Morocco History Part II

By | January 23, 2022

On the other hand, it is clear that Rome gave that distant possession an organic arrangement that is reflected in other regions, for example. in Tripolitania; that is, he established a fortified area, between Tingis, Sala and Mount Zarhun; vast triangle with its limes towards the south, and which formed the basis of domination and defense, beyond which advanced places existed and were made, when necessary, demonstrative tips and punitive expeditions or the influences of civilization were made to penetrate into the populations that were not subjected, which future discoveries undoubtedly will confirm. Even the meeting of Tingitana to the diocese of Spain, which took place with the administrative reform of Diocletian (and which had already partially taken place previously) does not already demonstrate that that region, detached from the rest of northern Africa, ended up being, as it was said, a “possession suspended in the air”; but it demonstrates from the military and administrative point of view a clear vision of the state of countries and a wise use of experience.

In fact, the communication between the two Mauretanias was in antiquity, as now seen in the steppe zone that separates Morocco from Algeria and through the narrow corridor of Taza, difficult and dangerous; and although it is believed that there was a military route between the two regions, it is certain that the contact between the Tingitana and Spain across the sea was incomparably easier and quite normal, and therefore the aforementioned meeting was recommended. It is therefore probable that, as archaeological explorations progress, new traces of Roman life will be discovered, and above all the civilizing influence on the indigenous populations will appear wider, which persists even long after the Arab conquest, as can be seen from the persistence of the culture and spirit of the city and the survivals of Christianity even in the time of the Idrisites.

According to clothingexpress.org, the passage of the Vandals into northern Morocco naturally had only negative effects; the Byzantine occupation had very little influence in the re-establishment of order and civil life, which was limited to some fortified cities in the strait, such as Tangier and Ceuta. At the beginning of the Arab conquest, Morocco was therefore made up of a mass of Berber population, a part of which had had the civilizing imprint of Rome and Christianity. The new occupation and the bond of dependence that was established with it between those people and the empire of the caliphs, did not have great importance from the ethnic point of view, since the Arab element introduced into the country was very scarce; likewise it was of mediocre effectiveness in terms of spoken language, customs and social status, that with a large part of the population they have remained what they were, that is, Berbers; but it had extraordinary consequences for the spread of the Muslim religion, which ended up including almost all the residents, and for the introduction, as a literary idiom, of one of the great oriental languages, namely Arabic. These two essential factors gave Morocco a new indelible physiognomy, alienating it from European civilization and tying it spiritually, if not always politically, to the Islamic East. The Arabs, made in the year 21 of the ègira, 642 d. C., a first expedition in Cyrenaica, subsequently extended to the other regions of North Africa, Tripolitania, Tunisia, Algeria, and in 65 eg., 684-685 d. C., entered Morocco, led by the general, the partly legendary figure, ‛Oqbah ibn Nāfi‛, which after touching Tangier would have pushed along the western plains, thus entering the Sous (Sūs), without however achieving a stable conquest of those regions, which instead was accomplished in the early years of the century. VIII d. C. by general Mūsà ibn Nusair. The Moroccan Berbers then began to convert to Islam and had a large part in the conquest of Spain, which began in the year 91 of the eg., 709-710 d. C., with a first reconnaissance, and subsequently, in 711, pushed to the bottom by the famous Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, Berber converted to Islam, lieutenant of Mūsà ibn Nusair, and by this same. But soon the Arab domination in Morocco no less than in the neighboring regions collided with strong currents of opposition, driven by the ancient spirit of independence of the Berber people, from their particularistic tendencies, and also from the not very benevolent and in some period completely oppressive treatment of the Arabs. The opposition was colored by a religious idea, the Berbers having widely accepted the khārigita heresy, in whose name it broke out in Morocco in 122 eg., 739-740 d. C., a great revolt initially led by Máisarah, of the Zenātah tribe of the Maṭgharahs, and which rapidly spread to much of northern Africa. The Arabs fought against it for a long time, but were no longer able to re-establish their dominion in some areas, and among these in Morocco, where the small independent states of the Berghawāṭah (v.) Were formed on the Atlantic coast, of the Benī Midrār (v.) to Sigilmāsah, etc. The khārigite revolt of Barbary is part of a broader phenomenon of political decadence of the caliphal empire, which, formed in less than a century after the death of Mohammed with very rapid conquests that reached as far as India and the Atlantic, and despite having an important element of cohesion in the religion and culture that spread an important element of cohesion, in reality In the second half of the century. VIII d. C. showed the first signs of a process of decomposition due to the rise of many small autonomous states in the peripheral regions of the East and the West; process that reveals in the Arabs the lack of real capacity as organizers of empires.

Morocco History 2