This campaign is aimed at asserting the “Sunni malekite nature” of “Moroccan Islam”; its aim is to buttress the pro-monarchy traditionalism of very Morocco-specific institutions such as the “Commandership of the Faithful” (specific in that it argues that the king has the same role as a Caliph, but only for Moroccans), Sherifism (high respect for descendants of the prophet, a very Shia tradition that has since Sultan Moulay Ismail in the 17th century been a key part of governance through a ethno-religious aristocracy) and the prominence of apolitical Sufi tariqat. The campaign to reimpose these traditionalist values is partly a not-so-badly thought out attempt to limit the spread of salafism (I applaud that) but has also spread into paranoia about Iran-funded Shia conversion and as a way to put pressure on Islamic parties, legal and unrecognized. But it’s the kind of thing that the Moroccan regime has long done – asserting a Moroccan Islam that is nice and fluffy vs. the Islam of its opponents – and, moreover, the foreigners usually lap it up.
