Boudhane: Why political Islam cannot succeed in Morocco?

It is misleading to speak of a decline in political Islam in Morocco based on the crushing defeat suffered in the September 8, 2021, elections by the party that claims this ideology, namely the PJD (Justice and Development Party). To claim that political Islam suffered a setback through the fall of this party, the movement would first have had to achieve success and progress in its Islamist political project—reflecting the success and advancement of political Islam in Morocco—before the September 8, 2021, ballot pushed it into the background, signaling the retreat and defeat of the political Islam inherent to the PJD. Yet throughout its ten years at the head of government, this party never once implemented the Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamist political project it championed and defended while in opposition. This is why we did not perceive the slightest trace of change during the PJD’s two terms leading the executive branch that would signal a genuine Islamic political government—such as mandatory veiling, the prohibition of mixed-gender spaces, the banning of the production, import, and sale of alcohol, the abolition of interest-bearing bank loans, the crackdown on what political Islam considers manifestations of moral depravation such as dance parties and concerts, or the amendment of the penal code to replace current positive sanctions with the application of Koranic punishments (hudud)… and so on, akin to the manifestations of political Islam observed, for example, in Iran, Saudi Arabia, or Taliban-led Afghanistan. The religious behavior of Moroccans remained unchanged before and after the PJD’s rise to power; they practice their Islam with complete freedom as if living in a secular state. Where then could this political Islam embodying “divine law” (shar’ Allah), which the PJD promised to enforce if it gained the levers of government power, possibly have vanished?

A political Islam without a state:

To fully grasp the issue at the heart of this analysis, it is worth remembering that political Islam is, by its very essence, a state project. This is why we see various Islamist splinter groups carrying political projects of the same movement striving to access the state—and not merely the government—and to seize it in order to implement their program, in accordance with the principle “Islam is the solution,” as observed in Al-Qaida, the Islamic State, and the Taliban. One could concede that the PJD agreed to head the government as a first step facilitating its transition to the phase of “power and consolidation” (hukm wa tamkin), meaning the stage of the state. But why did it fail to reach power, that is, the state?

To answer this question, it is useful to recall the experiences of political Islam in Algeria and Egypt. Why did the Algerian army intervene in January 1992 to annul the results of the legislative elections overwhelmingly won, in the name of political Islam, by the Islamic Salvation Front, before permanently dissolving the latter in March of the same year—a move that directly triggered a violent and destructive civil war lasting over a decade? Because the overwhelming triumph of the Islamic Salvation Front in the legislative elections meant, within the framework of the Algerian political system, its imminent propensity to seize not only the government, but the state, and to control its coercive apparatuses—the army, intelligence services, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary—in order to use them to impose political Islam. Consequently, the only solution to prevent the Front from seizing the state in the name of political Islam through democratic channels, since the ballot box had empowered it to do so, was to cast aside democratic rules by resorting to military intervention. What frightened the officials who decided to annul the Front’s victory and then dissolve it the most was not merely the Islamist extremism that might have characterized its governance, but the prospect of being prosecuted and judged by the new Islamic state on the charge of failing to apply “divine law.”

And why did the army also intervene in Egypt on July 3, 2013, to stage a coup against Muslim Brotherhood-backed president Mohammed Mernissi (who passed away on June 17, 2019) and oust him from his functions as head of state? Because the victory of Mohammed Mernissi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, in the presidential election meant the victory of political Islam in its conquest not just of the government, but of the state, and in its takeover of its coercive apparatuses—the army, intelligence services, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary—to employ them to impose political Islam, as we saw in the Algerian case. Therefore, no means existed to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from seizing the state in Egypt in the name of political Islam, even through democratic channels once the ballot box had qualified them to do so, other than violating that very democratic path through recourse to military intervention.

And why did the regime in Morocco have no need to trample on democratic rules to deprive the PJD of the fruits of its victory in the 2011 and 2016 elections—unlike what happened in Algeria and Egypt—to prevent political Islam from seizing the state? Quite simply because the PJD, even if it were to win an absolute majority in all local, regional, and legislative elections, could not seize the state to rule, in the name of political Islam, over its coercive machinery—the army, intelligence services, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary. Why can it not do so? Because the nature of the Moroccan political system, enshrined and rooted in the Constitution, does not tolerate any current—whether Islamist or otherwise—endowed with a political project for the state exercising, by the grace of the ballot box, direct tutelage over the institutions of the army, intelligence, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary, which constitute the backbone of the state.

This is why there was no need whatsoever to stage a coup against electoral democracy, as was the case in Algeria and Egypt, to thwart political Islam’s takeover of the state and control of the institutions of the army, intelligence, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary. Indeed, the state, embodied in particular by these coercive apparatuses, remained removed from the PJD’s authority and directly attached to the Royal Institution. Undoubtedly, a certain number of political Islam partisans, who expected this party to transform the state into an instrument for propagating and imposing political Islam, voted against the PJD in the September 8, 2021, election precisely because it had failed to keep its “Islamic” promises—and not merely economic ones—having been unable to subject the state, meaning its coercive apparatuses (army, intelligence services, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary), to its authority in order to exploit them in spreading and imposing its political Islam.

Thus, the 2011 and 2016 consultations empowered the PJD to exercise power, but without real governance, meaning without the state, insofar as it held no prerogative over this state whose coercive apparatuses—the army, intelligence services, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary—which form the soul and quintessence of the state, escaped it and were by no means subordinate to it so that it could instrumentalize them in imposing its political Islam. Its political Islam therefore remained devoid of effect and impact outside the ideological and preaching sphere, failing state power capable of imposing this political Islam on the people and society through its apparatuses of coercion.

The state’s political Islam:

Furthermore, if the regime in Morocco was not forced to flout democratic rules to deprive the PJD of the results of its success in the 2011 and 2016 elections—similar to what occurred in Algeria and Egypt—in order to save the state from political Islam as those two nations did, it is precisely because this political Islam, whose threat the military in those two countries had to neutralize to save the state, is practiced by the Moroccan state itself as an instrument of governance, long before the emergence of Islamist movements and organizations. How does this manifest?

Aside from the fact that Islam occupies a prominent place in Moroccan identity (as stated in the preamble of the Constitution) and constitutes the religion of the state (Article 3 of the Constitution), much like in Algeria (Article 2 of the Constitution) and Egypt (Article 2 of the Constitution), this Islam enjoys an infinitely larger and more vigorous political presence in Morocco than in Algeria and Egypt. This heightened political prominence is manifested, first, by the fact that the King is “Amir Al Mouminine” (Commander of the Faithful), protector of the faith and religion, and guarantor of the free exercise of worship (first paragraph of Article 41 of the Constitution); and second, by the customary practice of the “Baia” (allegiance) as a ritual that confirms and roots fidelity to the Sovereign. It goes without saying that the concepts of “Imarat Al Mouminine” and “Baia” intrinsically stem from political Islam, since the advent of the former dates back to the rightly guided caliphate under the era of Omar ibn Al-Khattab, while the latter draws its legitimacy from the Quran (verses 10 and 18 of Surah Al-Fath) and finds its origins in the genesis of the first form of Islamic state in history, under the aegis of the Prophet (may prayers and peace be upon him). This is why all radical currents of political Islam aspire to found an Islamic state resting on the pillar of the “Baia” owed to a leader in his capacity as “Amir Al Mouminine.” To highlight the deep roots of the political Islam inherent to the Moroccan state—perceived as an ancient and authentic phenomenon rather than a fortuitous and unprecedented outgrowth—the official historical chronicle attributes the genesis of this state to the episode of the mythical “Baia” sworn by the Amazigh tribe of the Aoureba to Idriss I over twelve centuries ago. This narrative has transformed into a veritable “memorization” instinctively recited by all Moroccans, whether illiterate or educated. The historical veracity of this account matters far less than what it consecrates as a consubstantial symbiosis between the Moroccan state and political Islam. The political Islam that radical Islamist movements strive to impose as a state system is thus already established in Morocco as the system of the state, both constitutionally through the institution of Amir Al Mouminine and on the customary and historical register through the ritual of the “Baia,” upon which the edifice of the caliphal state—which political Islam “fights” to establish—is anchored.

Between the State’s Political Islam and the PJD’s Political Islam:

Morocco has therefore never been devoid of political Islam to the point of constituting a blank slate where this ideology could take root for the first time. There is a considerable difference between the state’s political Islam—founded on the concepts of the “Commander of the Faithful” (Imarat Al Mouminin) and allegiance (Baïa)—and the political Islam of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) and other Islamist movements.

1. The state’s political Islam, even if it finds its origins in the Mashreq—with legendary tradition linking it to the allegiance rendered to Idris I, as I have mentioned—is an authentic Moroccan Islam. It has acculturated to the Moroccan-Amazigh environment and the spiritual requirements of the Imazighen, thus becoming an Amazigh Islam. Conversely, the political Islam of the PJD is an imported and exogenous Islam, conveyed by emerging Islamist splinter groups since the 1970s alone. While the state also played a role in this importation, it did so precisely to prevent these movements from holding a monopoly on this foreign Islam and using it against the state by accusing it of failing to apply true Islam, which, according to them, this imported Islam embodies.

2. I have pointed out that the state’s political Islam is an authentic Moroccan Islam, meaning an Amazigh Islam. This is why the political dimension of this Islam neither proscribes dancing, singing, nor any form of expression of joy and happiness. It does not impose the veil on women, does not consider them deficient in reason and religion (naqissat ‘aql wa dine), does not prohibit mixed-gender spaces, does not advocate any specific “Islamic” attire, and does not prioritize “moustache length and the wearing of a beard.” Such matters belong to the private sphere and escape the purview of the state’s political Islam; they are left to the free will of each individual, including the freedom to perform or not perform mandatory religious duties, such as prayer or fasting. This is why Moroccans experience their Islam as if they lived in a secular state, as I have already emphasized. As for the political Islam of the PJD—much like the currents of political Islam from the Mashreq from which it draws inspiration—it interferes in the private lives of individuals. It seeks to dictate how they should dress, greet one another, shave their beards, and conduct conjugal relations (Islamic marriage jurisprudence), while prohibiting mixed-gender spaces, veiling women, banning dancing, singing, and any manifestation of joy and merriment, and outlawing bank transactions involving interest. If the PJD did not apply these “precepts” dictated by its foreign-origin political Islam during its tenure at the head of government, it is simply, as I have already explained, because it did not possess sovereign power over the state to mobilize its levers and impose its exogenous religious choices.

3. The state’s political Islam, although used to reinforce personal power and legitimize state-rent and authoritarianism, restricts individual freedoms only to a minimal degree compared to the political Islam of the PJD—and other Islamist movements—whose raison d’être and very existence are built on the struggle against these freedoms. This is why women constitute, par excellence, the bête noire of political Islam. Why women? Because they embody the symbol of freedom: when a woman works in a business, an administration, or a factory, when she walks through markets wearing summer attire, when she studies at university, when she forms romantic relationships, when she takes care of her appearance, or when she drives a car, she is exercising her freedom. It is precisely this that infuriates the currents of political Islam, which strive to curb women’s freedom by relying on an arsenal of sacralized ignorance. In contrast, the state’s political Islam exalts women, values them, and treats them on an equal footing with men, with the exception of a few provisions based on Muslim jurisprudential law (fiqh).

4. The ultimate purpose of the state’s political Islam is the exercise of power, with religion being instrumentalized to strengthen, perpetuate, and reproduce it. As for individuals, this Islam does not interfere in their private sphere unless they constitute a direct threat to power. This is the exact opposite of the political Islam of the PJD—and other Islamist movements nourished by the sources of Wahhabism and Islamic State—whose ultimate objective through the exercise of political Islam is to regiment individuals by seizing their minds, their souls, and even their bodies (types of clothing, wearing of a beard). Power is viewed here merely as a tool in the service of this subjugation, mobilizing the coercive apparatus of the state—the army, intelligence services, police, gendarmerie, and judiciary—to tighten political Islam’s grip on citizens and interfere in their intimate choices. This is why, if all the factions of political Islam wage “jihad” to found a state or seize an existing one, it is solely to turn it into a coercive instrument serving an immutable end: absolute control over the freedom, will, and choices of individuals.

5. Generally speaking, when religion is instrumentalized by politics, it serves to intensify coercion, far beyond the constraint inherent in any political power emancipated from religion. If the state’s political Islam in Morocco is invoked to confer religious legitimacy on its coercive practices, this repression generally targets only individuals who represent a direct threat to the regime, such as those planning its overthrow, as has already been pointed out. Conversely, the constraint exerted by Islamist movements—and which the PJD would have exerted had it held full authority over the state and its coercive apparatus—strikes society as a whole. It aims, through these institutional levers, to dominate the minds, souls, wills, and bodies of citizens, as I have mentioned. This constitutes an extremely grave infringement upon freedoms and rights, of a nature that bears no comparison with the constraint the state is compelled to exercise under exceptional circumstances.

While it is illusory to hope to completely break free from political Islam in Morocco, reason therefore dictates that we opt for the lesser evil, namely the state’s political Islam.

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