cover image: EXPERT BRIEF R E G I O N A L

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EXPERT BRIEF R E G I O N A L

14 Dec 2021

Morocco and the Dor al-Qur’an before 2011 A Wahhabi-inspired Salafi trend emerged in Morocco in the 1970s, with the founding of the ‘Association for the Call to the Qur’an and the Sunna’ (Jama‘īa al-Daʿwah Ila al-Qur’an wa-l-Sunna) – popularly referred to as Dor al-Qur’an – in Marrakech in 1976 by Mohammed al-Maghraoui. [...] On the part of the Saudi regime, the Salafi-Madkhalis started to obtain financial support as the rulers hoped to foster an apolitical ideological counterweight to the Islamist reformists led by the al-Sahwa al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Awakening).15 In this spirit, the movement was treated comparatively amicably by Gadhafi in order to bolster his regime’s claims of religious legitimacy, while at the. [...] By mid-2013, the regime closed all five of Dor al- Qur’an’s centres.29 This was likely a response to the growing entente between Dor al-Qur’an and the PJD, and Maghraoui’s support for the PJD in the 2011 parliamentary elections rather than for 5 In addition to ideological reasoning, a potential weakening and restructuring of the existing system would certainly come with possible disadvantages for. [...] Consequently, in 2015 the sheikh re-established his traditional censure of the Islamist party.37 Under pressure from the makhzen to help counter voter abstention, Maghraoui did, however, encourage Moroccans to participate in the 2015 local and regional elections as well as the 2016 parliamentary 6 With Gadhafi’s death in October 2011, the lingering fall of his regime was sealed and the Salafi-Madk. [...] Yet despite the sheikh’s volte-face, he was required to support the pro-palace PAM party in the 2016 elections, the PJD’s main competitor for seats in the Marrakech area, as part of any deal with the makhzen to secure his association’s reopening.
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11
Published in
Turkey