Tahar Ben Jelloun: Writer and poet

Yacout Info met him recently at the Tindouf Gallery in Marrakech where he was signing copies of “Marabouts Maroc” published with sketches by Claudio Bravo and photographs by Antonio Corres.


He explained that Marabouts in Morocco were built for saints “for us in Morocco they are part of our countryside.” Every Friday Moroccans habitually visit the Marabout of the saint who looks after the local village or town. They are the symbol of the town or village and there are many more saints in the towns and cities, Marrakech for instance has seven saints and if you take Fes the principle saint is Moulay Idris amongst many others. The devotion to saints is very popular and not something associated with tourists. The tradition of saints is not part of the Saudi wahabite belief because they accept no intermediary between God and man other than the Prophet Mohammed.

However the Islamic Malakite rite in Morocco is more “supple” or flexible on this point and does permit a devotion to local saints without displacing the position of the Prophet. The saints are celebrated and prayed to and he uses the example of his mother praying to a saint when he was ill as a child. ” Saints act as an intermediary -mid way between a doctor and a mystic” and he believes they have a symbolic role. The saint demonstrates holiness, virtue, goodness and sanctity in his life. The people of the village or town decided who was a saint and the decision took time and is not an automatic process.

Islam in Morocco evolved when it arrived in the seventh and early eighth century and was not imposed by violence and the population was not converted against their will. Thus you have jews and berbers. Some of the jews chose to convert and some did not. “As a result Morocco has always been extremely open and tolerant”. Even though there is the Koran , he affirms that it is necessary to respect all the prophets and there is continuity. It wasn’t until the French protectorate and the expulsion of King Mohammed V by the French that Moroccans experienced this kind of aggression against their society . This was a shock for Moroccans and the King’s Jewish subjects and it is why he is pleased that Marabouts Maroc points out that there are 221 Jewish saints in Morocco of which 25 are women. Out of a total of 650 saints, 126 are venerated by both muslims and jews. Jews lived in Morocco alongside the berber people for more than two thousand years. “ One has never seen jews in a bad situation in this country and it is evident that today, islam in the 20th century is not against the jews. This is not fully understood by europeans.”

Tahar Ben Jelloun feels that relations between Islam and the West are passing through a difficult phase at the moment largely because of some malicious opinions and misinterpretation of facts. This can be traced to the appearance of terrorist organizations such as Al Quaeda who claim the Islamic flag in order to kill, but it should not be forgotten that they have killed many muslims including in Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria , Pakistan and Indonesia amongst other places. There is no doubt that they are also attacking islam. The Koran does not sanction murder, assassination or suicide. He feels that western media has begun to understand that Islam is against this kind of terrorism. They also need to understand that there are fanatics everywhere and Islamic immigrant populations such as the Maghrebians are unfairly blamed for acts of terrorism which have nothing to do with them or Islam . He feels President Obama’s speech in Cairo where he used the greeting “ Salam ali kum” was a turning point and Americans now realize that Al Qaeda is an international terrorist movement. No organization can survive without popular support and he believes that these terrorist organisations will eventually be forgotten as the anarchists, who operated in the early part of the twentieth century gradually faded away. “The people are not with them, you don’t kill the people and expect them to support you”.

In « Le racisme expliqué à ma fille”, and other work he promotes racial harmony and explains Islam to the West. In Europe fear of immigration has been used to create fear of loosing jobs by some politically motivated parties. He believes that it is important not to isolate young immigrants and leave them without jobs as this prevents them from integrating successfully and it is wrong to blame this on Islam.

The city of Tangiers is very special for him and he visits frequently. “It is my city” even though he was born in Fes in 1944, Tangier became his city by adoption “there are things that you don’t find anywhere else in Morocco not in Casablanca or Marrakech , I can’t say why it’s very bizarre”. Tangiers is where he encountered the French language in which he writes, he describes himself as a French author of Moroccan origin. He also met many famous writers like Jean Genet who fired his imagination and sense of mission against injustice. He is one of the most prolific novelists and poets of his generation.
He studied and taught philosophy in Morocco and then moved to France where he became a psychiatrist. He feels these two disciplines helped him focus on the human condition and the power of counseling and it helped him have a greater insight into the pain and problems suffered by immigrants.

When he was confined in a camp as a student at Ahermemou in eastern Morocco he asked his brother to bring him the largest book he could find. He was allowed one family visit every three months. Reading a book was forbidden so he could only have one book which he had to hide. His brother brought him a French language copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses and he revelled in the writer’s freedom to examine language and ideas and form, for Tahar Ben Jelloun this was a defining moment as a young man in a frightening environment where he had no freedom. He understood the freedom of the writer and never looked back.