Negotiating the New Reconquista: Catholics and Muslims in 1930s Morocco

The original reconquista, or reconquest, of the Iberian Peninsula (present day Spain and Portugal) took place from approximately 800 to 1500 CE, when Christian forces advancing from the north gradually overthrew the Muslim rulers in control of the rest of the region. Over time, a common narrative, which describes this long series of battles as a sacred and patriotic struggle to wrest Spain from the hands of infidel Muslim foreigners, came to be a national myth for the Spanish. It is hardly surprising, then, that General Francisco Franco drew on this powerful discourse to frame his nationalist rebellion against the Spanish Republic in 1936 as a new reconquista. The portrayal faced some obstacles, however: not only did the nationalist effort launch itself from what was then the Spanish Protectorate in northern Morocco, it also relied heavily on over 78,000 Moroccan Muslim troops to achieve its 1939 victory. My project would investigate and examine the specifically religious dialogue taking place between the Catholic Spanish nationalists and the various factions of Moroccan Muslims who engaged with them.

The situation under discussion was delicate. On the one hand, no one could deny the nationalists’ use of reconquista rhetoric to lend legitimacy to their cause. The military codeword “Covadonga,” for example, called to mind the northern city celebrated by the classic reconquista narrative as the first site of Christian holdout against the Muslims and thus encouraged people to view the nationalist uprising as a similarly righteous defense of Spanish purity. Contradicting such self representation, however, was a rebel military comprised in no small part of precisely the enemy of the original reconquista. Moroccan Muslims played an integral role in the nationalist triumph, being in many cases more professional than their Spanish counterparts.

On the Spanish nationalist side, the main response to this apparent incongruity consisted in stressing the commonalities between Christianity and Islam. Their alliance was crucial to combat the new foreign threat of atheistic communism, portrayed by the nationalists as the ideological banner of the Republican band. To promote the notion of monotheistic fraternity, Franco even organized a maritime pilgrimage to Mecca and offered subsidies and benefits to the participants. Such outreach did not change the fact that Muslim figures like Abdelkhalek Torres, a leader of Morocco’s own nationalist movement, took issue with what they perceived as a religiously questionable situation. In a conversation with the Spanish Protectorate High Commissioner Juan Beigbeder, for example, Torres argued against the enlistment of Muslims in the Spanish army by citing a Qur’anic prohibition on fighting under non-Muslim banners.

I am interested in the significance of Torres and in particular the following questions: who among the Muslim population agreed with him and how did they frame their arguments? What role did the ulema, an intellectual Muslim elite with considerable political influence, play in the matter? At one point Mulay Hassan, the Moroccan representative of the Sultan to the Protectorate and an ally of the Spanish nationalists, expressed anxiety to Beigbeder over the possibility that ulema in Fez would hear of Torres’ cause and release a fatwa, or legal opinion, against enlistment under Franco. I want to investigate whether anyone produced such a fatwa and, if so, what kind of authority it held for the general Muslim population. As for the Spanish nationalist side, who constituted the important players and to what degree were they successful in justifying their position on a religious basis? What can we conclude, for instance, when Beigbeder makes reference to the Qur’an in a letter to Torres? Finally, I would explore how opinions and arguments may have changed over time in both the Christian and Muslim camps.

In recent years there has emerged a certain body of literature addressing Moroccan participation in the Spanish Civil War. While the religious conversation taking place between the Spanish Christians and various Moroccan Muslim groups sometimes appears in these writings, I have not come across any work that addresses it specifically. My project would therefore be unique in comprising an investigation and analysis directed solely to that dialogue.

I am distinctly qualified to carry out such a project. Having spent a year studying in Córdoba, in southern Spain, I am fluent in Spanish, the primary language in which I would be conducting my research. Furthermore, Spanish is widely spoken in the northern area of Morocco, as confirmed by own travels and by Saadia Maski of MACECE in an email to me, and this prevalence would allow me to interact with the local population on both a professional and social basis. Should I need to supplement my Spanish fluency, I am able to read in French and will have the equivalent of two years of Arabic study by the time I arrive in Morocco. Knowledge of Arabic, while not a crucial skill for this project, would surely enhance my research capabilities and lend a linguistic and cultural nuance to my understanding of this interfaith conversation. It would also enable me to engage in a broader variety of ways with the local community. For these reasons, I am requesting the Critical Language Enhancement Award in Arabic.

Aside from my relevant language skills, I am well-positioned to undertake this project because of my academic background in religion, specifically in Islamic Studies. Several of my courses have focused directly on Muslim Spain and therefore I possess an understanding of the broader historical context which underlies a project such as this one. This coming year, for my senior thesis I will be dedicating myself to the study of the relationship between two illustrious medieval thinkers, al-Ghazali in the Middle East and Averroes in Muslim Spain.

In addition to possessing a foundational knowledge of the religious history between Spain and Morocco, I have identified the resources necessary to make this project a reality. I propose to spend the year in Tetouan, Franco’s headquarters during the onset of the war and a rich source of literary material. The city is home to a number of archives, both public – the Archive of the General Library of Tetouan and the General Archive of the Protectorate in Tetouan, for example – and private, such as the Archive of the Torres Foundation and the personal collections of Muhammad Ibn Azzuz Hakim and Mustapha El Merroun. There is an abundance of libraries, including the General Library, the Abdelkhalek Torres-Al-Ahliya Library, the Daoud Library and the Guennoun Library. In addition, several relevant scholarly associations have headquarters or branches in Tetouan, among them the al-Medina Association, the Cervantes Institute and the al-Idrissi Foundation, all of which have ties to Spain. Through these sites, I plan to access texts already written on Moroccans in the Civil War as well as primary sources, such as diaries, official documents and newspapers like La Gaceta de África, Telegrama del Rif, al-Wahda and al-Hurria. People affiliated with the establishments will also serve as excellent resources and guides.

All the pieces are therefore in place to make this proposal a successful Fulbright project. The resources are available, and I am personally qualified both linguistically and academically. As importantly, the final product would be a valuable contribution to scholars’ understanding of how Catholic Spanish and Muslim Moroccans were framing their religious relationship during the first half of the twentieth century.