history of Morocco

The year 788 was marked by the birth of the first Muslim dynasty of Middle Eastern origin. In 791, the Moroccan State was created. Idriss I, descendant of Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet, flee Arabia to escape the massacre of his family and settled in Volubilis, eventually founding the city of ‘Fez’, that was designated, after his death in 792, as capital of the Kingdom by his son, Idriss II, who succeed him. Idriss II took care of the construction of the city in 803, and died in 828.

The administration of the Kingdom was entrusted to his sons, then to his brothers, while the city of Fez prospered economically. In 857 and 859 the city prevailled prodigious achievements, including mosques Quaraouiyine and Andalusian. At the beginning of the 11th century, the aura of the reign of the Idrissids reached Cordoba before the divisions in Muslim Spain caused their decadence and their disappearance in 1055.

Youssef Ibn Tachfine, Sultan of almoravid dynasty, built the city of Marrakech (future capital of the Kingdom) around 1070, then achieved of the political unification of Morocco and Muslim Spain. Through it, the Andalusian civilization spreaded in the Maghreb before conquering Spain. Ali Ben Youssef, his son, succeed him in 1106 to reign for 37 years.

The Almohad Dynasty is a Berber dynasty from the High Atlas, their name comes from the Arabic “Al Mouwahidoune”, “unifiers” (those who claim the uniqueness of God.) Its founder was El Mehdi Ibn Toumart.

Abdel-Moumen, his disciple, took Marrakech as the capital, from which the construction of Koutoubia, then found the Almohad Empire, and succeed in unifying North Africa, but died in Rabat in 1163 before including Andalusia to his Empire. This glory returned to his successor Yacoub El-Mansour, victorious of the battle of Alarcos in 1195, against the Portuguese and the Spaniards

The Alawite Dynasty is descended from the Chorfa of Tafilalet, descendants of Imam Ali, who established themselves in the region, before establishing their authority over the whole country from 1666. The founder of the Dynasty and its spiritual leader Moulay Ali Cherif, as well as his successors (including Mohamed Ben Ali Cherif, proclaimed first king in 1640) reunited Morocco, thereby implementing a political and military strategy accordingly.

In 1672, King Moulay Ismaël exercised absolute power while continuing the work accomplished by his predecessors. The Sultan began by founding the city of Meknes, a city which he later designated as the capital of the Kingdom. After taking over Larache and Tangier, Moulay Ismaël eliminated the local political and religious powers and thus found the Cherifian Empire. His power will be extended to Senegal, and he ordered the establishment a network of fortresses throughout the territory. A network from which an army operated. He then devoted himself to establishing fruitful diplomatic relations. with foreign countries, especially in the time of Louis XIV and James II of England.

After the death of Moulay Ismaïl in 1727, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah (Mohamed III) succeeded him. A fervent Muslim, he thought only of bringing peace and security to the country. He was therefore welcomed as a providential man, and his proclamation assumed the character of a true plebiscite. As soon as he was invested, he lightened the taxes, struck a sound currency and reconstituted a new army recruited from the Guich tribes.

Simultaneously, he worked to fortify the Moroccan ports and had took back Mazagan from the Portuguese (1769). He concluded peace with the Spaniards and an agreement on prisoners with Louis XV. Considering that Morocco needed to strengthen its relations with the outside world to compensate for the loss of the Triq-Sultan (strategic crossing), it signed trade treaties with Denmark, Sweden, England and the United States. On this occasion he received a very fine letter from George Washington, proposing to conclude a treaty of friendship between their two countries.

Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah was behind the foundation of Mogador, whose construction he entrusted to the French architect Gournot. No doubt he would have done much more if he had not been hampred by insufficiency of funds. When he passed away in 1790, Morocco was better off than it was before his reign.

Moulay Slimane Became then successor of Moulay Yazid Ben Abdallah, who would have reigned only for a period of two years (1790-1792). He drived out the Turks of Oujda, built several mosques and madrassas and did not fail also to come to the aid of Algerians during the Battle of Isly.

Following the support of the Sherifian Empire to the Emir Abd el-Kader of Algeria, Morocco then experienced a most difficult political crisis, leading to the military interventions of France in 1844 and Spain in 1859-1860 . Clashes continued until 1873 during the reign of Sultan Mohamed IV.

The Sultan Moulay Hassan I, successor to Mohamed IV, safeguarding his reign, consolidate his power by rallying the tribes of the High Atlas, and modernized the country while keeping its independence. Yet, foreign interventions, from Great Britain, Spain and France, deep-rooted Morocco’s indebtedness to foreign banks.

Moulay Hassan I died in 1894, and Sultan Moulay Abdelaziz succeeded him, reigning until 1907, the same year Moulay Hafid will take over. Following the assassination of some European citizens, the French occupied Casablanca, while France and Spain were already appointed as mandateries of the new state bank of Morocco at the Algeciras conference in 1906.

General Lyautey left in 1925, and France limitted the prerogatives of the Chérifien central power by proceeding more to direct management. The resistance was organized, consisting mainly of young urban elites. The second world war marked a truce between the nationalist opposition and France. During the war, King Mohamed Ben Youssef (Mohamed V), proclaimed Sultan of the Cherifian Kingdom in 1927, and therefore protector of all his subjects, fiercely defended the cause of the Moroccan Jews against the Vichy regime.

In 1944, the Manifesto of Independence was proclaimed; three years later, His Majesty King Mohammed V made a historic speech in Tangier. During the next five years, the negotiations with France fell and, in 1952, the crisis between the authorities of the protectorate and the nationalists led to insurrectional movements, while the Sultan was deposed, then exiled, along with the whole royal family in Madagascar, in 1953.

However, the setbacks in Indochina and the Algerian war, in 1954, prompted the French government to seek a political solution. The return of exile of the Sovereign will be in November 1955, to open the path of independence, recognized in 1956 by France, then by Spain.

King Hassan II (1961 – 1999)

As soon as he ascended the throne of his Ancestors on March 3, 1961, King Hassan II initiated a new constitution, which was approved overwhelmingly in a December 1962 referendum. This constitution knew reforms in 1971, 1972, 1992 and 1996.

During Hassan II’s reign, Morocco recovered the Spanish-controlled area of Tarfaya in 1958 and of Ifni in 1969 and the rest of the Sahara region, through the Green March, in 1975.

Economically, King Hassan II adopted a market-based economy, where agriculture, tourism, and phosphates mining industries played a major role. On March 3, 1973, he announced the policy of Moroccanization, in which state-held assets, agricultural lands, and businesses that were more than 50 percent foreign-owned-and especially French-owned-were transferred to Moroccans, subsequently, Moroccan-owned immediately were increased from 18% to 55%.

During his reign too, hundreds of dams of varying sizes were built and distributed throughout the Kingdom, with multiple functions of providing water for drinking, industry, irrigation, protection from flooding and soil erosion, protection from pollution, recreation and energy saving.

His Majesty The King Mohamed VI

Shortly after he took the throne On 30 July 1999, King Mohammed VI initiated a new policy to combat poverty and corruption, while creating jobs and improving Morocco’s human rights record. In February 2004, he enacted a new family code, or Mudawana, which granted women more power.

Mohammed also created the so-called Instance Equity and Reconciliation (IER), which was tasked with researching former human rights violations. This move was welcomed by many as promoting democracy.

In a speech delivered on 9 March 2011, His Majesty said that parliament would receive “new powers that enable it to discharge its representative, legislative, and regulatory mission”. In addition, the powers of the judiciary were granted greater independence from the King, who announced that he was impanelling a committee of legal scholars to produce a draft constitution by June 2011. On 1 July, voters approved a set of new political reforms.

The reforms included the following elements:

The Berber language is an official state language along with Arabic.
The state preserves and protects the Hassānīya language and all the linguistic components of the Moroccan culture as a heritage of the nation.
The King is no longer “sacred or holy” but the “integrity of his person” is “inviolable”.
All citizens have the freedom of thought, ideas, artistic expression and creation. Previously only free speech and the freedom of circulation and association were guaranteed. However, criticizing or directly opposing the king is still punishable with prison.
Since the enthronement of His Majesty Mohamed VI, many economic projects have been launched:
Tanger-Med Port entered into service in 2007 with a total capacity of over 3 million containers (8 million in 2016), in addition to professional real estate of over 2000 hectares, complements the overall port infrastructure consisting of 11 ports meeting international standards.
The highway network is connecting the 10 biggest cities.
Thanks to an Open Sky policy, the 15 international airports in Morocco (largest airport hub in the region) are used by a multitude of international companies and are connected to major cities and economic platforms of world affairs.
A wide network of Economic Activities Zones (Integrated Industrial Platforms, free zones, clusters…)
Telecommunications infrastructure meets international standards. Three global operators (Fixed phone, mobile, Internet and data), the telecommunications sector in Morocco achieves every year an intense and sustained activity: 129% mobile penetration and 16 million Internet users (2013).