Eurasia Review
Every Friday, King Mohammed VI, in his capacity as Commander of the Faithful, performs Friday prayers in one of the mosques around the country. Today, the event was exceptional and very symbolic. In fact, the King, currently in Tangier, attended the Friday prayers at Tarik Ibn Ziyad mosque in the presence of a controversial preacher Mohammed Fizazi who delivered the Friday sermon. Fizazi, a former jihadist theoretician who was arrested two weeks after the Casablanca attacks in 2003, the day a controversial interview in the Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat was published, in the tense atmosphere surrounding the attacks, and was later sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 2011, he benefited from a Royal pardon and was released after he had distanced himself from all extremist doctrines.
Today’s event is the result of an ongoing religious reform that was initiated by the King since 2004. The Moroccan sovereign endorsed a new approach to promote a moderate, open and tolerant form of Islam which, according to many political observers, has proved to be very successful in countering religious extremism and Al Qaeda’s influence in the region. Morocco then emerged as a beacon in the Arab world in terms of countering extremist ideology and promoting tolerance, respect and dialogue among religious groups. The main goal of the religious reforms that Morocco has pursued since 2004 has been to safeguard the country against extremism and backward thinking.
Morocco pioneered open dialogue to counter extremist ideology and to convince those who do not believe in the value of tolerance. Morocco was able to inspire hope in many extremist religious preachers by explaining to them the virtues of dialogue and respect for others. King Mohammed VI has always stressed that Morocco espouses Sunni Islam, which advocates compromise and tolerance and outlaws extremism, fanaticism and ostracism. Religious laws (fatwas) are issued only by the High Council of Ulemas (senior religious scholars) as a constitutional institution which fulfills its duties with regard to fatwas. The Ministry of Religious Affairs tackled the intellectual roots of extremism and created two departments designed to control mosques (32,000 throughout Morocco) and oversee religious education in the country.
Salafist ideology in Morocco has seen a major shift in focus. Adherents began to engage in political activism such as involvement with the ruling moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) or the Virtue party that split from PJD.
The unusual type of Islam in Morocco, its life-style, its calligraphic art, its mosque architecture, and the coherently crystalline nature of its urban architecture—to say nothing of its Malikism—existed from the very early generations of Islam. Morocco would like to continue promoting a Sufi Maliki Islam based on tolerance, love and respect. Apparenlty, the counterradicalization strategy in Morocco has proved to be very successful and could serve as a modal for other Muslim countries that suffer from extremist doctrines.
