THE BEGINNING (OR END) OF MOROCCAN HISTORY: HISTORIOGRAPHY, TRANSLATION, AND MODERNITY IN AHMAD B. KHALID AL-NASIRI AND CLEMENTE CERDEIRA

Abstract

AbstractThis article analyzes two accounts of the Hispano-Moroccan War of 1859–60 in light of scholarly debates about historiography, translation, and modernity in the colonial context. The first text is Ahmad b. Khalid al-Nasiri'sKitab al-Istiqsa(1895), which explores the organization of the Spanish army in an effort to understand the military technology and state apparatus behind colonial domination. The second text, Clemente Cerdeira'sVersión árabe de la Guerra de África(1917), is framed as an annotated Spanish translation of al-Nasiri's text, but Cerdeira suppresses key passages from al-Nasiri's account in order to undermine any hint that the Moroccan historian's thinking is reformist or modern. By comparing these two accounts of the same war, the article aims to situate al-Nasiri's text within the reform movements that spread through the Muslim Mediterranean in the 19th century and to use al-Nasiri's historical thinking as a model for theorizing Moroccan modernity.