Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi al-Ma’afiri (1076-1148) This is a preliminary report on a research project about Qadi Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi al-Ma’afiri (1076-1148 C.E.), Chief judge of Seville. The project has three components: 1) A biography of the judge which highlights his early education in Seville culminating with his study under al-Ghazzali in Baghdad. A major figure of Maliki law, his work, as judge, author, and teacher will be another highlight discussed within the changing political environment of the Maghreb. 2) A translation into English, with commentary, of his Tartib al-Rihla, the travel account he penned for his journey to the Mashreq. 3) An interactive story map using ArcGIS online platform connecting the cities and places where he had been during the decade long journey across the Mediterranean Sea. This project is framed within the idea that the people around the Mediterranean Sea were linked culturally and politically which will be highlighted by the biography of Qadi Abu Bakr, which spans Abbadid Seville, the Almoravids and the Almohads, and includes his travel to the Islamic East and the various authorities he studied with that shaped his outlook. The account he left of his journey turned out to be the first of its kind in Maghribi Arabic literature and it is an important record of the political and intellectual history of the southern Mediterranean as Abu Bakr related titles of books and named scholars he studied with along his journey, whether in Malaga or Bijaya, Alexandria, Jerusalem or Baghdad. This account, Tartib al-Rihla, has been lost, but some fragments of it survived in many of his books which were put together in a single version. Translating it into English poses a serious challenge since it is written in literary Arabic of the time; flowery expressions ornamented by rhyming sets of antonyms and synonyms. But, coming as it did during the last decade of the 11th century, the account should be of interest to medievalists, whether European or of the Islamic world. Furthermore, as the first of its kind and distinct from geographic literature, his Rihla account will be analyzed to assess its influence on later Andalusi writers, such as Ibn Jubair. To illustrate the journey, an electronic story map, using the ArcGIS platform, will accompany the translation. This will include relevant comments provided by Ibn al-Arabi, in addition to other relevant information, media, and references.

In 1258 the last 'Abbasid Caliph was crushed by the Mongol Hulegu. Several years before this fateful event, however, a rival Caliph was already proclaimed by the Sharif of Mecca in the streets of Tunis. This proclamation came in the form of a letter written by the Andalusi Sufi Ibn Sab'in "The Son of Seventy". The contents of this letter, buried in the Kitab al Ibar of Ibn Khaldun, left untranslated by nineteenth century orientalists, are filled with allusions not only to the Hafsid ruler, Al-Mustansir, but also to a unique vision of the nature of authority, Qur'anic allusions and Ibn Sab'in's philosophy of the unity of existence. This paper examines and analyses this so-called "Letter of Ibn Sab'in" to show the intimate link between new 13th century Sufi ideas and notions of power, authority and legitimacy in Arabia and North Africa. Inspired by hermetic, philosophical ideals, Ibn Sab'in wished to create in the Hafsid Caliphate a mirror of his vision of creation and the nature of God. Although Ibn Sab'in died in Mecca and would never return to Tunis, Hafsid claims to the Caliphate, made possible by his letter, would continue for centuries, despite the rise of rivals in Mamluk Egypt, Rasulid Yemen and elsewhere.

In the heart of Ottoman Cairo, a small community of Maghribi Ibadi Muslims operated a trade agency, school, and library known as the Buffalo Agency for over three centuries. From the 17th to the mid-20th centuries, the Agency served as a conduit for Maghribi Ibadis to travel to Egypt for study, commerce, and pilgrimage. This paper explores the lives of Ibadis passing through the Buffalo Agency in the 17th and 18th centuries to show how the experience of living, working, and studying in Sunni-majority Ottoman Egypt in turn led to change back home in the Maghrib. Operating as traders and itinerant scholars in the Ottoman world in these centuries brought Ibadis into everyday contact with non-Ibadis and non-Muslims throughout the empire. Ibadi communities established themselves in Ottoman port cities like Tunis, Tripoli, Alexandria, Izmir, and Istanbul as well as in important trade centers like Cairo and Mecca. The result was a well-connected network comparable to those of Sephardic Jews and other religious minority communities in the Mediterranean. Like those communities, Ibadis adapted to their surroundings but were also transformed by their experiences. For Ibadis living at the Buffalo Agency in Cairo, doing business with non-Ibadis in Egyptian towns and cities, adjudicating their affairs in Cairene and Alexandrian courts, and studying alongside their Sunni coreligionists at the al-Azhar Mosque all contributed to small but significant transformations of Ibadi life back in the Maghrib, as the effects of those experiences reverberated along the channels of communication linking different Ibadi communities. Using examples from the careers of Ibadis from the island of Djerba (Tunisia) the paper presents examples of the changes that the Cairo experience brought to the legal and intellectual world of Ibadis in their Maghribi homeland.

By 1757, Morocco had experienced thirty years of fitna, a period of unrest that had been created by divisions within the country’s military (most notably among the slave soldiers known as Abid) as well as conflicts between the Abid and other people of influence. As different factions within the Abid grasped for power, they backed one or another of the many sons of the former sultan, Mulay Ismail, with each faction seeking to establish a government that would bend to their own wishes. Thus, the country must have breathed a collective sigh of relief when Mulay Ismail’s grandson, Muhammad ibn Abdullah (Muhammad III, r. 1757-1790), was able to create a functional administration that was not beholden to the Abid and could finally bring peace to Morocco. Muhammad III is noteworthy in Moroccan history not only for establishing a stable government after years of violent and devastating unrest, but also because the reforms he instituted laid the groundwork for another 230 years in power for the `Alawi dynasty, which is currently the oldest extant dynasty in the MENA region. The renowned Moroccan historian Abdallah Laroui goes so far as to call Muhammad III “the veritable architect of modern Morocco.” Contemporary historical sources and modern scholars present a consistent picture of Muhammad III as a pious and dedicated reformer whose policies included tax reductions, streamlining the Moroccan administration, reducing the size of the military, and improving trade relations with Western powers. It is also argued that the changes he implemented unwittingly facilitated European encroachment into Morocco during the nineteenth century. However, as Daniel Schroeter has pointed out, significant aspects of Moroccan history during the reign of Muhammad III remain understudied. Since Schroeter wrote these words in 1979, no major studies of Muhammd III’s reign have been published. My research seeks to address this gap. This paper reconsiders the reforms of Muhammad III and his influence upon modern Morocco in light of recent publications as well as a careful analysis of a variety of primary and secondary sources. It represents the initial phase of a larger research project which considers the impact of his reforms on the broader Moroccan society, religion and economy, as well as on subsequent developments in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

While recent studies have done much to advance our understanding of the intricacies of diplomatic negotiations and activities in eighteenth century Morocco, these studies still tend to frame the teleology of successful diplomacy within the context of the European enlightenment. Unsurprisingly, this entrenched analytical framework overlooks many of the important local contributions to the development of diplomatic norms, practices, and policy in eighteenth century Morocco. This is particularly clear in the field of intellectual history. As such, this paper attempts to shed light on the many Moroccan voices that participated in the intellectual debate regarding the appropriate setting(s) for diplomacy and the ideal characteristics of a diplomat. To do so, I propose an examination of several 18th century Moroccan diplomats as a burgeoning and connected group of bureaucratic elite. Connecting the intellectual interventions of these actors helps to reconstruct a more robust understanding of how a newly emerging class of Moroccan state actors attempted to formulate theories of diplomatic practice and policy. I first will focus on Ahmed al-Ghazzal’s (d. 1777) discussion of jihad that he details in his eighteenth century rihla Natijat al-Ijtihad fi al-muhadannah wa al-jihad. More than just a rihla, al-Ghazzal’s exposition of the role of diplomacy in Moroccan foreign policy offers a distinctly eighteenth century reinterpretation of this concept, while specifying the role that the diplomat should play. Building off of these broader characteristics, I will then examine Abu al-Qasim al-Zayyani’s (d. 1833) conception of hasad (jealousy) as a key characteristic of the exemplary diplomat as demonstrated in a lengthy anecdote from his al-Tarjumanah al-kubra. Like al-Ghazzal, al-Zayyani draws on a long line of Islamic tradition to substantiate and define this particularly important characteristic of a Moroccan diplomat. Finally, I will examine Ibn Uthman al-Miknasi’s (d. 1798) pedagogical prescriptions for diplomats as drawn from his three rihlat. In the form of rhymed prose and drawing again from a local, Islamic intellectual tradition, al-Miknasi develops a particular image of proper diplomacy and the ideal diplomat. In combining these various authors and their texts, I seek to build a more connected and nuanced understanding of the intellectual history of Moroccan diplomacy in the eighteenth century. Grounding the intellectual aspects of these developments in more specific local and Islamic contexts helps to better elucidate the particularly Moroccan aspects of these conversations, lending more legitimacy to the success of intellectual developments outside of a strictly enlightenment-based framework.