Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-nwzlb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T12:40:15.272Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The revolution of Fās in 869/1465 and the death of Sultan ‘Abd al-ḥaqq al-Marīnī

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

If our present knowledge of the history of the Muslim Maghrib is in general unsatisfactory, few periods remain as obscure as the fifteenth century.

The extant sources are very scarce. Contemporary Maghribī historical writings are practically non-existent and, with few exceptions, this is still an epoch for which Christian chronicles are not yet really relevant. Only fragmentary and partial information can be extracted from the contemporary Spanish and Portuguese documents. Therefore, we have to rely for our knowledge on the so-called manāqib literature or hagiographic dictionaries which proliferated in Morocco during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These volumes—many of which were lithographed in Fās during the nineteenth century—cannot be considered a first-rate source. They are posterior to the period dealt with and appear as versions of a traditional history composed over the years by agglomeration, repetition, and revision from a series of original stories which may be doubtful, even though they are hallowed by time and usage, and fortified by the weight of respectability. Committed to writing, they have acquired the seal of authority and have seldom been challenged.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1978

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Terrasse, H., Histoire du Maroc, II, Casablanca, 1950, 94.Google Scholar

2 Ricard, R., Études pour l'histoire des Portugais an Maroc, Coimbra, 1955, 3.Google Scholar The Sources Inédites pour l'Histoire du Maroc, so important for later periods, only begin with the Sa'dīd dynasty.

3 Basset, H., Essai sur la littérature des Berbères, Argel, 1920, 273Google Scholar; Lévi-Provençal, E., La Historiens des Chorfa, Paris, 1922, 44 ff.Google Scholar

4 Cour, A., La dynastie marocaine des Beni Ouattas (1420–1554), Constantine, 1920, 4459Google Scholar; Terrasse, , op. cit., II, 94 ff.Google Scholar

5 Ceuta in 1415, Ksar al-Seguir in 1458, Anfa in 1462, Tangier in 1464. Cf. Terrasse, , op. cit., II, 109Google Scholar; Ricard, , op. cit., 6 ff., 42 ff.Google Scholar

6 Trimingham, J. S., The Sufi orders in Islam, Oxford, 1971, 84.Google Scholar

7 Founded around 864–64/1450–60 by Abū 'l-'Abbās Aḥmad ibn 'Arūs; Trimingham, , op. cit., 87Google Scholar; Brunschvig, R., La Berbérie orientate sous les Hafsides, Paris, 1940, II, 341 ff.Google Scholar

8 Terrasse, , op. cit., II, 145Google Scholar; Archives Marocaines, XIX, 1913, 275–91Google Scholar; Trimingham, , op. cit., 84–6.Google Scholar

9 Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Fāsī, Kitāb mumti' al-asmā', Fās, 1305/1887–8. The most popular work of al-Jazūli is a series of eulogies in honour of the Prophet and his household.

10 Equivalent, in Morocco, of naqīb. Arabicized form of the Berber amzwār ‘he who precedes, he who is placed at the head’, designates the chief of a religious brotherhood or of a body of shurafā'. Cf. Lévi-Provençal, E., ‘Mizwar’, EI, first ed.Google Scholar; Montagne, B., Les Berbères et le Makhzen dans le Sud du Maroc, Paris, 1930, 222.Google Scholar

11 Salmon, G., ‘Le culte de Muley Idrîs et la Mosquée des Chorfa à Fès’, Archives Marocaines, III, 3, 1905, 415.Google Scholar

12 Hirschberg, H. Z., A history of the Jews in North Africa, second ed., Leiden, 1974, 390.Google Scholar

13 Corcos, D., ‘Lea juifs du Maroc et leurs Mellahs’, in Hirschberg, H. Z. (ed.), Mélanges Abraham Elmaleh, Jerusalem, 1972, p. XX ff.Google Scholar; Tourneau, R. Le, Fes in the age of the Marinids, Norman, Oklahoma, 1961, 16.Google ScholarTerrasse, , op. cit., II, 93Google Scholar, places the transfer to the Mellāḥ at the time of the foundation of Fās Jadīd in the reign of Abū Yūsuf Ya'qūb. Leo Africanus places the event under Abū Sa'īd ‘Uthmān III (800–23/1398–1421) and is followed by Massignon, L., Le Maroc dans les premières années du XVIe siècle, Alger, 1906, 227.Google Scholar

14 Slousch, N., ‘Études sur l'histoire des juifs au Maroc’, Archives Marocaines, VI, 1 –2, 1905, 147.Google Scholar

15 This story can be found in many modern authors, mainly: Cour, A., op. cit., 44 ff.Google Scholar; Terrasse, , op. cit., II, 94 ff.Google Scholar; Massignon, , op. cit., 158Google Scholar; Slousch, , art. cit., 148Google Scholar; Corcos, , art. cit., p. XXIVGoogle Scholar, and ‘The Jews of Morocco under the Marinids’, Jewish Quarterly Review, LIV, 4, 1964, 271 ff.Google Scholar; Hirschberg, , op. cit., 391 ff.Google Scholar; Lopes, D., Arcila e o dominio portugues, Coimbra, 1924, 26 ff.Google Scholar

16 Brunschvig, R., Deux récits de voyages inédite en Afrique du Nord au XVe siècle, Paris, 1936, 6ff.Google Scholar

17 The riḥla of 'Abd al-Bāsiṭ ibn Khalīl is entitled al-Bawḍ al-bāsim fī hawādith al-'umr wa 'l-tarājim. Cf. Vida, Levi Della, ‘Une nouvelle source pour l'histoire de l'Afrique du Nord à la fin du XVe siècle’, Hespéris, XIX, 1934, 198–9.Google Scholar Ed. and tr. in Brunschvig, Deux récite, text, 48–55, tr., 113–21. Cf. also Hirschberg, , op. cit., tr., 393–9.Google Scholar

18 This is the only source to mention a fourth, puppet-like Waṭṭāsid vizier.

19 Baṭas/Baṭash is a surname of Hispano-Arabic origin. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Moshe Aben Batash was one of the leaders of the Hispano-Portuguese Jews at Fās. Cf. Corcos, , ‘Réflexions sur l'onomastique judéo-nord-Africaine’, in his Studies in the history of the Jews of Morocco, Jerusalem, 1976, 13Google Scholar; Eisenbeth, M., Lea juifs de l'Afrique du Nord (démo-graphie et onomastigue), Alger, 1936, 92.Google Scholar

20 Hirschberg, , op. cit., 394.Google Scholar

21 ‘Abd al-Bāsit insists in three different places that Hārūn never wanted to become a convert.

22 In the Moroccan sources he is called Abū Fāris ‘Abd al-'Azīz ibn Mūsā al-Waryāghilī (see below), with the exception of Ibn ‘Askar who calls him Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh al-Waryā-ghilī. Cf. Dawḥat al-nāshir, tr. Graulle, A., Archives Marocaines, xix, 1913, 5863.Google Scholar

22 Sūra, xxii, 28.Google Scholar Cf. Hirschberg, , op. cit., 396.Google Scholar

23 Hirschberg, , op. cit., 397.Google Scholar

25 lākin idhā naztda al-qaḍā' ‘amiya dl-basar; Branschvig, Deux récite, 54.Google Scholar

26 wa-kāna ra'yan fāsidan li-ghalabat al-qaḍā' wa 'l-qadar wa-farāgh ajl ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq wa-ḥuḍūr maniyyatihi; ibid.

27 Hirschberg, , op. cit., 298.Google Scholar

28 To the point that Hirschberg considers it difficult to see more than ‘the double-faced attitude of the superintendent of the shurafā', who wished to profit by the incitement without running any risk’, op. cit., 393.

29 Bābā, Aḥmad, Nayl al-ibtihāj, Cairo, 1351/1932, 318–20Google Scholar; al-Qādī, Ibn, Durrat al-ḥijāl, ed. Allouche, , Rabāt, 1936, I, 299Google Scholar; Jadwā, al-iqtibās, Fās, 1303/1891, 203Google Scholar; al-Kittāni, , Salwā al-anfās, Fās, 1316/1898, II, 116Google Scholar; al-Nāṣirī, , Kitāb al-istiqṣā’, second ed., Casablanca, 1956, II, 101.Google Scholar

30 cf. Deux récits, p. 120, n. 1.Google Scholar

31 Lapidus, I., Muslim cities in the later Middle Ages, Cambridge, Mass., 1967, 153–64.Google Scholar

32 Lapidus, , op. cit., 137–77.Google Scholar Cf. also Brinner, ‘Ḥarfū ’, EI, second ed.

33 Tunis, 1878, 140–1, and tr. E. Fagnan, Constantine, 1895, 258–60.

34 qāma bi-madīnat Fās mizwar al-shurafā' bi-hā … 'alā al-sulṭān 'Abd al-Ḥaqq.

35 Tangier was already Portuguese in 1464.

36 Fagnan, , op. cit., 258.Google Scholar

37 Bodleian, Uri. 785. Tr. Fagnan, Extraits inédits relatifs au Maghreb, Alger, 1924, 312–14.Google Scholar

38 cf. Brockelmann, , GAL, Suppl., II, 411.Google Scholar

39 Brunschvig, , La Bérberie orientale, I, p. xxxi.Google Scholar

40 Lévi-Proven¸al, , Historiens des Chorfa, 100 ff.Google Scholar

41 cf. ed. Allouohe, , Rabāt, 1936.Google Scholar

42 In his subsequent book Jadwā al-iqtibās (Fās, 1303/1891), a dictionary of worthy persons of Fās, Ibn al-Qāḍī does not add anything new to the Durra concerning the revolution but includes biographical notes (see below) on the people involved. Finally, in his historical urjūza entitled Durrat al-sulūk (Rabat, MS 372) he dedicates four verses to the short reign of the mizwar al-shurafā’ Muḥammad ibn ‘Imrān (869–76/1465–71).

43 Corcos, , ‘Les juifs du Maroc et leurs Mellahs’, p. XXIV.Google Scholar

44 ‘Abd al-Salām al-Qādirī lived from 1058/1648 to 1110/1698. Cf. Lévi-Provençal, , op. cit., 276.Google Scholar

45 Durra, II, 391 ff.Google Scholar; Jadwā, 474.Google Scholar

46 The ed. of Allouche says lḥsīn but, as will be seen from later texts, this is obviously an error of reading or of copying.

47 Al-Durr al-sanī, Fās, 1309/1891, 23–4.Google Scholar Cf. Salmon, G., ‘Les Chorfa idrisides de Fès d'après Ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib al-Qâdiry’, Archives Marocaines, I, 3, 1904, 439.Google Scholar

48 Fās, 1310/1892–3, 124 ff. Tr. Graulle, A., Archives Marocaines, XXI, 1913, 270–1.Google Scholar

49 Mainly Cour, op. cit., and Terrasse, , op. cit.Google Scholar

50 Santiago, , 1878.Google Scholar

51 Kitāb al-istiqṣaā' 90100.Google Scholar Tr. Hamet, I., Archives Marocaines, XXXIII, 1934, 468–76.Google Scholar

52 Kitāb al-istiqṣā', 98.Google Scholar

53 Fès avant le protectorat, Casablanca, 1948, 220.Google Scholar

54 De viris quibusdam illustribus apud Arabes, libellus Johannis Leonis, Africani (Fabricius, J. A. (ed.), Bibliotheca Graeca, XIII), Hamburg, 1726, 298.Google Scholar

55 Senton, with Sentó or Sinton, Spanish form of Shem Tov. Usual among the Moroccan families descending from the Megorashim, Spanish Jews who emigrated to Morocco. Cf. Corcos, , Studies, 196, no. 278Google Scholar; Eisenbeth, , Les juifs de l'Afrique du Nord, 172.Google ScholarHamet, I., ‘Les juifs du Nord de l'Afrique (noms et surnoms)’, Académie des Sciences Coloniales. Comptes Rendus des Séances, Communications (Alger), X, 1928, 202.Google Scholar

56 Nayl al-ibtihāj, Cairo, 1932, 182.Google Scholar

57 op. oit., II, 376.

58 op. oit., II, 56.

59 op. cit., II, 80–1.

60 op. cit., 99.

61 op. cit., 100.

62 In al-Andalus, , ghandūrGoogle Scholar is ‘a young man of low social class who pretends elegance, is fond of women, lives without working, and easily takes up arms’. (This is very close also to Dozy's definition.) In Spanish, this term has given gandul: ‘lazy, good-for-nothing’. In the fifteenth century it also meant ‘rebel, mutinous’ and was applied to those in revolt or war against the government: Corominas, J., Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, Madrid, 1964.Google Scholar

63 cf. Wehr, Lane.

64 ‘Askar, Ibn, Dawḥa, 38Google Scholar, tr. Graulle, , Archives Marocaines, XIX, 1913, 8993Google Scholar; Bābā, Aḥmad, Nayl, 71Google Scholar; al-Kittānī, , Salwā, III, 183Google Scholar; al-Qādī, Ibn, Jadwā, 64Google Scholar. On his legends and miracles, see Archives Berbères, I, 19151916, 293ff.Google Scholar; Weir, T. H., The Shaykhs of Morocco in the XVIth century, Edinburgh, 1904, 177 ffGoogle Scholar. Especially for the biography and catalogue of his works, see Khusaim, A. F., Zarrūg the Sūfī, Tripoli, 1976.Google Scholar

65 al-Fāsī, Muḥammad al-Mahdi, Tuḥfat ahl al-ṣadīqiyya bi-asānīd al-ṭā'ifa al-jazūliyya wa 'l-zarrūqiyyaGoogle Scholar. Cf. Ibn, ‘Askar, op. oit., 254Google Scholar; Cour, , La dynastie … des Beni Ouattas, 65.Google Scholar

66 Khusaim, , op. cit., 97Google Scholar; Trimingham, , Sufi orders, 87.Google Scholar

67 Akhadha bi-madīnat Fās ‘an al-imām Abī 'Abd Allāh Muḥammad al-Qawrī: al-Qāḍī, Ibn, Jadwā, 64Google Scholar; Khusaim, , op. cit., 14.Google Scholar

68 Brockelmann, , GAL, Suppl., II, 360Google Scholar; Khusaim, op. cit.

69 Khusaim, , op. cit., 57.Google Scholar

70 Aḥmad Bābā, , op. cit., 182.Google Scholar

71 Al-Kittānā, , op. cit., II, 80Google Scholar; Basset, R., ‘Recherches bibliographiques sur les sources de la Salouat al-anfās’, Recueil de mémoires et de textes publié en l'honneur du XIV Congrès des Orientalistes, Alger, 1905, 31.Google Scholar

72 Lévi-Provençal, , op. cit., 397.Google Scholar

73 Unfortunately the reference (Khusaim, , op. cit., 57)Google Scholar to a MS copy in the British Museum is either incomplete or inexact, and despite the help of the staff of the Oriental Department I have not been able to find any trace of the work.

74 Khusaim, , op. cit., 15.Google Scholar

75 ibid., 16.

76 Zarrūq himself gives the explanation that he divulged a secret of his Ṣūfī master al-Zaytūnī who sent him away to pray in penitence (Khusaim, , op. cit., 14)Google Scholar. Ibn 'Askar (loc. cit.) gives a more legendary explanation, also related to al-Zaytūnī.

77 Khusaim, , op. cit., 17.Google Scholar

78 Khusaim, , op. cit., 23.Google Scholar

79 It could imply that al-Qawrī, being like Zarrūq opposed to the rebels, was used by them in their account, transmitted by 'Abd al-Bāsiṭ, as the legalizer, even forced, of the rebellion in the same way that Zarrūq was accused of being a Jew.

80 'Abd al-Salām al-Qādirī quotes al-Wansharīshī as his source for the events of 1465. Al-Wansharīshī is also the author of a work entitled Wafayā (cf. Lévi-Provençal, , op. cit., 394)Google Scholar one of the sources of the Nashr al-mathāanī. Al-Kitt¯nī says that he gets part of his information on al-Wary¯ghilī from ‘the fahrasa of the author of al-Mi'yār’.

81 Al-Nāṣirī, , op. cit., 101.Google Scholar

82 waliya al-khaṭāba ba'dahu Abū Fārts ‘Abd al-'Azīz al-Waryāghilī. Cf. Aḥmad Bābā, , Nayl, 157Google Scholar; al-Qāḍī, Ibn, Jadwā, 238.Google Scholar

83 al-Wansharīshī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā, al-Mi'yār al-mu'rib, Fās, 1314–15/18961897, II, 202–3.Google Scholar

84 Al-Kittānī, , al-Azhār al-'āṭira, Fās, 1314/1896Google Scholar, tr. Salmon, , ‘Le culte de Muley Idrîs et la Mosqnée des Chorfa à Fès’, Archives Marocaines, III, 3, 1905, 413–29.Google Scholar

85 ‘The crowd returned to Fās and paid homage to the sayyid sharīf Muḥammad ibn ‘Imrān as their lawful ruler, thanked him by the bay'a, and made him king. When this became known to the Bānū Waṭṭās they wanted to return to Fās and enter the city, but the people of Fās prevented them from doing so. The sharif wished to remain king and he convened members of the two factions, the royal Banū Marīn and the vizieral Banū Waṭṭās. And there was disagreement between the people of Fās and those outside the city’; of. Hirschberg, , op. cit., 398.Google Scholar

86 Al-Kittānī, , Salwā, III, 314.Google Scholar

87 The sources quoted by each author in the Moroccan tradition are as follows.

Aḥmad Bābā: Aḥmad Zarrūq.

Ibn al-Qāḍī: Aḥmad Zarrūq and Aḥmad Bābā.

‘Abd al-Salām al-Qādirī: al-Wansharīshī.

Muḥammad al-Qādirī: al-Wansharīshī (Wafayā), Aḥmad Bābā, Ibn al-Qāḍī, ‘Abd al-Salām al-Qādirī.

Al-Nāṣirī: Aḥmad Zarrūq and/or Aḥmad Bābā, Muḥammad al-Qādirī, al-Wansharīshī (al-Mi'yār), Ibn al-Qādi, M. Castellanos.

Al-Kittāni: al-Wansharīshī (al-Mi'yār), Aḥmad Zarrūq, Aḥmad Bābā, Ibn al-Qāḍī, Muḥammad al-Qādirī.

88 Rabāt, Collection K.270.

89 Muhājir is the surname given to islamizedxs Jews up to the seventeenth century. Jews emigrating from Spain (there were never Jews of Spanish origin among them) called them tornados or tornadizos, a Spanish term designating those who change their faith. The word was later corrupted into toornadis: ‘(In Fās) the families of apostate Jews are exceedingly numerous and are called toornadis. Not having at any time married with the Moors they still preserve their ancient characteristics and are known almost at sight to be the progeny of those who formerly embraced the Mahometan religion…. The Moors hold them not in the least respect and the Jews still less, had they power freely to make their aversion known’ (de Chenier, L., The present state of the empire of Morocco, reprint of 1788 ed., 1, 156)Google Scholar. The members of this minority were latterly called Bildiyyīn, a term still used today (Le Tourneau, R., Fès avant le protectorat, 205, 491).Google Scholar

90 Le Tourneau, , op. cit., 491Google Scholar. He confirms Chenier's saying (see above) that they only married, and marry, between themselves. Contrary to Chenier, , Corcos, (‘The Jews of Morocco under the Marinids’, JQR, LV, 1, 1964, 64)Google Scholar affirms that ‘usually converts to Islam always maintained excellent relations with their former co-religionists’.

91 Information about the Muhājirīn is to be found mainly in Corcos, , JQR, LV, 1, 1964, 5765Google Scholar, briefly in Le Tourneau, op. cit., and in Massignon, L., ‘Enquête sur les corporations musulmanes d'artisans et de commerçants au Maroc’, Revue du Monde Musulman, LVIII, 1924, 151–2.Google Scholar

92 Dhikr, 467–71.Google Scholar

93 In 674/1276 there was an important massacre of Jews in Fās that Abū Yūsuf himself stopped. Cf. al-Dhakhīra al-saniyya, ed. Cheneb, M. Ben, Alger, 1921, 186Google Scholar; Corcos, , art. cit., 58.Google Scholar

94 Dhikr, 472.Google Scholar

95 From 1438 the Qaysariyya, which was part of the sacred enclosure that surrounded Mawlāy Idrīa's sanctuary, was forbidden to non-Muslims. It was the most important place of the town for commercial matters, mainly because the shurafā' had their business there: Le Tourneau, , Fès avant le protectorat, 374Google Scholar; idem, Fes in the age of the Marinids, 1921.Google Scholar

96 Massignon, as appendix to his article above quoted, summarizes (cf. 221–4) a MS Rabāṭ 505.I, whose title he does not mention and whose content seems to be exactly the same as the Dhikr qiṣṣa. For the qā'id al-shurṭa, Massignon reads Yahsub instead of Ḥusayn.

97 Dhikr, 472.Google Scholar

98 Dhikr, 473.Google Scholar

99 The other merchants in the Qaysariyya, mainly shurafā', did not have to pay any market dues or tax. Cf. Le Tourneau, , Fès avant le protectorat, 473.Google Scholar

100 Dhikr, 474.Google Scholar

101 Nothing, either, in the compilations of responsa of the rabbis who emigrated to Fās in the second half of the fifteenth century: of. Bazak, Yacob, Mishpaṭ we-halakhah. Mebaḥer teshūbot, Tel Aviv, 1971Google Scholar; Assaf, Simha, Meqōrōt le-tōledōt ha-ḥinukh be-Yisrael, Tel Aviv, 1954–7.Google Scholar

102 Semach, Y., ‘Une chronique juive de Fes: la “Yahas Fès” de Ribbi Abner Hassarfaty’, Hespéris, XIX, 1934, 91–2.Google Scholar

103 The same description appears in Toledano, J., Ner ha-Ma'arab, Jerusalem, 1911, 46.Google Scholar Also Kayserling, M., ‘Une persécution des juives à Fez’, Revue des Études Juives, XXXIX, 78, 1899, 315–17.Google Scholar

104 ed. Wiener, 64.

105 Hirschberg, , A history of the Jews in North Africa, 399.Google Scholar

106 ‘(The king) set a Jew named Hārūn over the city as deputy. And the Jews became proud and they transgressed laws and contravened precepts and did deeds that ought not to be done, and some of them took a Gentile married woman and beat her cruelly, and she screamed and begged for mercy and they did not listen to her, and they went on beating her so that the Gentiles assembled and wreaked death and destruction upon the Jews until they had killed all the males except those who changed their religion …’; Hirschberg, , op. cit., 400.Google Scholar

107 de Zurara, G. Eanes, Chronica do Conde Dom Pedro de Meneses, 483–94Google Scholar, Chronica de Dom Dvarte de Menses, 95–7Google Scholar (da Serra, J. Correa (ed.), Cottecçāo de livros ineditos de historia portugiieza, II, XXXV), Lisboa, 1790.Google Scholar This corroborates the fact of the Waṭṭāsid viziers having ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq absolutely at their mercy, away from the affairs of the kingdom, not only without any personal power ‘but still happy at awaking alive in the mornings’. Cf. also Ricard, R., Études sur l'histoire des Portugais au Maroc, 5 ff.Google Scholar

108 Only a document of the following century (June 1545) mentions briefly ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq's death: ‘… que bem sse sabe quantas vezes neste rreyno (Fes) despuserão rreys e ffizerão outros novos e de barro, a saber, tall que nenhuum sangue reall tynha, e isto por muy pequenas causas, que huum rrey despuserão e o matarão e ffizerão outro porque tynha dos judeus seus privados por quem hera governado’; Sources Inédites, Portugal, III, 426.

109 Africanus, Leo, Historiale description de l'Afrique, tr. Temporal, J., Lyon, 1556, 196.Google Scholar

110 Africanus, Leo, op. cit., 200.Google Scholar

111 Carvajal, L. Marmol, Descriptión general de África, Granada, 1573, I, 226.Google Scholar

112 Bernaldez, A., Historia, de los Beyes Católicos (Biblioteoa de Autores Españoles, LXX), Madrid, 1878, 655.Google Scholar

113 Castellanos, M., Historia de Marruecos, third ed., Tangier, 1898, 306.Google Scholar

114 Later European travellers and authors still have the same account, e.g. Chenier, , op. cit., II, 50.Google Scholar

115 Abū Ya'qūb Yūsuf (686–706/1286–1307) had as vizier and personal adviser a member of the famous Jewish family called Waqqāsa or Roqqāsa, bankers and merchants in Fās. Abū Ya'qūb was involved in what probably was a very costly struggle against Tlemcen, and needed financial aid and advice from his Jewish collaborators (cf. Corcos, , JQR, LV, 1, 1964, 65 ff.).Google Scholar Another Jew was appointed minister at the court of Abū ‘Inān (752–9/1352–8) (cf. Batrān, A. A., ‘A contribution to the biography of Shaikh Muḥammad ibu ‘Abd al-Karīm ibn Muḥammad al-Maghīlī al-Tilimsānī’, Journal of African History, XIV, 3, 1973, 385).Google Scholar

116 Dozy, , Histoire des musulmans d'Espagne, nouv. éd. revue et mise à jour par E. Lévi-Provençal, Leiden, 1932, III, 70 ff.Google Scholar

117 Norris, H. T., Saharan myth and saga, Oxford, 1972, 48 ff., 99 ff.Google Scholar

118 Mojuetan, B. A., ‘Myth and legend as functional instruments in politics: the establishment of the ‘Alawi dynasty in Morocco’, Journal of African History, XVI, 1, 1975, 1727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

119 Hirschberg, H. Z., ‘The problem of the judaized Berbers’, Journal of African History, IV, 3, 1963, 329.Google Scholar

120 Mojuetan, art. cit.

121 The first example of this theme is to be found in the Sīra (II, 48)Google Scholar: the Jewish tribe of the Banū Qaynuqā' was expelled by Muḥammad because of events whose origin was the mistreating of a Muslim woman by some members of the tribe. In Morocco, in 674/1276, the Muslims accused a Jew of improper conduct towards a Muslim woman. They killed him and began a massacre of his co-religionists that the sultan Abū Ya'qūb himself stopped (cf. al-Dhakhīra al-saniyya, 186).Google Scholar A similar episode is mentioned as the cause for the foundation of the Mellāḥs of Marrākush and Rabāṭ (Corcos, , ‘Les juifs du Maroc et leur Mellah’, pp. xxi, lii).Google Scholar

122 To the point of becoming the subject of al-Maghīlī's persecution (see below).

123 ‘Askar, Ibn, Dawḥat al-nāshir, tr. Graulle, 224Google Scholar: ff.; Aḥmad Bābā, , Nayl, 330 ff.Google Scholar; Cherbonneau, M. A., Esaai sur la littérature arabe au Sudan, Constantine, 1855, 392 ff.Google Scholar; Weir, , The Shaykhs of Morocco, 6 ff.Google Scholar; Hirschberg, , JAH, IV, 3, 1963, 325.Google Scholar Especially, Batrān, , JAH, XIV, 3, 1973.Google Scholar

124 ‘In North Africa, where he spent most of his life, al-Maghīlī was witness to the Christian conquest along the coast of Morocco, to the loss of Andalusia to Islam and, as he himself attested, to the growing authority of the Jews within the Muslim states in Ifrīqiya and the Maghrib. This situation aroused the opposition and fanaticism of a considerable section of zealous Maghribian ‘ulamā’ especially those of the Jazūliyya ṭarīqa who challenged and inveighed against the weak and accommodating Waṭṭāsid authorities'; Batrān, , art. cit., 393.Google Scholar

125 Cour, , La dynastie marocaine des Banu Owtttas, 62.Google Scholar

126 Ibn ‘Askar places it in 868/1464, Aḥmad Bābā and Aḥmad Zarrūq (his contemporary) in 869/1465, Ibn al-Qāḍī in 874/1470. Of. Ibn ‘Askar, Dawḥa, 285.Google Scholar

127 Cour, , op. cit., 63.Google Scholar

128 ibid.

129 Some years later (930/1523) the sharīfian Sa'did dynasty came to power through reliance upon the followers of al-Jazūlī, and one of the first acts of Aḥmad al-A'raj was to have his father buried beside the tomb of al-Jazūlī. Later, in 935/1529, he had both bodies transferred to Marrākush to consecrate the new dynastic connexion with the city but also to legitimize their own sharīfian pedigree (cf. Archives Marocaines, XIX, 1913, 288).Google Scholar

130 See mainly de Cenival, P., ‘La légende du juif Ibn Mech'al et la fête du Sultan des Tolba à Fès’, Hespéris, V, 2, 1925, 137218.Google Scholar

131 Mojuetan, art. cit.

132 Frazer, J. G., The golden bough. Pt. III. The dying god, London, 1911, 152.Google Scholar