French Islamic School Alumni Associations and the Moroccan National Movement (1921-1956)

Abstract

Islamic Alumni Associations have been little discussed in Moroccan historiography, either because of a scarcity of sources or because writers have been interested more in events and political institutions than associational organizations. Even the pioneers of the national movement who witnessed French colonization and participated in the development of the national movement only mentioned this topic in passing, in reference to particular historical events, with the exception of Muhammad Hassan al-Wazzani, whose memoir Life and Jihad dedicates many pages to these associations. This is the problematic the study sets off to address, seeking to highlight the role played by associations of alumni of Francophone Moroccan Islamic educational institutions in the nationalist movement. These associations formed a mechanism for recruitment and organization of the Moroccan elite. It also shows the importance of associational practice in colonial Morocco, despite the embryonic nature of these associations in society, indicating the emergence of a modern civil society of institutions seeming to compensate for those that had characterized Moroccan life for much of its history. It then asks how associational activity emerged in Morocco and how it was used by Moroccans to serve the national movement.