Morocco - QUICK FACTS

Ash-Shabiba al-Islamiyya (“Islamic Youth”) Founded in 1969, the Association of Islamic Youth (Shabiba, sometimes known by the French acronym AJI) was the first organization in the Maghreb region established with the explicit objective of advancing Islamist politics.2 The group also opposed the political leftism then in vogue in many Arab countries. [...] The merger took place in 1997, and the new political party changed its name the following year to the Justice and Development Party (generally known by its French acronym, PJD).4 (A full description of the PJD follows below) Al-Adl Wal-Ihsan (“Justice and Charity”) The Justice and Charity Organization (al-Adl, or JCO), formed in 1988, has been the most virulent Islamist political and religious mov. [...] In 2005, for example, the party actively participated in the adoption of a new, more liberal version of the country’s code regulating marriage and fam- ily life, known as the Moudawana.12 The revision of the Moudawana greatly improved the social status of women in Morocco, and was ridiculed by more conservative Islamists. [...] Despite the current king’s efforts to promote a legislative agenda to modernize Islamic laws governing civil society in Morocco (detailed below), the continued growth of political parties such as the PJD and the continued political activities by the JCO, both inside Morocco and in Europe, point to the fractures in Morocco’s soci- ety between those who favor a more moderate, tolerant Islam and sign. [...] While for most of its history the Polisario Front has been avowedly secu- lar and, indeed, leftist in its political orientations—many of its leaders stud- ied in the Soviet bloc and fighters received training in Cuba well into the 1990s—there are worrisome indications of growing linkages with AQIM40 and other Islamist groups in the Maghreb and the Sahel, including providing AQIM’s allies in northe.