with altogether by dishonest practices, many arising out of the long credit in vogue.
Government.—The Moorish government is a limited autocracy, the theoretically absolute power of the sultan being greatly circumscribed by the religious influences which in a measure support him, and by the official proletariat with which he is surrounded. The central government is known as the maghzen or makhzan (an Arabic word primarily meaning storehouse), a term also applied to the whole administrative body and collectively to the privileged tribes from whose ranks the state officials are recruited. At the head of the administration are wazirs or ministers of state, who possess no power independent of the sultan’s will. The wazirs in general accompany the court, but the minister for foreign affairs is stationed at Tangier. Local administration is directed by the governors of provinces and towns, who are nominated by the wazir ed dakhalāni (minister of the interior). The subordinate town officials are appointed by the governor, and sheiks direct the affairs of the villages. All appointments are practically without pay, office holders being expected to obtain remuneration from “presents,” i.e. bribes and extortion. Attached to the government service are a number of tribes (called maghzen tribes), who furnish the sultan’s body-guard, garrison certain towns, and perform other duties in return for exemption from taxation. There was no regular assessment for taxation, but such organized spoliation as might be required for public or private ends. That part of the empire where the sultan’s authority is supreme is known as blad el-maghzen (government country); those regions where the sultan’s authority is precarious are called blad es-siba (the unsubmissive country).
All the powers are represented in Tangier by diplomatic and consular officials, whose independent jurisdiction over their respective fellow-subjects leads to the frequent confusion of justice. The evidence of non-Mahommedans is not accepted in Moorish courts, where venality reigns, and unprotected Jews suffer constant injustice, besides daily indignities, for which they repay themselves by superior astuteness.
Army.—A half-organized army—service in which is partly hereditary, partly forced—is periodically employed in collecting taxes at sword-point, and in “eating up” the provinces; with it the custom is (or was) for the sultan to go forth to war each summer, spending the winter in one of his capitals. The only approach to a regular army consists of certain hereditary troops furnished by the maghzen tribes, the Bokhārā (black), the Udāīa (mulatto), the Ashragah and Ashrārdah (white), and the Gaish, who form a body of police, Makhhāznīa (mixed), all of whom are horsemen. The infantry (Askārīa) are mostly rough levies; only a small portion being well trained under European officers. No accurate estimate can be formed of the total available forces, and the arms are of every pattern. There is no navy, but the government possesses several small steamers, one or two mounting guns.
Religion.—The religion of Morocco is Islam, the Moors being among the strictest followers of Mahomet. The divisions of the East are unknown, and their tenets include the principal teachings of both Shias and Sunnis, but, as employing the Māleki ritual, they must be classed with the latter. Recognizing their own sultan as Amir el Mu’minin (“Commander of the Faithful”) and Khalifa of God on earth, they acknowledge no other claimant to that position, and have few dealings with the Turks, whom they consider corrupt. They have not yet given way extensively to strong drink.
Missions.—The Franciscans for six and a half centuries did brave work in the country, since the founder of their order offered himself for that task in 1214, and many of them, including several British and Irish missionaries, suffered martyrdom; but they have long abandoned attempts to convert the Moors. The London Jewish Society was established in Mogador in 1875, and since 1883 various Protestant agencies support a considerable number of missionaries, men and women, including doctors and nurses.
Education.—The level of education could hardly be lower, although most males have an opportunity of learning to recite or read the Korān, if not to write. Only traders trouble about arithmetic. Youths who desire to pursue their studies attend colleges in Fez or elsewhere to acquire some knowledge of Mahommedan theology, logic, composition and jurisprudence.
Literature and Travel.—Journalism is entirely foreign, and was introduced in 1883, at the same time as the printing-press, Spanish, French and English newspapers being established in quick succession. The sultan el Hasan III. set up a lithographic establishment in Fez, from which a valuable series of Arabic theological, legal and historical works have been issued, but most noteworthy of all is the publication in Cairo in 1895 of an Arabic history of Morocco, in four volumes, by a native of Salli, Ahmad bin Khalīd en-Nāsiri. A most practical step was taken by the French, on the conclusion of the agreement with Great Britain in 1904, in the establishment of a state-subventioned Mission scientifique au Maroc, which, in addition to establishing at Tangier the only public library in the empire, engaged a number of able students in research work, the results of which are embodied in the periodical publications Archives marocaines (6 vols., 1904–1906) and L’Afrique française.
Other forward steps have been taken in the production of several important volumes on the country and in serious attempts to explore the Atlas. The vicomte de Foucauld attained the first place by his intrepid journeys as a Jew through the forbidden regions and by his Workman-like geographical records; Joseph Thomson did good work in the Great Atlas, though within a limited area; the vicomte de la Martinière excavated some of the Roman remains; Mr Walter B. Harris made a bold journey to Tafīlālt; and the marquis de Segonzac and Louis Gentil added to the knowledge of the Atlas by interesting expeditions.[1] A hydrographic mission under A. H. Dyé also did valuable work (1905–1909). An equally important service was rendered by the compilation by Sir R. Lambert Playfair and Dr Robert Brown of an invaluable Bibliography of Morocco to the end of 1891 (1893), containing over two thousand entries.
History.—The prehistoric antiquities of Morocco are of considerable interest. In the cave at Cape Spartel Tissot found regularly shaped arrow-heads, and in the north of the country he met with dolmens, barrows and cromlechs, just as in Algeria or Tunisia. The dolmens usually form a trapezium, and the body seems to have been buried with the knees drawn up to the chin. At Mʽzōrah, a quaint little village of widely-scattered houses built of rough blocks of yellow soft sandstone, about 8 or 10 m. south-east from Azīlā, stands a group of megalithic monuments of some interest. They have been visited and described by many travellers, but Watson’s account is the most detailed. Round the base of a mound (15 ft. high) of yellow sandstone lies a circle of sixty-seven large stones, one of which (at the west side) is more than 20 ft. high. In the vicinity are several other groups, some of still larger blocks. Roman roads (see Africa, Roman) seem to have run from Tangier southwards to the neighbourhood of Mequinez (Miknāsa), and from Azila to the south of Rabat; and Roman sites are in several instances marked by considerable remains of masonry. At Kaṣar Farāʽon (Pharaoh’s Castle), on the western slope of J. Zarhōn, are the ruins of Volubilis. The enceinte, constructed of large stones and flanked by round towers, is 12,000 ft. in extent. Four gates are still recognizable, and a triumphal arch erected in A.D. 216 in honour of Caracalla and Julia Domna. The stones of this site have been used for Mequinez Miknās. Banasa (Colonia Aelia, originally Valentia) is identified with the ruins of Sidi Ali Bū Jenun, and Thamusida with those of Sidi Ali b. Hamed. At Shammish, up the river from Laraish, the city of Lixus (Trinx of Strabo) has splendid specimens of Punic and Roman stonework, and the similar remains on the headland of Mūlaī Bū Selham probably belong to the Mudelacha of Polybius. Of early Moorish architecture good examples are comparatively few and badly preserved. Besides those in Fās, Miknās, and Marrākesh, it is sufficient to mention the mausoleum of the Benī-Marīn (13th to 16th centuries) at Shella, which, with the adjoining mosque, is roofless and ruined, but possesses a number of funeral inscriptions.
The earliest records touching on Morocco are those of Hanno’s Periplus, which mentions that Carthaginian colonies were planted along the coast. The savage and inhospitable tribes with whom they came in contact included cave-dwellers; but megalithic remains point to a yet earlier race. It is not till the last century B.C. that Moroccan Berbers are found supplying troops to Pompey or Sertorius, and later, under Augustus, becoming themselves incorporated in the Roman province of Mauretania (q.v., and also Africa, Roman). But the Roman province reached only to the Bū Ragrāg, on which Sala, now Salli, was its outpost; Volubilis, near Mequinez, being its principal, if not its only, inland city. In the fifth century A.D. the country became subject to the Vandals and, about 618, to the Goths.
- ↑ Gentil, in La Géographie, No. 3 (1908), describes the Siroua region, which, N.N.W. of Tikirt, connects the Anti Atlas and the High Atlas. The Siroua volcano compares with the finest volcanoes of Europe.
