. the standard, anodyne and erroneously dated indigenous version of this impressment: al-Zayyani (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text 15-I6, translation 29-31; and the same author's 'Al-bustan al-zarif', 31-2 and 37 (cf. version in al-Nd*iri, Kitab al-istiqsd, iv (tr. Fumey) Archives Marocaines, IX, 74-7 and 94-6).




policy would be implemented within Fez itself174 roused some notable civic culamd' to stand by the appropriate tenet of Islamic jurisprudence: that any man whose slave status could not be proven was free.175 The impressment of the city's dark-skinned inhabitants was thereby delayed, although it was not prevented.176 Even after a decade the sultan did not simply over-ride the lawmen. He obtained the necessary complaisant legal opinion, justifying his actions, from the Muslim east.177

In external dealings the sultan dared not lay claim to any 'Caliphate'. But in the course of internal disputation with the lawmen of Fez, makhzan clerks would justify government action in terms of khildfa, the deputyship or 'trust' divinely laid upon the sultan, and entailing obligations.178 Among these obligations was the duty to wage the jihad, or holy war against Christendom.179 This was a duty which the sultan would use as a moral lever to claim allegiance from people as far removed from mujahid practical- ities as the Ait cAtta Berbers from the Saharan Atlas flank.180 Jihad was a short cut to glory as well as to legitimacy in Muslim government. To public opinion in the Maghrib al-Aqsa, Christendom was the ideal enemy. A Fez annalist, in the midst of weather notes and civic minutiae, proudly recorded the victories of the Ottoman march on Vienna in i683.181 And townsfolk had transformed a seasonal midsummer festival, with pagan overtones, into a popular street parade in celebration of the holy war.182 Conveniently it was possible to touch this popular imagination by action against limited targets: the sleazy European coastal enclaves which were the wrack of the last age of Peninsular crusading. Al-Rashid inaugurated cAlaw1 pressure upon these enclaves.183 Isma cjl in his turn lent his name to continuous military prosecution of the jihad between i 68o and his death in I727-

It is clear that for Isma cil this was warfare conducted essentially for the sake of prestige. Isma cil's was a land empire whose strategists knew that

174 Al-Zayyani (ed. Houdas) Le Maroc, text 25, translation 47; cf. M. El-Fasi, 'Lettres Inedites', no. I3, Ismi'll to Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Qadir al-Fasi (date imperfect), 55-7.

175 M. El-Fasi, 'Biographie de Moulay Ismael', Hesperis Tamuda (special edn., i962),

Ig-20; cf. Arabic version, Appendix, 29. For the Islamic legal ruling, see R. Brunschvig, "Abd', in The Encyclopedia of Islam (2nd. edn.), I (Leiden/London, ig60), 26.

176 Relation de la Mercy, 7I5; cf. al-Zayyani, 'Al-bustan al-zarif', 43. 177 Muhammad Akansas, quoted al-Nasirl, Kitab al-istiqsd, IV (tr. Fumey), Archives

Marocaines, IX, I2I. 178 M. El-Fasi, 'Lettres Inedites', no. I0, Isma'il to Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Qadir

al-Fasi (Hegiran dating corresponding to 15 July I697), 48. 179 M. El-Fasi, 'Lettres In6dites', no. I3, Ismi'll to Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Qadir

al-Fasi (date imperfect), 57. 180 Mouette, Histoire, i i9. 181 al-Qadirl, Nashr al-mathdni (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 357. 182 '... the gravest People will be passing thro' the Streets with wooden Horses,

Swords, Launces and Drums, with which they equip the Children that can scarce go, and meet in Troops in the Street and engaging, say Thus zve destroy the Christians', Windus, J7ourney, 46.

183 R. Frejus, Relation d'un voyage fait dans la Mauritanie (Paris, I670), ed. de Castries, Les Sources In&dites, 2e S6rie: France, I, 129; cf. al-Zayyani (ed. Houdas), Le Maroc, text 11-12, translation 23; J. Luke, diary ed. H. Kaufman, Tangier at High Tide: the J7ournal of J7ohn Luke I670-73 (Paris, 1958), 21 (note for 9 Dec. I670).



550 PATRICIA MERCER

it was based upon the horse.'84 Its two most militarily demanding regions were Muslim: the Sus and the 'Sharq' or eastern march with the Regency of Algiers. The addition to this empire of small shallow-water ports was of literally marginal significance. So thejihad was never the object of personal campaigning by the sultan. He conducted it at minimal military outlay. Quwwad from north-western territories adjacent to the enclaves were granted the loan of a token body of the sultan's own 'abid or renegades,'85 and then formally licensed to enrol their local populations as mujchidiin, liable for turns of duty by rota.186 To wage the jihad proved at first a policy of easy returns. In the i68os, Mamora, Tangier and finally Larache were captured. In terms of dynastic propaganda the dragging of the Larache gates into Meknes'87 marked the high point of Isma'jl's reign: the end of a period of mourning for the town's surrender to Spain in i6io by the son of al-Mansuir, the Sa'di 'conqueror'.188 Subsequent negotiations with Madrid for the exchange of prisoners189 led to the ransom of a thousand Moors, whose processional arrival in Meknes, to the beating of drums, the waving of green banners and a personal reception by the sultan190 marked Isma 'il out as protector of his people. The military jihdd then met its nemesis: frustration outside Ceuta. The long siege of this Spanish presidio was opened in I694, never to be abandoned in Isma 'il's lifetime. But after I701 it was wound down to the level of token confrontation: a blockade punctuated by a regular Friday cannonade of stones.191 Characteristically the siege made no inroads whatsoever into the sultan's treasury. His 'abid troops around Ceuta, whose essential function was to discipline the local Berber mujdhiduin, were maintained by the local commanders, successive Hammami governors of Tetuan.192 These commanders in turn funded the entire confrontation either directly or indirectly out of the profits of a private trade with Christendom.193 The arrangement

184 'My Master ... has no need of the sea ... for less than would suffice for the building and entertaining of one ship, he can maintain a thousand horsemen, that are more worth than a thousand ships': the mujdhid Ahmad ibn Ljaddci al-Hammami to 'The captain of Tangier, Kirke the English', quoted S. Pepys, 'Miscellanea', II, 381 (Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge).

185 Ockley, Account, io; cf. Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, lo. 186 Mouette, Histoire, I28; cf. de la Faye, Relation, 2I5-16; al-Zayymni (ed. Houdas),

Le Maroc, text I9, translation 36. 187 Windus, J7ourney, I02.

188 al-Qadiri, Nashr al-mathdnf (Fez lithograph, ii, first notation 136). 189 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, iII, no. 136, Letter from an un-

known Franciscan to Ahmad ibn Haddu al-Hammami (Ceuta, 12 Sept. I691), 397; cf. ibid. no. 151, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, 2 March I692), 454. As a by-product of these negotiations came the Muslim ambassador's own delightful impressions of a visit to Europe: al-Ghassani, RiAlat al-wazirfi 'ftikdk al-asir, tr. H. Sauvaire, Voyage en Espagne d'un ambassadeur marocain (Paris, I1894).

190 de Castries, Les Sources Inddites, 2e Serie: France, III, no. 151, memo. of J.-B. Estelle (Sale, 2 Mar. I692), 454.

191 Busnot, Histoire du regne, 229-30. 192 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, io. 193 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, I2I; cf. Busnot, Histoire du

regne, 2I7-20; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 67.



THE EARLY ALAWI STATE IN MOROCCO 55I

was formalized in I708 by the governor's acquisition as a benefice of the monopoly of Tetuan's trade with Europe in wax and leather.194

There may well have been purpose to this paradox. Ism 'Il kept the Hammami in rein as long as he lived, even though, as governors of the Maghrib al-Aqsa's largest subdivision, 'a Province almost as large as the Kingdom of Portugal'195 they were reckoned the weightiest of quwwad from the I69os onwards.196 In one sense the governor of Tetuan faced northwards, and was a cosmopolitan Mediterranean merchant prince. But his mujchid obligations served to remind him that although, as did the younger Hammimi, he might affect 'Elegance', purchase Dutch tiles and scarlet cloth, and persuade a British officer to think him 'the politest Man in all the Country'"97 he was still bound to a polity that maintained a hard Islamic stance. He would be called to order in Meknes if he allowed Christians to defeat him in battle.'98

For to be at ease in association with Christian company and mores was an aberration in early 'Alawi Muslim society, where for the most part 'Correspondence, both Pecuniary and Political, with other [i.e. European] Nations' was delegated to the Jews.199 The majority of Muslims shunned superfluous dealings with Christians, upon terms of social equality, with a repugnance that amounted to a 'continuation of the jihad by other means'. The 'Moroccans' could thus be censured by a foreigner for being 'so much less polished and civilized' than 'they of Algier, Tripoli, Tunis' and 'the Turks'.2OO Christian travellers through the countryside might glance behind them to see the spot where they had rested for the night being purified by fire.201 And in the inland towns they might meet with an alley- way jilhad of hooting and stone-shying that could rise to particular fury at the sight of a Christian on horseback.202

European commerce was at this period insufficient to broach the empire's essential cultural defences. Apart from the governors of Tetuan there were no Maghribi Muslim merchants of the period who made fortunes out of trade with Europe. Speculation upon the possibilities of transmuting the Maghrib al-Aqsa into a satellite economy of Europe203 ran up against the problem that for the indigenous population 'the greatest of their trade' was 'the Inland Trade, by Caravans of Camels, Mules etc.... which they' managed 'themselves'.204 Iron and armaments, the commercial

194de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, vi, Pillet to Nolasque Neant (Sale, 4 Apr. 1708), 332, note i. 195 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 9.

196 Ockley, Account, 54-5. 197 Windus, Journey, 76; cf. Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 77, 79. 198 de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, VI, no. 68, Busnot to Pontchartrain

(Cadiz, I5 Apr. I708), 403; cf. Windus, Journey, go. 199 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, 8o. 200 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 351; cf. Ockley, Account, preface, xix. 201 Busnot, Histoire du regne, 12. 202 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, 49-50; cf. Braithwaite, History

of the Revolutions, 2I4-15. 203 Windus, J7ourney, 204-5, 208-9. 204 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 341.



552 PATRICIA MERCER

staples of the Jews, were the only European manufactures clearly recognized as superior to the home product. There was a minor traffic in European trinkets and European cloth.205 But the acutely conscientious could have doubts as to the acceptability of imported cloth, expressed in terms of religious controversy as to whether infidel methods of sheep- shearing were ritually valid.206 Foreign coins, which were to sweep the empire in the nineteenth century,207 were suspect and kept from general circulation. The sultan's Jews would give Blanquilles for 'good' silver, such as the French crown or the Mexican piece of eight.208 But these would be melted down for bullion.

Makhzan policy crystallized western Maghribi reluctance to associate with Europe by means of a strict interpretation of relevant tenets of Islamic law. Such rectitude was not found necessary elsewhere in North Africa,209 where the Islamic prestige of governing Turkish deputies was secured by their token allegiance to the greatest living Muslim potentate, the Ottoman 'Grand Signior'. Isma 'il's commercial ruling allowed for trade in low-grade goods such as wax, base metals, leather, nuts and raisins.210 But the two grand commodities of the period, grain and the furnishings of war, were placed under an export ban211 reciprocal to that which Catholic Europe maintained against the arming of the infidel, and modified only by a minor diplomatic concession of I72I, allowing for the provisioning of the British Gibraltar garrison.212 The most rigid ban was a veto upon the export of the empire's most prized military and luxury commodity: the scrupulously bred 'Barb' war-horses that were in passion- ate European demand.213 The sultan retained perhaps six hundred of these horses for himself alone, as living treasure.214

Here the interplay of advantage and piety was epitomized. For to sell these horses would have ruined the panache of the annual military parade which marked the celebration of "Id al-Kabir.215 This was the festival at which tribute caravans were due, and was therefore a public demonstration that the sultan's tribute state was in working order. The parade was thus

205 Cf. for examples of European obsession with the minutiae of this topic, Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, I35-45; Windus, Journey, 2I i-I2; Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 34I.

206 al-Qadiri, Nashr al-mathdni (tr. Michaux-Bellaire), 358-68; fatwd (legal opinion) given by the Susi-born but Fez-educated Muhammad ibn Sulayman (obit. 1094 A.H. =

I682-3), in dispute with an Egyptian savant. 207 For this and other notes on the Moroccan collapse before the European economy,

see G. Ayache, 'Aspects de la Crise Financi6re au Maroc apres l'expedition espagnole de i86o', Revue Historique, ccxx (2958), 271-310.

208 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, I43; cf. de Leon, Dialogo (ed. de la Wronne), 146 (fo. 247). 209 Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 342.

210 Windus, Journey, 2o6; cf. Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 341.

211 Pidou de St. Olon (tr. Motteux), The Present State, 2I, 76; cf. Windus, J7ourney, 207; 'de Mairault', Relation, ioO. 212 Windus, Journey, 229-51.

213 Windus, Journey, 175-9; cf. Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 225. 214 For this, the most conservative estimate of the numbers of horses that could be

maintained in the palace of Meknes, see Braithwaite, History of the Revolutions, 202-3. 215 Winduis, Journey, 15I-5.




worth far more than foreign goods. It expressed the values of the limbo within which the Maghrib al-Aqsd rested during Isma 'il's day. The region had fallen from its late medieval setting within the old 'Saharan Mediter- ranean' complex delineated by Magalhaes-Godinho.216 But it was still far from collapse into dependence upon an alien economy. Its ruler, perfectly well aware that his palace lay far beyond the reach of European naval gunnery,217 could rest secure in an African corner.

SUMMARY

The early 'Alawi state has repeatedly been described as heavy and efficient military government. In practice it functioned as a relatively loosely-knit tribute state. The achievement of its notable and long-lived second sultan Isma'il (I672-I727) was to shed the aegis of Fez, his economic metropolis, and set up an increasingly gigantic palace, beside a market town, as an independent political base. His central government there was characterized by minimal use of coin and minuscule central bureaucracy. For military support the sultan at first relied chiefly upon free troops, associated by fictional kinship with his most notable wife: later he relied increasingly upon black slave guards. But the motors of government at large were not imperial troops, whose functions were essentially deterrence and the hallmarking of government activity; they were provincial governors, bound to the sultan by ties of individual loyalty. These governors were responsible for the extraction of tribute destined for the palace.

Religion gave increased coherence to this state. This was not so much because of its association with literacy, as because it enabled the sultan, who needed religious prestige, to enhance his unremarkable claim to descent from the Prophet, by taking up the Islamic mantle of 'Commander of the Faithful'. This was a forceful image for propaganda that could counter the close association between the palace and Moroccan Jewry. It could also validate demands for loyalty throughout the empire. A hard Islamic line was expressed in jihdd, or holy warfare, against Christendom. The sultan's limited resources and his other military commitments prevented him from conducting active jihdd much above the level of token confrontation. But there was also a moral jihdd, waged, in so far as this was possible, by rejection of cultural and economic ties with Europe.

216 V. Magalhaes-Godinho, L'1Rconomie de l'Empire Portugais aux XVe et XVIe Siecles (Paris, I969), 99-I27.

217 'Do they think that they can deal with us as with the people of Tunis and Tripoli, or with the garrison of Algiers? Praise be to God that there is nothing of importance to us along the coast', de Castries, Les Sources Inedites, 2e Serie: France, v, no. 72, Ismd'il to Louis XIV (Meknes, Hegiran dating corresponding to 5 Nov. I699), 460.



mercer (patricia)_palace and jihād in early ‘alawī state in morocco

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