SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The political crisis sparked off by the death of al-Mansur had so compromised Sadian authority that the dynasty saw its sovereignty increasingly encroached upon by rival, local leaders who carved out for themselves independent principalities in different parts of Morocco. The Sus was controlled by the Awlad Sidi Ahmad Ou Musa from their zawiya of Iligh in the Tazarwalt, the Tafilalt and the Saharan region by the Filali sharifs, the centre of Morocco by the murabitum of Dila' and the Gharb/Habt by the mujahid, al-Ayashi, and later al-Khadir Ghailan. On the Bu Regreg, the Morisco refugees from Spain had also repudiated Sadian authority, proclaiming themselves into an independent republic which treated with the European Powers on a sovereign basis. Such was the background of division and rivalry against which the Alawi dynasty was established by al-Rashid. It is the politics of this period of power-vacuum, the period between Sadian decadence and the rise of the Alawis, that is the object of this study. The central feature of the investigation is the Jewish connection with the accession to power of the new dynasty. The assassination of a wealthy Jew or Jewish King by al-Rashid, an event commonly accepted as a fact of Moroccan national history, - it is the origin of the annual feast of students in Fes, the id al-tolba - is here subjected to a critical reassessment.