Four buried letters on Bayt al,Maghrib in Cairo

Abstract

Cairo’s Bayt al,Maghrib is considered the first official organized Moroccan cultural organization outside the country in its modern history. It was founded as part of a policy of sending academic delegations abroad inaugurated by Sultan Moulay Hasan at the end of the nineteenth century. Spain – of which Morocco was then a protectorate – assisted in its founding because of its need to support and end the isolation of Arab states. However, Bayt al,Maghrib was to transform into a wellspring of nationalist agitation led by a group of Moroccan students who would later play a part in the national movement. Documents from the Barilla archive shed light on the importance of this institution, how it was funded, and the aims that lay behind its founding, as well as the Spanish spies who kept watch over Moroccan students’ activities there, providing detailed reports of their movements, inclinations, and contacts with Egyptian and non,Egyptian personalities. These reports also give indications of the poor administration of the organization and the difficulties this caused for Moroccan students.