Mohamed Boudhan writes: From Aksil to Zefzafi

Beyond the issue of civil registry offices refusing to register them, Amazigh first names had never provoked such violent and hostile reactions from a group of extremist Salafists as those sparked by the name “Koceïla.” This fierce controversy erupted in June 2020, when Ahmed Zefzafi—father of the courageous Nasser Zefzafi, may God free him—announced on social media that his eldest son had had a baby boy, whom his uncle Nasser Zefzafi had chosen to name “Koceïla.” The child was duly registered under that name at the civil registry office in Al Hoceïma, after the family granted the wish of their son Nasser, who is currently incarcerated at Ras El Ma prison in Fez.

Following this, attacks by Salafists—advocates of sacred ignorance—came one after another in a furious campaign against “Koceïla.” They chanted a new “latif” (a prayer of supplication) to denounce the use of the name, claiming it belonged to the pre-Islamic era (“jahiliyya”) and that its historical bearer was the murderer of the tabi’i Oqba Ibn Nafi al-Fihri. This campaign was led by one of these extremists’ sheikhs, Hassan El Kettani. Sentenced to 20 years in prison for terrorism offenses over his links to the May 16, 2003 bombings in Casablanca, he received a royal pardon in 2012. On June 21, he wrote on his Facebook page: “For Zefzafi to give his brother’s son the name of the killer of the venerable tabi’i Oqba Ibn Nafi—may God be pleased with him—the conqueror of Morocco who saved it from Jahiliyya and brought it to Islam, is a disgrace and a shame.” In another post on June 23, he said he was astonished at those who “defend the one who wanted to keep them under the yoke of the hateful Roman occupation and in the darkness of ignorance and polytheism, while insulting the one who came as a conqueror to make them the best nation brought forth for mankind […] That is falling into the trap of the occupying enemies, who have sworn to divide Muslims and dig through their history to unearth the fanaticisms of Jahiliyya once again.”

For his part, Aziz El Hanaoui, a leader of the Justice and Development Party, stated during a meeting with his party’s youth wing that Oqba Ibn Nafi al-Fihri is today facing a fierce attack on social media—while the Kahina and Koceïla are being sanctified—by Amazigh people allied with Zionism, as he alleged (see the video at this link).

Is this hateful and hostile rejection of the name “Koceïla” explained by the fact that it belonged to the national fighter who confronted Oqba, eliminated him, and put an end to his oppression and tyranny? That is the ready-made explanation that immediately comes to mind. For Mr. El Kettani and Mr. El Hanaoui view Oqba as a generous, “likeable,” benevolent, and gentle “conqueror” who supposedly did the Amazigh people good by massacring them, enslaving them, and capturing their women under the guise of Islam, which he used to justify his sadistic and bloody practices. Therefore, in their view, “Koceïla” should have welcomed him with dates, milk, and flowers, like a base creature devoid of honor and indifferent to his land.

Given the scale and atrocity of Uqba’s crimes against the indigenous Amazigh inhabitants—documented by Arab historians themselves, rather than by Orientalists or Imazighen—what “Kusaila” did was the natural reaction of any human being, indeed of any living creature, confronted by armed foreigners occupying his tribe’s land, raping its daughters, enslaving its children, and plundering its wealth. He was thus forced to exercise his right to self-defense to survive, knowing full well that he would inevitably lose the war, yet would just as surely win the battle for dignity. Accordingly, the act of “Kusaila” is that of any man who cares for his country and his people, rising up to resist invading aggressors and defend his land and honor. Among all peoples, such figures are regarded as resistance fighters, combatants, and national heroes in the modern sense of the term. Successive generations take pride in them, keep their memory alive, and celebrate them as models of patriotism, sacrifice, and the defense of homeland and kin.

However, I do not think that what provoked the wrath of extremist Salafists—those apostles of sacred ignorance—against the name “Kusaila” was solely its connection to Uqba’s death. Moroccan families had given this name to their children before without arousing the slightest resentment among these extremists. In Nador, for example, the Amazigh activist Massin—who has now voluntarily stepped back from public life—named his son “Kusaila,” and the boy is now over ten years old, without sparking the uproar orchestrated by these radicals over the newborn in Al Hoceima. What, then, is the secret? The secret lies in the fact that the person who chose the name of this seventh-century “Kusaila” is none other than the twenty-first-century “Kusaila” of Al Hoceima: the hero Nasser Zefzafi, little Kusaila’s uncle. There is a profound similarity between the Kusaila of the past and the Kusaila of the present. Just as the former rose up against Uqba’s injustice, tyranny, and despotism—demanding an end to abuses against the Amazigh people, respect for their dignity, and a halt to the plundering of their resources and the humiliation of their men and women—Nasser Zefzafi, the Kusaila of the twenty-first century, rose up against the injustice and despotism of the state. He demanded freedom, dignity, social justice, an end to the “hogra” (oppression and humiliation) inflicted on citizens, and the prosecution of the corrupt and those who squander public funds (see the article “Nasser Zefzafi, or the Prometheus of Morocco” in the book In the Rif Hirak, available on the Tawiza website). And just as Nasser Zefzafi raised the slogan “Death rather than humiliation,” Kusaila had already put that same principle into practice against Uqba’s army, fully aware that he would lose the war after winning the battle, choosing death over disgrace to preserve his dignity and pride. Moreover, just as Kusaila confronted Uqba in the name of his ties to the Amazigh land, language, and culture, Nasser Zefzafi fought injustice in the name of those very same ties.

For these extremists, the rejection of the first name “Kusaila” has nothing to do with its association with Uqba’s name; rather, it stems from its link to Zefzafi, who represents the living continuation of the historical “Kusaila,” as seen in the similarities between them. When a Moroccan bears the first name “Kusaila” alongside any other surname, it never triggers this volcano of hatred spewing lava from Mr. Kettani, Mr. El Hanaoui, and their ilk. By contrast, when that first name is paired with the Zefzafi family name—and chosen by Nasser Zefzafi himself—it signals to them the return of the historical “Kusaila” who struck down their idol, Uqba. What terrifies them is not the “Kusaila” of history, but the “Kusaila” of the present, namely Nasser Zefzafi. By linking his name to the historical “Kusaila,” he makes him present, immortal, and continually renewed; through him, the values of tenacity, resistance, and rebellion against injustice and “hogra” are embodied, sustained, and reborn—values of which Nasser Zefzafi has today become the symbol, just as the historical “Kusaila” was in the past.

Due to a lack of information, or because he chooses to learn and acknowledge only what suits his desires and inclinations, Mr. Kettani states bluntly that “the first to condemn Uqba and praise Kusaila are the pre-Islamic Berbers from Amazigh organizations.” He would likely be stunned to learn that an entire state—not merely a civil organization—and a Muslim country at that, namely Egypt, acted through its Ministry of Education as early as 2015 to remove six lessons devoted to Uqba and his conquests in North Africa because of what the ministry’s statement described as “incitement to violence or extremism” (read the report at: https://yemen-press.com/news45044.html, as well as on other news websites). Moreover, journalist Brahim Aissa criticized the inclusion of the story of “Uqba ibn Nafi” in school curricula during his program on the ON E channel. Arguing that the narrative glorified jihad in the path of God through the invasion of Africa, he asked: “Does the ministry want to teach our children jihad through the conquest of Africa?” He stressed that childhood requires an education rooted in science, not in jihad and the spread of Islam, before explaining: “When a 12-year-old boy reads the story of Uqba ibn Nafi, he is going to ask why we don’t invade America like Uqba ibn Nafi!” (read the report at: https://www.tunisia-sat.com/forums/threads/3154409/).

What, then, does Mr. Kettani think of the decision by Egypt—home to the largest Islamic religious university, Al-Azhar University—to remove Uqba’s story because of its association with violence, extremism, and hatred? Are Egypt or Brahim Aissa members of Amazigh organizations? What Egypt did, the countries of North Africa—which are the most directly affected by the history of the war criminal Uqba—should have done before it.

To turn public opinion against the Imazighen who hail “Kusaila” as a national and patriotic hero, the champions of sacred ignorance exploit Islam—just as Uqba himself did—to demonize Amazigh associations and stir up hostility against them. They claim that by siding with “Kusaila,” these associations are targeting Islam, as Mr. El Hanaoui asserted, and that they “feel nostalgia for the pre-Islamic era and hate Islam,” as Mr. Kettani wrote.

Are they really so ignorant — or feigning ignorance — of who Nasser Zefzafi is, the man who chose the first name “Kusaila”? Do they take him for a communist leftist, or for a secularist calling to keep Islam out of state affairs, celebrating “Kusaila” because he killed the man who brought Islam to Morocco? Through his Muslim religious practice, Nasser Zefzafi embodies true Islam and the true Muslim: someone who does not use Islam as a means to take women captive, as Uqba did, nor to enslave minds, lead them astray, and spread sacred ignorance, as Mr. Kettani and Mr. El Hanaoui do, but rather lives it as a divine purpose. And if he turns to it as a means, it is precisely in the service of that very divine purpose. That is why, while Mr. Kettani and Mr. El Hanaoui instrumentalize Islam to establish a Daesh-style caliphate, Zefzafi draws on it to establish justice, fight oppression, and defend freedom and dignity — which is precisely what true Islam calls for and what aligns with its principles and purposes.

In response to those who regard Jews of Moroccan origin as a Moroccan community within the State of Israel, Mr. El Hanaoui declares that Moroccan members of Daesh should also be considered a Moroccan community within Daesh — as if Daesh were a recognized state holding a seat at the United Nations. All this to conclude that both Daesh and Israel practice terrorism. Even if we accept, for the sake of following Mr. El Hanaoui’s reasoning, that Israel is a terrorist state like Daesh, the fact remains that the driving force behind Daesh’s terrorism lies in those very same jihadist ideas promoted by Mr. Kettani and Mr. El Hanaoui — ideas that drove hundreds of Moroccans to join Daesh’s terrorist network in response to the call to jihad that Mr. El Hanaoui and Mr. Kettani, along with others like them, tirelessly repeat. The proof of this is that the latter was sentenced to twenty years in prison not for demanding freedom, dignity, and social justice like Nasser Zefzafi, but for the crime of committing terrorist acts. As for Israel, if it practices terrorism — still following Mr. El Hanaoui’s logic — it does so to defend what it considers its historic land, relying, as Mr. El Hanaoui himself explains, on the “Talmudic doctrine” that tells it Palestine is the land of the Jews.

Regarding the Moroccans who joined Daesh, it should be noted that they are at least consistent with their jihadist convictions, which they learned from people like you, Mr. Kettani and Mr. El Hanaoui, as well as from your movement of extremist Salafists and jihadists. It was in acting on those convictions that they joined Daesh in Syria to fight the “infidels.” As for you, you spend your time, morning and night, calling for resistance against the occupation, steadfastness, jihad, and intransigence. Yet not one of you has joined Palestinian fighters to wage the resistance and jihad you call for day and night. You limit yourselves to putting on the Palestinian keffiyeh, delivering hollow, formulaic speeches, and watching on Al Jazeera as Palestinian children burn under white phosphorus dropped by Israeli aircraft. This shows that, just as you have made a habit of doing with Islam, you turn Palestine into a commercial enterprise that you exploit to enrich yourselves symbolically, ideologically, and politically — and even financially, by collecting donations for “jihad.” And there is no doubt that you would be ready to pay a heavy price to ensure that no solution is found to the Palestinian question, so that your business does not collapse, you do not lose your jobs, and you do not find yourselves unemployed.

Mr. El Hanaoui claims that the Hebrew state engages in “identity sabotage,” to use his own phrase, meaning the destruction of Palestine’s Arab-Islamic identity. How can Mr. El Hanaoui weep over Israel’s sabotage of Arab-Islamic identity in Palestine while he and his party practice the sabotage of Morocco’s original identity at home? What else can one call turning the Moroccan city of “Temara” into a Hejazi town whose streets bear Gulf names such as “Khaled Al-Sultan,” “Bassam Faraj,” “Khaled Al-Hamoudi,” “Hamad Al-Dahlous,” and “Khaled Saoud Al-Houlaibi”… (see the article “Is There Any Difference Between Calling Morocco “Arab” and Naming Its Streets “Al-Dahlous”?” on the “Tawiza” link)? Is that not sabotaging Moroccan identity and replacing it with a Mashriqi and Gulf identity foreign to the country? Is that not what Israel does when it gives Talmudic names to places that previously had Arab names? And what of your defense of changing Moroccans’ sex, converting them from their original African Amazigh gender to a usurped Asian Arab gender—what you call the policy of Arabization? Is that not defending the sabotage of Morocco’s true, original identity? What you are doing in Morocco—spreading the abomination of sexual deviation, meaning national and identity deviation in the original sense of the Arabic word “jins,” which denotes the people and community to which an individual belongs, by working to replace the Amazigh gender with an Arab gender—is precisely what your rival Israel is doing in Palestine. Arabization in Morocco and Judaization in Palestine are thus two sides of the same policy of identity sabotage (see the article “Judaization in Palestine and Arabization in Morocco: Two Sides of the Same Racist Policy,” in the book “On the Amazigh Identity of Morocco“). Where, then, is this Islam you boast of and turn into a lucrative asset to exploit? Does it call for altering peoples’ identities, sabotaging them, and replacing them with an Arab identity?

What Morocco sorely lacks, as I repeat at every opportunity, is genuine Islamist movements that regard Islam as an end in itself, rather than a means to sabotage and Arabize peoples’ identities. The Islam in whose name Mr. El Hanaoui and Mr. Kettani speak is not an Islam meant to impose the law of God, as they claim, but rather to impose the law of Arabness. They use it as an instrument of Arabization and sex change, in terms of nationality and identity. That is why Islamist movements in Morocco are the other face of nationalist and pan-Arab movements, despite the apparent divergence—bordering on antagonism—that seems to exist between them, for they share a single goal: Arabness, in its nationalist, racist, and ethnic sense, not even in its linguistic and cultural sense.

We will have genuine Islamist movements in Morocco when they defend Islam as part of defending Morocco’s collective identity, drawn from its African Amazigh land rather than the land of “Al-Dahlous,” as seen in genuine Islamist movements in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Indonesia… and other non-Arab Muslim countries like Morocco. Indeed, those genuine Islamist movements draw on the precepts of Islam to instill pride in their original collective identity—Turkish, Persian, Afghan…—unlike the Islamist movements in Morocco, which exploit Islam to falsify the collective identity of their own people and fellow citizens, thereby harming Islam first, and their homeland and fellow citizens second.

Arabic version | French version