Over the last 20 years, the Moroccan State has promoted Sufism to counter the spread of Salafism and Wahhabism. This rediscovery of Sufism has been celebrated worldwide for its promotion of peace and global connections. This article examines how different generations of middle-class Moroccans are experiencing these changes in religious discourse and orthodoxy. Relying mainly on ethnographic methods such as interviews and participant observation, it shows how, despite the apparent push towards Sufism, certain forms of Sufi memory and practice have become increasingly difficult to articulate within middle-class discourses shaped by reformist Islamic norms. This article argues that the state's Sufi revival has not quite succeeded in bridging a structural rupture in intergenerational transmission, producing a selective, rationalised Sufism that remains disconnected from the embodied, community-rooted practices of older generations. The article shows that it is in these folds of memory, rather than in commoditised public discourse, that one can access this intimate story of Sufism and how it marks and organises Moroccans' lives well beyond the official purview.
This article reconceptualises the Red Sea as an interregional geopolitical space central to the contemporary political geography that connects North Africa and West Asia. It challenges territorially bounded and land-centric approaches to regionhood that dominate International Relations and North African studies, arguing that such frameworks obscure the geopolitical significance of maritime corridors and chokepoints. Drawing on a hybrid analytical framework that combines International Relations with Political Geography, the article foregrounds spatiality, mobility, infrastructure, and circulation as key mechanisms through which regional order is produced. Focusing on the Red Sea corridor linking the Arabian Peninsula, the Nile Valley, and the Horn of Africa, the analysis demonstrates how security dynamics emerge through the governance of movement rather than territorial enclosure. Empirical illustrations, including maritime insecurity linked to the war in Yemen, Gulf state engagements across the Red Sea littoral, Djibouti's role as a nodal hub, Ethiopia's pursuit of maritime access, and the governance legacies of piracy, highlight how localised developments acquire interregional significance when embedded within critical maritime infrastructures. By framing the Red Sea as a constitutive space of regional formation, the article contributes to studies of North Africa by foregrounding maritime governance as a core dimension of interregional politics.
How do protests become routine in an authoritarian state? I demonstrate how a shift in distributive politics following a civil war shaped social mobilisation in Algeria. The weaknesses of civil society and political opposition have been widely documented and attributed to the rentier state. And yet, daily occurrences of social protests have been a reality throughout the territory since the end of the civil war. These protests have largely been portrayed as a continuation of the rentier bargain, where goods are exchanged for social peace. Recurring social protests, and their toleration by rulers, are read as a form of authoritarian upgrading (Heydemann [2007]. Upgrading Authoritarianism in the Arab World. The Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/10arabworld.pdf.). In contrast, building on scholarly calls for historicised and bottom-up analysis of rentier politics, I show how post-civil war Algeria reflects a new, more violent rentier order. Building on social narrative analysis of reports of 1605 protest events and 76 protest waves, I show how the post-civil war political reordering generated a slippage in the terms of state-society relations. The theoretical narrative on the rentier social bargain is to be contrasted with the experience of ordinary Algerians after the civil war: no peace without goods. Distributive politics have become vectors of violent governance and protest normalisation.
The secret prison is the most enduring symbol of Morocco's Years of Lead (1956-1999), a period of systematic state violence whose institutional reckoning remains incomplete. Survivors and their families have continuously demanded truth, justice, and accountability, yet these demands were only partially met by the Equity and Reconciliation Commission (ERC), established in 2004 and explicitly mandated to avoid prosecuting perpetrators, effectively producing a transitional justice process without perpetrators. In this article, I analyze Youssef Fadel's novel A Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me (2016) and draw on Michael Rothberg's framework of the implicated subject to argue that the novel dismantles the myth of a perpetrator-less past by subordinating a focus on the sovereign to the complex inner lives of the prison guards themselves. Central to this argument is Baba Ali's fractured identity, simultaneously a named guard wrestling with conscience and the anonymous functional cook, a duality that reveals how the carceral system demands psychological fragmentation from those it conscripts. I first examine how Benghazi's compartmentalization sustains the carceral system, then analyze Baba Ali's fractured identity and its moral consequences, and finally read the casbah as a technology of power whose complicity extends into the social fabric of Moroccan life.
This article examines how members of Algeria's largest Islamist movement, Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP), negotiate the tension between partisan activity and moral-spiritual activism. Using discourse analysis, it traces the competing ways activists in the MSP's divisions and programmes understand and frame the boundaries between electoral politics (the domain of the hizb) and spiritual activism (the domain of the haraka) - particularly as they reconcile their individual and collective identity against the ever-declining credibility of formal parties and of the Algerian political system more broadly, and their own ambivalences regarding the political. The article focuses on how such divisions are experienced by ordinary activists, moving beyond the extant focus on Islamist leadership. The findings reveal views which are not internally coherent but rather multivocal and contradictory: members seek to square their own discomfort with partisanship and, through this, make meaning around their place, in the movement, as well as in their social world.
Historically, religious buildings often stood at the heart of political and social struggles in colonisation and decolonisation contexts. In post-independence Algeria, religious buildings transformations carried a strong symbolic significance, reflecting a break with the colonial past, and a rebirth through Muslim religious values. This article argues that the conversion of Algiers' churches into mosques reflects an affirmation of Algerian national identity. This process constituted a pivotal factor in the reshaping of Algiers' religious landscape and a continuation of the anti-colonial revolution. Through fieldwork and archival research, this study examines historical and political processes that led to the physical and symbolic (re)appropriation of Algiers' emblematic churches/mosques. It also highlights how colonial works were influenced by political and colonial considerations in the demolition/transformation of mosques.
This study investigates Algerian Arabic speakers' attitudes towards Nomadic Ouled Na & iuml;l Arabic (ONA). Data were collected through 32 semi-structured interviews with adult L1 Algerian Arabic speakers. Data were analysed using Braun and Clarke's ([2019]. "Reflecting on Reflexive Thematic Analysis." Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health 11 (4): 589-597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806) Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Results revealed systematic prejudice against ONA speakers. Participants frequently perceived ONA speakers as uneducated, unskilled, or unsuitable for positions of authority, often citing their limited use of French. Urban varieties, which usually borrow heavily from French, nevertheless, were consistently linked to professionalism, overt prestige, and modernity. Some participants, however, expressed covert positive attitudes towards ONA speakers, describing it as authentic, attractive, and aesthetically pleasing. These attitudes demonstrate that ONA speakers are evaluated depending on context and domain of use. ONA speakers are offered covert prestige in attractiveness domains, but they are stigmatised in status domains. The findings echo studies from the Arabic-speaking region, including Tunisia, Morrocco, and Syria. Urban varieties index mobility and authority, while rural/Bedouin ones are downgraded to a lower status. Specifically, while similar hierarchies appear in WANA region, the Algerian case is distinctive in how colonial language legacies intersect with urban-rural divides. As such, French is not only a prestige marker but also a gatekeeping resource for professional mobility.
Morocco's post-2003 religious reforms ushered in an unprecedented inclusion of women in positions of authority within the religious establishment. Their mandate encompasses safeguarding Morocco's religious identity, which includes fostering the role of the monarchy and the practice of Maliki-Sufi Islam as the primary conduits through which Moroccan Islam is delineated, and religious discourse and preaching are disseminated. Drawing on interview data, this article examines expressions of compliant agency as a category that is conducive to the enacting and fashioning of a collective pious identity informed by normative and nationalistic values, while carving individual strategies of gaining voice, and negotiating religious spheres and social narratives through pedagogical and scholarly undertakings. It also highlights the intersection of women's access to religious authority with broader gender reforms, notably the ongoing mudawwana debate, emphasising the convergent empirical formations and pathways within gender activism and its enduring role in consolidating the existing political order, despite seemingly divergent repertoires.
This article traces President Jimmy Carter's evolution in policy regarding the arming of Morocco in the Western Sahara War. His administration was split on getting involved in African conflicts, and it took several foreign policy blunders from 1977 to 1979 for the administration to turn to an aggressive policy in 1980. Drawing on US archival sources - including State Department telegrams, National Security Council memoranda, and intelligence reporting - the article tells how Washington's internal debates converged with North African regional politics. The article argues that Carter's policy reversal late in his term shifted the balance of the conflict by stabilising Morocco's military position against the Polisario Front. By incorporating American archives into North African political history, the article demonstrates how US actions shaped the trajectory of the conflict and contributed to the longevity of Moroccan control over the Sahara. The findings highlight the importance of examining American policy through the regional frameworks in which it operated, offering new insights into the intersection of Maghrebi rivalries and US foreign policy.
This article argues that the late Ottoman Empire pursued imperialist ambitions despite its declining territorial control and increasing economic dependency, by strategically engaging with the Egyptian nationalist party Hizb al-Watani between 1899 and 1918. Challenging portrayals of the empire as a passive or declining actor, it argues that the Ottoman Empire actively projected power beyond its formal borders through ideological alliances, cultural patronage, and transnational propaganda. Drawing on David Ludden's flexible definition of imperialism as a shifting set of practices, the study situates the Ottoman Empire as an adaptive and competitive imperialist agent operating within the global contest of empires. The Ottoman alliance with Hizb al-Watani, the integration of Egyptian students into Ottoman educational and intelligence networks, and the empire's veiled participation in the 1917 Stockholm Peace Conference via proxy Muslim delegates demonstrate how the empire sought to sustain Islamic legitimacy and contest British influence in Egypt. Based on Ottoman and British archival documents, this article contributes to broader debates in global history by reinserting the Ottoman Empire into the historiography of imperialism. Late Ottoman imperialism, though lacking formal colonial administration, involved deliberate strategies to exert influence and achieve tangible political gains abroad.
Revivalism has been a central concern for many Muslim scholars; Allal Al Fassi theorises about it in his book 'Self-Criticism' Ennaqd El Dhati. This article argues that Al Fassi's work outlines a transformative vision that remains relevant for the Muslim ummah in contemporary Muslim societies. He calls for a revolution against traditions that have impacted our Islamic practices and for a reevaluation of Islam away from the influence of economic and political elites who use religion to serve themselves. Intellectuals are the leading players in educating the Ummah and leading it towards revivalism. Thinking is essential in the process, and it should be holistic, encompassing various topics that concern the Ummah, such as religion, politics, economics, society, and education, to produce an inclusive vision that leads the Ummah to development. The main question addressed in this paper is how Al-Fassi frames intellectual reform as a prerequisite for Islamic revival. The paper deploys thematic analysis in Al Fassi's first chapter, 'Issues of Thought,' and analyzes the views he presents therein.
In June 2024, two North African states - Algeria and Tunisia - were among 24 individual cases discussed by the Committee on the Application of Standards (CAS) at the International Labor Organization (ILO). The two countries were targeted for their non-compliance with fundamental ILO conventions on freedom of association and the right to organise. Algeria's government was far less conciliatory than its Tunisian counterpart, contesting key parts of the process. It also privileged loyalist unions. What explains these divergent dynamics? Studies of international human rights pressure would suggest that regime type plays an important role in states' response to international shaming efforts. Yet, both countries were authoritarian at the time. I argue that the countries' divergent trade union histories are key to understanding the countries' responses to ILO shaming. Tunisia's more cohesive and historically stronger trade union movement meant that the Tunisian state would need to confront a more formidable domestic adversary at the CAS. By contrast, trade union fragmentation in Algeria and the country's weaker and less independent trade union confederation meant that the state could marginalise autonomous unions and have more leeway to push back against the ILO. These findings shed light on how authoritarian regimes respond to shaming efforts.
Mark Tessler, who later served ten years as president of AIMS, began his involvement in North Africa with a year of study at the University of Tunis. His study of Islamic and North African Sociology, as well as his extra-curricular experience during this year, introduced him to the issues and concerns that became the focus of his doctoral dissertation. At the same time, his study for a Ph.D. in political science at Northwestern University introduced him to systematic and disciplinary social science research, and this gave him the tools to design and conduct a survey of the social and cultural attitudes of ordinary Tunisians. Tessler describes the conduct of his fieldwork, noting that it was particularly rich because he conducted interviews with respondents himself. The fieldwork for his next major research project was very different with respect to the topic, theoretical framing and fieldwork. The focus of the study was Jews in Tunisia and Morocco and Arab citizens of Israel, and participant observation was the principal methodology of his fieldwork. He describes the dissimilar circumstances of the Tunisian and Moroccan Jewish communities and reports on the differences in the methodology of his fieldwork that this required. He does not discuss his research among Arab citizens of Israel.
