The Ethnographic State

Alone among Muslim countries, Morocco is known for its national form of Islam, "Moroccan Islam." This path-breaking study, however, reveals that Moroccan Islam was actually invented in the early twentieth century by French ethnographers and colonial officers who were influenced by British colonial practices in India. Between 1900 and 1920, these researchers compiled a social inventory of Morocco, which in turn led to the emergence of a new object of study, Moroccan Islam, and a new field, Moroccan Studies. In the process they reinvented Morocco as a modern polity and resurrected the monarchy. This book will be of interest to scholars and readers interested in questions around orientalism and empire, colonialism and modernity, and the invention of traditions.