The Constant and the Changed in the Traditions of (original) (raw)

2018

Abstract

The Muslim Sultanian harem is generally regarded as the most prestigious but also the most firmly concealed spheres of the kingdom. This prestige and mystery has attracted historians' attention to this object of study at an early stage. However, the Sultanian harems in the Maghreb are on the contrary much less studied than the generic institution of the harem. Historians have tended to take for granted a principle of opacity concerning the life of the harem, the idea that there was a world by definition private, inaccessible to knowledge.1 According to Nicolas Michel's otherwise well-researched study of pre-colonial Morocco, ‘the desire to absolutely conceal the private life of the Sultan from outsiders was consistent with the customs of good society, and gave the palace a very different image of the European courts, founded on the contrary on the public character of all acts, including family of the sovereign.’2 In Morocco, marriage ceremonies within the Alawi Dynasty have always constituted one of the occasions in which the meticulously safeguarded ancestral heritage is and thoroughly carried out and proudly displayed as a symbol of continuity and legitimacy. 3 It is a legacy that usually dates back to five centuries, the first of which was under the reign of Sultan Moulay Ismail (1672- 1727) the founding father of the current royal dynasty in Morocco. Late King Hassan II (1961- 1999) is considered the monarch who was keen on reviving many of the rituals and customs of great significance and symbolism

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