^{page 274 note 2} Lapidus, Ira, Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1967), p. 91.Google Scholar

^{page 274 note 3} Lewis, Bernard, ‘The Study of Islam’, Encounter, vol. xxxvii (01, 1972), p. 38.Google Scholar

^{page 274 note 4} Weber, Max, Economy and Society, ed. Roth, Guenther and Wittich, Claus (New York, 1968), pp. 1212–36, esp. 1226, 1233. A similar formulation of the problem of the study of the city was provided by Fustel de Coulanges for French scholarship, although not with a similar degree of methodological awareness. The Ancient City (New York, n.d. [orig. 1864]) was directly concerned only with the evolution of forms of urban society in ancient Greece and Rome, but Fustel's developmental sequence was implicitly taken up as a microcosm of urban development — or the lack of it — elsewhere, such as in early French studies of the city in North Africa.Google Scholar

^{page 276 note 1} ‘L'Islamisme et la vie urbaine’, Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1928), pp. 86–100, esp. pp. 95–7.Google Scholar

^{page 276 note 2} Von Grunebaum shows acute awareness of the comparative problem in his writings, but his contributions reflect the same difficulties. See his Islam: Essays in the Nature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition, 2nd ed. (London, 1961), pp. 141–58,Google Scholar and ‘The Sacred Character of Islamic Cities’, in Badawi, A. (ed.), Mélanges Taha Huşain (Cairo, 1962), pp. 25–37.Google Scholar

^{page 276 note 3} See Berque, Jacques, ‘Médinas, villeneuves et bidonvilles’, Les Cahiers de Tunisie, vol. VI (1958), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

^{page 276 note 4} Weber, Economy and Society, p. 1213.Google Scholar

^{page 276 note 5} For example, Yalman, Nur, ‘Islamic reform and the mystic tradition in eastern Turkey’, Archiv. Europ. Sociol., vol. x (1969), p. 50.Google Scholar

^{page 276 note 6} Stem, S. M., ‘The constitution of the Islamic city’, in Hourani, A. H. and Stem, S. M. (eds.), The Islamic City (Oxford, 1970), pp. 37, 42.Google ScholarCf. Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1343–9. It is ironical to note that the craft and commercial guilds in the Moroccan town on which this study is based were founded by the French in the late 1920s, according to the older amîns. Since many of them were moribund from the start, it could be argued that the colonial power defined for the Muslims the components of a ‘real’ Muslim town and supplied the missing parts when their image of reality was incongruent with what they found.Google Scholar

^{page 277 note 1} La Vie quotidienne à Fès en 1900 (Paris, 1965), p. 43;Google ScholarBaer, Gabriel, Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago, 1969), pp. 190–209.Google Scholar

^{page 277 note 2} For example, Stem, ‘Constitution’, p. 26.Google Scholar

^{page 277 note 3} Lapidus, Muslim Cities, p. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 277 note 4} Ibid., pp. 186–7.

^{page 277 note 5} Fallers, Lloyd A., Bantu Bureaucracy (Chicago, 1965), p. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 277 note 6} Muslim Cities, pp. 91, 154.Google Scholar

^{page 278 note 1} In this article I have translated darb as ‘quarter’. This follows Boujad usage and — in Boujad — is coterminous with the rarely heard term hawma. In some cities in Morocco, such as Fes, the terms carry different meanings. Darb refers to an impasse or small street, while hawma (which can be composed of several darbs) refers to ‘quarter’. I point out this variation to avoid possible misunderstanding.Google Scholar

^{page 278 note 2} ‘Un quartier se formait une conscience collective qui n'était pas forcément la même que celle du petit quartier voisin’, La Vie quotidienne, p. 53.Google Scholar

^{page 278 note 3} On the Tadla, Dukkala and Shawya plains of western Morocco an individual claiming descent from ‘Umar is often called a fqîr (pl. fuqarâ), an attribute as familar there as the more generally known claims to descent from the Prophet Mubammad and relation to the reigning Moroccan dynasty (shrif; p1. shurafâ). On descent from ‘Umar, see al-Qâdirî, Mubammad, Nachr al-Mathani (Paris, 1913), pp. 127–9.Google ScholarThere is an overlapping between the categories of descent from Muhammad or ‘Umar and that of being a marabout. A marabout is a person, living or dead, attributed with a special relationship with God and an ability to control the flow of, or to convey, divine grace (baraka). In principle, some informants say that marabouts need not be descendants of the Prophet or of 'Umar, although in practice marabouts are attributed with such descent. At present only two living Sharqâwa are attributed with the quality of marabout by large numbers of predominantly rural tribesmen, although a larger number of Sharqâwa, called ‘visitors’ (zawwâr; p1. zwâwir) have reputations as particularly effective intercessors with their maraboutic relations living and dead.Google Scholar

^{page 279 note 1} Boujad's population in 1880 was about 1,700, of which 200 were Jews. In 1926, of 8,879 inhabitants, 1,010 were Jews and 138 were Europeans — almost all administrators and merchants, since the mediocre agricultural lands surrounding Boujad attracted virtually no colons. From the 1930s onwards surrounding towns with more economic potential grew rapidly in size, while Boujad's population levelled off except for sharp declines in its Jewish and European components. There were only 336 Jews remaining in 1956, the year of Independence. Only one household remained in 1969. Most of the Europeans departed shortly after Independence. Presently only a small group of secondary school teachers on temporary assignments remain. All population figures are from the archives of the Annexe de Boujad, except those of 1880, which are from de Foucauld, Charles, Reconnaissance au Maroc (Paris, 1939), p. 125.Google Scholar

^{page 279 note 2} al-Nâsirî, , Kitâb al-Istiqsâ, tr. Fumey, Eugène, vol. 1 (Paris, 1906), pp. 346–7;Google ScholarFoucauld, Reconnaissance, p. 121;Google ScholarLévi-Provençal, E., Les Historiens des Chorfa (Paris, 1922), pp. 297–8.Google Scholar

^{page 280 note 1} New Boujad (Bja'd Jdîd) is the ‘native’ housing scheme initiated by the French in the 1930s. The original part is the orderly, rectangular grid closest to the old madîna (see map). Most of the other accretions are the result of post-Independence expansion.Google Scholar

^{page 280 note 2} Geertz, Clifford, ‘In Search of North Africa’, New York Review of Books (22 April 1971), p. 20.Google Scholar See also his review of Waterbury, John, Commander of the Faithful, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. vi, (1971), pp. 254–5, for comments on the misapplication of ‘segmentary’ models of social organization to North Africa.Google Scholar In a similar vein, Berque, Jacques, in Jean and Simonne Lacouture, Le Maroc à l'épreuve (Paris, 1958), p. 80, has characterized the diversity in the forms of Moroccan towns and villages and other ‘surface’ units of society as ‘petits monstres d'ingéniosité sociale’ because of their lack of comparability.Google Scholar

^{page 281 note 1} For example, Turner, Victor W., The Ritual Process (Chicago, 1969), pp. 125–6.Google Scholar

^{page 281 note 2} For a similar formulation based on work elsewhere in Morocco, see Rosen, Lawrence, ‘The Social Structure of a Moroccan Town’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1968), esp. p. 68, and in several publications now in the press. This formulation also seems compatible with James A. Bill's discussion of the Iranian dawrah in ‘The Plasticity of Informal Politics: the Case of Iran’, paper read at a Conference on the Structure of Power in Islamic Iran, U.C.L.A., 1969.Google Scholar One of the few social anthropologists to have paid attention to this type of social structure situation is Fallers, Lloyd A.. See his ‘Despotism, Status Culture and Social Mobility in an African Kingdom’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. II (1959), pp. 23, 29.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 1} Claude d'Escorcheville, Controleur Civil of Boujad, 1934–8, untitled monograph on the Sharqâwa, written c. 1938. Typescript, p. 119.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 2} Further, relatives of prominent figures in religious brotherhoods (tarîqas) were not allowed to acquire foreign patents of protection. These were invaluable in commercial activities early in the Protectorate. See Archives, Annexe de Boujad, T. Steeg to Commandant of Meknès region, 25/D (23 March 1928). French colonial cosmography curiously considered the Sharqâwa descent group as a confrérie, which Moroccans never did.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 3} I say ‘tend to be’ since being a marabout was a significant factor in an election in the early 1960s, when a Sharqâwî candidate won with the support of rural tribesmen who regarded his close kinsman as a marabout.Google Scholar

^{page 283 note 1} For example, Brunot, Louis, in Hardy, Georges, L'Ame marocaine d'après la littérature française (Paris, 1926), p. 20.Google Scholar

^{page 283 note 2} The approximate locations of these quarters are indicated on Fig. I. Numbers on the map are keyed to Table I. I wish to thank John Kirchner for preparation of the base map, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Chicago for a grant towards its preparation. At times darbs are coterminous with narrow impasses, but in general are composed of a number of contiguous impasses which cannot be discerned by physical inspection alone. This is even more apparent in the rectangular grid of ‘New Boujad’. Cf. de Boucheman, Albert, Une petite cité caravanière: Suhnè (Damascus, 1937), where the author provides an aerial photograph of the settlement together with a transparent overleaf indicating its division into quarters.While a few features such as caravanserais can be identified without the overleaf, the lines between quarters cannot.Google Scholar

^{page 285 note 1} These figures are based on the registration forms for the 1963 municipal elections. An 'adult' is defined for electoral purposes as an individual 21 years of age or older. The estimate for total residents of each quarter is based on the fact that 47 % of.Google Scholar

Morocco's population was under 15 years of age in 1960. See Tiano, André, Le développement économique du Maghreb (Paris, 1968), p. 6Google Scholar

Sharqâwa quarters are italicized. Identification numbers of quarters established prior to the Protectorate are in italic type.Google Scholar

For Boujad as a whole, 54 % of the residents of the town were born there, 35 % came from surrounding rural areas and the remaining 11 % came from other parts of Morocco.

^{page 286 note 1} He also made the same point using the concept of hbâb, which literally means ‘loved ones’, but which often is used to refer to blood relations. When necessary for context such terms can be more strictly delimited. For example, Boujadis speak of some individuals being qrâb, or hbâb bish-shr'a, to indicate who are kinsmen within the definitions of Islamic laws concerning marriage and inheritance. In many respects qrâba in present-day Morocco resembles the concept of ‘asabîya presented over 500 years earlier by Ibn Khaldûn. Ibn Khaldûn is particularly good at indicating the multiple bases on which ‘asbîya can be based among both townsmen and tribesman, but ultimately opts for the ideological position that the ‘naturalness’ of blood ties makes them superior to the others.Google Scholar Urban and rural Moroccans of today will make the same point. How these are articulated in practice is another matter, as my text indicates. See The Muqaddimah, trans. Rosenthal, Franz, vol. I, 2nd ed. (Princeton, 1967), pp. 249–310, esp. p. 264.Google Scholar

^{page 287 note 1} See Table I. Cf. Lapidus, Muslim Cities, p. 85, where he estimates the average size of quarters in medieval Damascus at 500–600 inhabitants.Google Scholar

^{page 287 note 2} A further confirmation of this possibility is the fact that rural dwars (villages or semi-nomadic pastoral groups) in the Boujad region have a similar population range. These groups also claim affiliation on the basis of qrâba. The range of possibilities in which dyadic ties may be contracted generally tends to be more limited for tribesmen as opposed to townsmen, but they show the same flexibility as the pattern I am outlining for the town. Dwars tend to coalesce and disappear the same way as urban darbs. This is not to say, as has been suggested elsewhere in the Muslim world, that urban quarters are to be understood as ‘continuations’ of rural or tribal practices, or of adaptations of them to town life. At least for Morocco it is more accurate to say that the similarity occurs because both townsmen and tribesmen share the same cultural assumptions towards social order.Google Scholar

^{page 288 note 1} As an example of this dissociation in a Shrqâwa quarter, there was a quarter which claimed as eponymal ancestor Sîdî l-Murslî, a son of the founding marabout. It was located next to the shrine of Sîdî Mhammad Sharqî. Presently it is remembered only by the oldest Boujadis, although descendants of this marabout are still in Boujad and entitled to a share of offerings to the shrine. The residences of Jews followed a similar pattern. Prior to the Protectorate there was no mallâh properly speaking. Jews clustered around three prominent Jewish households in different parts of Boujad. The darb in which there was the synagogue was called the mallâh. When all but one Jewish household departed in 1963 and the synagogue was deconsecrated, the ex-Jewish quarter quickly became known as part of Darb l-Qâdiriyîn, the Sharqâwa quarter which encompassed it. A more dramatic indication of these shifts is the difficulty which local officials have in using an administrative map prepared by the French in the 1930s, which still is supposed to be employed for governmental purposes. Many of the boundaries have shifted and several names are unidentifiable. Although these labels are supposed to be used for such things as election registration, officials admit that they are unable to follow it and instead use the nomenclature ‘which everyone knows’.Google Scholar

^{page 289 note 1} Names and minor details in this account have been altered. In recounting this episode informants regarded this turn of fortune as a sign of God's favor to Bû Bakr and attached no adverse connotations to his behavior.Google Scholar

^{page 289 note 2} Numbers in parentheses refer to Figure 2.Google Scholar

^{page 290 note 1} A brother of Ma‘tî’s, actively seeking a government post, indicates how the same calculations of ‘closeness’ act in other contexts. He told me that his wald 'âmm (FaBroSo), a government clerk in Rabat, was helping him in the matter. In this case, the ‘actual’ link (i.e., by shr'a) was known. He claimed as wald 'amm his ‘sister's husband's mother's sister's son’ (wald khût umm râjil khûhî) or - since both one of his brothers and his sister married into the same household — his ‘brother's wife's mother's sister's son’. Again the justification offered for using the term wald 'âmm was the quality of ‘closeness’ claimed to exist between the two individuals.Google Scholar

^{page 292 note 1} This move indicated, of course, a sensitivity to informal constellations of power as opposed to the formal distribution of authority.Google Scholar

^{page 292 note 2} This position had precedents. Early in the Protectorate the French developed a policy of avoiding intervention in Sharqâwa affairs, alternatively with the justifications that such matters were either ‘religious’ or ‘familial’. (Personal communication from Claude d'Escorcheville, 1970.)Google Scholar

^{page 293 note 1} For example, Bel, Alfred, La Religion musulmane en Berbérie (Paris, 1938), pp. 376–82.Google Scholar