The New Leader of Morocco's Justice & Spirituality Party

Here is an article, originally from TelQuel that has been translated and republished by alMonitor. It gives an interesting glimpse into the life of Mohamed Abbadi, the new leader of the banned Justice and Spirituality Party,Adl wal Ihsaan(translated as Justice and Charity in the article below) ; although as usual in the media, the language used when discussing "Islamists" is a bit patronizing.

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Morocco’s Banned Islamist Party Gets New Leader

By: Mohammed Boudarham Translated from TelQuel (Morocco). 
Before Mohamed Abbadi succeeded Abdesslam Yassine as head of the Justice and Charity Association (JCA), he endured extensive trials and tribulations. But who is he? And how much influence does he have within the movement?

On Jan. 1, Abbadi, who is in his sixties, moved out of his home in Oujda’s ​​Beni Khairane neighborhood. He bid farewell to his neighbors and to the huge crowd that came to greet him. This iconic Islamic jurist from Morocco’s Oriental region moved to Rabat to perform his new duties.

A week earlier, JCA’s consultative council had elected Abbadi, who hails from the Moroccan Rif area, as leader. But he did not inherit the title of “supreme guide” from his predecessor Yassine. Instead, Abbadi fills the newly created position of secretary-general. Fathallah Arsalan, JCA's spokesperson, was appointed second-in-command.

“That was done for the sake of continuity, but it also shows that JCA wishes to dissociate preaching from political action,” explains Mohamed Darif, a political scientist and an expert on the movement. JCA’s new chief will follow in Yassine’s footsteps in regards to spiritual affairs, while leaving civilian matters to the political wing. Abbadi fits that profile: he has always been immersed in religion and spirituality.

An encounter with destiny

Abbadi was born in 1949 in a village called Beni Houdayfa in the Al-Hoceima region. His family was of modest means, like most Riffian people at the time. His family moved to Oujda, where the young Abbadi excelled at school. He had the Quran memorized by age 12. He received his baccalaureate in 1970 and followed that with five years of religious studies under the guidance of scholar Benseddik Abdellah, the alter ego of Mokhtar Soussi in the north. Soussi was Yassine’s teacher.

The first shock of Abbadi’s life came while teaching at an institute under the Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Azemmour. By then he had become an Islamic jurist. The ascetic Abbadi was shocked by how the youth of the city lived. He thought their lifestyle was far removed from Islam. So he turned more radical in his quest to reform the ummah through education and by the words of God and his prophet. After a stint in Safi, where he joined the Ecole Normale Supérieure, he started teaching Arabic and Islam at schools throughout the country at Settat, El-Jadida and Tangier, before returning to Oujda.

In the 1970s, he joined Tariqa Boutchichiya, where he met Yassine, the man who would change his life. “It happened in Marrakech with two other founding members of JCA, Mohamed El-Mellakh and Alaoui Slimani (both deceased),” said a young JCA member. Abbadi and Yassine began an unshakable relationship based on friendship and loyalty. JCA members would describe that relationship as “sohba” — or companionship at the time of the prophet. When Ousrat al-Jamaa (JCA’s name before 1987) was created in 1981, Abbadi was one of its founding members.

The ascetic of Oujda

After his family moved to Oujda, Abbadi earned the respect of all those who knew him. “This is a great man. At Assalam school, even the most difficult students respected him,” recalls one of his former students.

Many townspeople used to come and pray with him at the Tafoghalt mosque, or assist in the conferences he gave at schools and places of worship at Oriental’s capital Oujda. After retiring in the late 1990s, Abbadi was not seen very often. But his home on Zerktouni Avenue (one of Oujda’s main roads) remained open to anyone seeking a religious opinion, especially JCA followers, who used to gather for long sessions reciting the Quran and Awrad (poems praising the prophet).

“He is a man of science who is extremely modest. He immediately puts you at ease. His everyday life does not differ from that of the overwhelming majority of Moroccans,” said Abdelaziz Aftati, deputy from Oujda in parliament and Justice and Development Party (PJD) leader.

“He is a man of great honesty. He is frank and bold,” added Mohamed El-Herd, longtime director of the local newspaper Al-Sharq.

“Like Yassine, he has chosen to live in austerity like the ‘men of science.’ He does not complicate his life nor that of those around him,” said Omar Iharchane, member of the JCA political circle. Men of science is Islamist jargon for those who devote their lives to religious studies and eschew worldly pleasures.

FULL ARTICLE

Moroccan Imams Being Dismissed After Requesting Freedom of Speech

Here is an article from Deutsche Welle about ongoing protests for freedom of speech by Moroccan religious leaders.
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Moroccan Imams Call for Freedom to Preach


Tight government controls on religious preaching in Morocco has led to a surprising wave of protest among the country’s imams. The resulting dismissals of the leading dissenters has sent shockwaves through the provinces.


It's been raining steadily all morning in Boujniba, a suburb of the phosphate mining town of Khouribga. Children jump over the puddles in the potholed pavements on their way back from school for lunch and the muezzin calls the faithful to the noon prayer of Dhuhr.

Among the men in their long djellebah robes making their way towards the mosque is Mohamed Samir. Until October he was imam of this mosque. Then the government sacked him. The decision caused a great deal of outrage among the local population.

"We cried a lot over him. We cried over his being sacked. We cried because we love him because he is a great person, an important person and he was forbidden to say the truth," said a fruit and vegetable stallholder called Omar, one of the signatories of a petition for the imam's reinstatement.


Learned spiritual leader

After prayers we go to Samir's home. In his front room, books that have overflowed from the shelves are piled on the floor. From in between the titles in swirling Arabic script, the familiar forehead of William Shakespeare beams down as we sit, talk and drink tea. These days Mohamed Samir has too much time to read. And to mull over the sudden way and the reasons why the government put an end to his career as spiritual guide to the people of Boujniba.

"The pretext the ministry gave is that I preached outside of what is permitted," he said. "I spoke about bribery, problems in the administration… corruption."

He had been a preacher since 1990. Then last summer he and some of his colleagues founded the National League of Religious Employees (NLRE) and Samir became its president. The NLRE has two goals, says Samir: To improve imams' living conditions and to win more space for freedom.

Unusual protest

Samir can no longer speak his mind in the mosque. But, in principle at least, he and his fellow members of the League can say what they like in the street. And – an unprecedented sight in Morocco – they have been staging demonstrations. The main ones took place in Ouarzazate, the gateway city to the Sahara Desert where support for the League is strong and in the capital Rabat.

In October, an NLRE demonstration in Rabat was broken up by police. The government, which declined to comment on what it said was such a delicate subject, has, it would seem, been taken by surprise by the emergence of the League.

Mohamed Darif, political science professor at Casablanca's Hassan II University and a specialist in religious affairs, says the imam protest movement is something startling and quite new.

"We had come to believe that the State had succeeded in integrating and domesticating religious civil servants," he told Deutsche Welle, adding that King Mohamed the Sixth, who holds the title of Commander-of-the-Faithful, took the imams' support for granted.

"They have long been part of the State apparatus," he said. "And, through them, the monarchy has always tried to prove its legitimacy."


Tight controls

For a quarter of a century, the imams have been under close State control.

In 1984, not long after the ayatollahs had swept the royal family from power in Iran, Morocco's Hassan II, Mohammed VI's father, ruled that, henceforth, the government would write imams' sermons for them.

Since that date, every week in time for Friday prayers, all the imams in the country receive a sermon. Most read it word for word. Others use it as a guide and inspiration. And not doing so is asking for trouble. Mohamed Darif says a hundred imams have been removed from their positions for straying too far from the government-provided text over the past decade.

For Human Rights Watch's man in Morocco Brahim Elansari this is incompatible with the identity Morocco is now claiming for itself as Africa's first constitutional monarchy. He points out that Moroccans voted this summer in favour of a constitution which has now been passed into law which enshrines freedom of speech.

"But in practice," Elansari told Deutsche Welle, "the Ministry tells the imams what to say each Friday and they don't have the right to say anything else."



Fresh hope

Back at Mohamed Samir's home, the youngest son of the sacked imam brings in mint tea, pastries and Moroccan ‘m'smen' pancakes prepared by one or the other or possibly both of his… two wives. Might we meet them? The request apparently causes a bit of a flutter at the other end of the house with the two ladies apparently debating what level of head cover would be appropriate.

They finally receive us wearing niqabs (the cover that leaves the face visible). Was he, I ask Samir, what he might describe as a conservative? No he said. A conservative wouldn't have introduced me to his wives. And if he were an extremist… a Salafist… he wouldn't just have lost his job. He'd be in jail.

Samir's profile is close in fact to that of the PJD, the Islamist party usually described as moderate that won the general elections just over a month ago and which has just formed a new governing coalition.

The former preacher's main hope now is that the new PJD-led government will be more sympathetic to the League's demands and that he might even get his old job back. He's now working as a guard for the phosphate mining company:

"But that's not the job I was put on Earth to do," he said.

Author: John Laurenson, Morocco
Editor: Rob Turner

Imams in Morocco Protest Government Controls Over Their Preaching

Here is an article from the Washington Post on a recent protest by imams in Morocco to have the freedom from government control over their sermons (khutab). It seems as if changes in Morocco continue to unfold. Slow and steady wins the race.
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Moroccans mosque imams protest tight government controls on preaching

By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, October 10, 8:50 AM

RABAT, Morocco — Dozens of preachers from mosques across Morocco protested Monday in the capital over tight controls on their preaching, the first time such a demonstration has been allowed to go forward.

The small protest was significant because Morocco keeps a very close watch on the nation’s mosques to guard against extremist thought like that of al-Qaida.

Imams are given prepared sermons to read during weekly Friday prayers and are not permitted to deviate from the text.

Police attempted to disperse the protest in front of the parliament, tussling with the imams and briefly detaining three of them. The protest of around 50 imams dressed in traditional long robes and skull caps was eventually allowed to proceed away from the parliament on Rabat’s main boulevard.

“The imams of the mosques demand freedom, dignity, justice and their full rights,” said one of the banners held by the protesters.

Protests by imams are unprecedented in this North African kingdom, where King Mohammed VI is the final arbiter on all matters of religion in the country.

Imams attempted to protest in June and were quickly attacked and dispersed by police, shocking many in this country of 32 million.

“We want liberty and dignity,” said Ait Lashgar Hussein, a preacher for the last 28 years in the city of Marrakech. “I am just demanding my rights.”

Many of the imams say they have been threatened and intimidated by police since the June attempted demonstration.

The imams said their demands included higher salaries, permission to give their own sermons and to be consulted on matters of religion and law.

The king’s preeminent role in religious affairs is enshrined in the new constitution and is seen as a bulwark against the extremist thought found elsewhere in North Africa.

The protesters also carried a Moroccan flag and pictures of the king to show their support. They blamed the minister of religious affairs for their dissatisfaction.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The Moroccan Debate Over Eating in Ramadan and Religious Freedom

Here is an article from the Global Post about daytime eating during Ramadan and the controversy over religious freedom.

Yet, to eat or not to eat during the daylight hours of Ramadan (the month when Muslims believe the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him) may not really be the crux of the problem.

Certainly no one is under the illusion that everyone in Morocco (or other Muslim-dominated countries) is fasting as Islam requires. There has to be a delicate balance between personal freedom and the personal sacrifices that come from living as a minority in a place with a dominant culture. For example, for Muslims living in the United States, which is technically a secular country, Christianity is obviously the dominant order. A certain amount of respect has to be given to Christian holidays and beliefs in order to be cordial and be a good neighbor, co-worker etc, even if one fundamentally disagrees with the basis of the faith.

Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, yet there has to be a middle ground based on respect. As the Qur'an tells believers to say to non-believers " To you your way and to me my way." It is going too far to make people renounce Islam in order to eat at McDonalds! Believers can be weak (in faith or knowledge), or they can even have legitimate excuses to eat. At the same time the Qur'an also says that there is " no compulsion in religion." True faith cannot be forced upon someone, and certainly not by laws and police.
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Morocco: Controversy over religious freedom

Despite its new constitution and other reforms, Morocco is not a secular state.
Aida Alami August 20, 2011 08:48


CASABLANCA, Morocco — The slogan displayed on the profile pictures of hundreds of Moroccan Facebook users was stark: “In Morocco, Eating Kills.”

The message referred to the incident two years ago when six Moroccans were arrested for having a picnic during Ramadan in protest of a law banning eating in public during Ramadan.

Two years and a new constitution later, Morocco still doesn't have provisions guaranteeing more religious freedom for its citizens.

During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the debate over the introduction of more secularism is again in the spotlight because of Article 222 of the Moroccan Penal Code: It mandates a one to six month prison term for anyone "well known for their affiliation to Islam" who breaks the fast in public.

As a result, Moroccans who are non-practicing Muslims are obligated to respect the fast in public, while others escape abroad to avoid the restrictions.


"I am fortunate to live abroad because during Ramadan, Islam is forced upon people regardless of their beliefs,” said Habib, a 27-year-old engineer who lives in Paris. “To most Moroccans, being Muslim is not a personal choice of faith but the identity of an entire community that one is obligated to be a part of.”

MALI ( the acronym in French for Alternative Movement for Individual Liberty), the group that held the protest picnic, was formed in 2009. It campaigns for more individual freedoms. Its members have been arrested and intimidated by authorities and members of the general public since launching their first action, the picnic.

“It was not Ramadan that was 'targeted' but instead, we demanded freedom of religion and conscience, the freedom to believe or not, to practice or not, to be a Muslim or not," said Ibtissame Lachgar, 36, the co-founder of MALI and a political activist. “It is a spiritual choice that is personal and individual. We wanted a symbolic action that can really point the finger at the contradictions between the law and international treaties ratified by Morocco.”

Morocco's current political system is not compatible with the establishment of a secular state following the Turkish model, said Pierre-Jean Luizard, a historian and researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in France.

“Morocco is a special case since the king is also the Commander of the Faithful," he said. "The Moroccan political system is based on the religious legitimacy of the sovereign, which gives secular claims a revolutionary character, and which is not the case in other Arab states. However, this does not mean that secularism is an absent claim as a value, with its corollaries: equality of citizens, freedom of conscience and religion and women's rights.”

One element that Morocco shares with other Muslim countries is that Islam, having been the main framework of anti-colonial struggles, became the language of the society, said Luizard. “What can be perceived as the conservatism of an entire society is also a reaction against the West and against overbearing authoritarian and corrupt regimes — like Morocco — supported by the West itself,” he said.

Abdelillah Benkirane, the leader of the main opposition party, The Islamist Justice and Development Party, condemned demands for a more secular state during a meeting in June, a few days before Morocco’s ruler, King Mohammed VI, introduced the new constitution to the people.

“They want to pervert the faith of this nation and Ramadan to no longer be sacred," he said. "They want to picnic during the holy month and set an example for young people, for your children. It seems that future reforms will restore 'sexual deviance' [homosexuality] — we may see people who say publicly that they are 'sexual deviants'."

Benkirane warned his audience that establishing more religious freedom in a new constitution would threaten the country’s foundations. "If the king adopts it, we will have a serious problem," he said. "Morocco is a Muslim state, and the country’s religion is Islam.”

But an ideological commitment to secularism on the part of the state is not necessarily a prerequisite for democratization, according to Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, a professor at Northwestern University specializing in religion and politics.

“There are many, many modalities for managing and negotiating across lines of religious difference, both historically and today, that do not fly under the flag of the doctrine of secularism,” she said. “Advocates of democratic change, wherever they find themselves, would do better to work for a deep pluralism that engages both 'religious' and 'secular' views conventionally understood rather than boxing themselves in with a commitment to secularism.”

Other Moroccans, like Sara, a 19-year-old student from Marrakesh don’t feel too concerned about the lack of religious freedom. “Except the other day when I tried to eat at Mcdonald’s in Marrakesh: I was asked to leave or they would call the police,” she recalled. “They told me they couldn’t let me eat there unless I proved I wasn’t Muslim. I asked myself right away, how do you prove such thing?