Religiosity and Outward Appearance in the Moroccan Student Community: A Sociological Approach

Abstract

External appearance in Moroccan society until the end of the nineteenth century was largely associated with local culture, geographic region, or social group practicing a specific profession or craft. At the beginning of the twentieth century, manifestations of modernity spread along with the entrance of European colonialism. Traditional dress began gradually to fall back until the 1980s when political Islam emerged and began to rise bringing with it a culture that met with the approval of an educated sector of Moroccan society on the grounds that it was a form of resistance to the alienation of the West. This atavistic trend demands a special reading (a sociological approach) that examines the extent of the effect of diversity and variety in external appearance on the forms of public behavior of civil groups, to reveal those mechanisms and the extent of their links with culture and religiosity.