Navigating Modernity: Lessons in Government and Statecraft in Precolonial Morocco

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article examines two letters of political advice written in 1911 by the Moroccan scholar Muḥammad al-Ḥajwī to the reigning Sultan 'Abd al-Ḥafīẓ. In his letters, al-Ḥajwī discussed the specific political, economic, and cultural difficulties facing Morocco during the first decade of the twentieth century, and offered a concrete program of reform designed to revitalize the state. My analysis explores al-Ḥajwī's discourse of political critique and delineates his reform initiative. By looking beyond the state and considering a project of reform conceived by a non-state actor, this article seeks to escape the limitations of a state-centered analytical framework and draws attention to the need to explore the ways in which other important political, economic, cultural forces in society negotiated the new historical conditions shaped by Moroccan modernity. I argue that al-Ḥajwī's letters underscore the dialectical nature of the modernization of Moroccan state and society. Al-Ḥajwī engaged the dramatic changes brought by modernity and introduced his understanding of becoming modern. I go further to argue that Moroccan modernization was a site of multiple, competing visions of reform resulting from debate and contestation.