Les marabouts au Maroc : comment expliquer la vigueur des pratiques maraboutiques dans l'actuel royaume chérif ?

The term "marabout" comes from the deformation of the Arabic term murabit. The murabit is the disciple who receives the religious teachings of a master that is established in a ribat. Their nercropolises are often located on what used to be the old major caravanner routes, where they represented spaces of neutrality, politcal refuge, and were also commercial places. The meaning of the word 'marabout' underwent an evolution. Today a marabout is a figure whose remarkable qualities made him to be regarded as an intermediary of God on earth and that is worshipped by people seeking for mediation with God. Nowadays there are dozens and dozens of them that still hold a particular place in the Moroccans' life even though this cult of the saints is not considered as acceptable in Islam. Today, in the places devoted to the practice of Islam in Morocco, in addition to the mosque where Muslims usually gather, thousands of shrines exist and are visited regularly by people with all kinds of motivations that we will look closer at in the body of this paper.

Basically, according to Clifford Geertz, there are historically two causes for marabouthood that he refers to as "the miraculous and the genealogical" . So, the first way to be recognized as a marabout is to make uncanny things to happen, and the second one is to be of direct descent from the prophet (then the marabout is also called sherif) - or both. But over the course of time the genealogical view and the idea that baraka was transmitted by blood became predominant.
Baraka, in Morocco and in other places of the Muslim world, is considered as a "mysterious wonder-working force which is looked upon as a blessing from God ". Baraka is associated with gestures, events occurring in daily life, words, places, animals, plants, foods, writing, and marabouts as well. All of this makes baraka a part of everyday life for Moroccans. And for those who believe in their power, marabouts have the power to transmit this baraka.

Moroccans associate marabouts with the saints (wali), someone that "has a certain rank with God" (sh-daraja l-'end Allah), someone that is 'close' (qrib) to God. So, this is a conception which implies a hierarchy among Muslims before God, an idea that is totally rejected by reformist Muslims but that is still the basis for Sufi beliefs. Normally in Islam only God knows who is close to him. This idea that there is no hierarchy of men before God was propagated more widely in the second half of the 20th century by scripturalists that denouced maraboutic practice as pagan or polytheist.