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Authoritarian religion: explaining when and why authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion

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Authoritarian religion: explaining when and why authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion

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Content Copyright 2022 Brian Knafou

Authoritarian Religion:
Explaining When and Why Authoritarian Governments Instrumentalize Religion

by

Brian Knafou
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(POLITICAL SCIECNCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS)

May 2022

i

Table of Contents
List of Tables ..................................................................................................................................... iv
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................... v
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ vi
Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................................................1
Defining and Changing Religion ................................................................................................................ 6
The Lens of Authoritarianism and Variation in Instrumentalization ........................................................ 8
The Drawbacks and Benefits of a Regional and Religious Focus ............................................................ 11
Plan for the Dissertation ......................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter 2: Explaining the Instrumentalization of Religion in Authoritarian Governments ................... 16
The Politics of Authoritarianism ............................................................................................................. 18
The Politics of Religion ............................................................................................................................ 22
What is Instrumentalization? ................................................................................................................. 26
Why Do Authoritarian Governments Instrumentalize Religion? ............................................................ 29
When Do Authoritarian Governments Instrumentalize Religion? ......................................................... 31
Limits of the Theory ................................................................................................................................ 36
Empirical Strategy ................................................................................................................................... 37
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 39
Chapter 3: The Instrumentalization of Islam in Post-Independence Morocco ..................................... 41
ii

Morocco and the Alaouite Royal Family ................................................................................................. 42
The Protectorate and the Reign of Mohammed V: The Beginnings of the Regime ............................... 43
Hassan II: Repression, Cooptation, and Compromise ............................................................................ 51
Mohammed VI: The Authoritarian Reformer ......................................................................................... 68
Analysis ................................................................................................................................................... 75
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 81
Chapter 4: The Call of the Truth and the Imperatives of Politics ......................................................... 82
Dawa al-Haqq: High Culture and Political Propaganda .......................................................................... 84
Reading Dawa al-Haqq ........................................................................................................................... 88
The Sand War ......................................................................................................................................... 95
The 1971 and 1972 Coups .................................................................................................................... 102
Abdessalam Yassine’s Letter ................................................................................................................. 112
The Iranian Revolution ......................................................................................................................... 118
Dawa al-Haqq and the Domestic Opposition ....................................................................................... 127
Counter Explanations for Dawa al-Haqq’s Content ............................................................................. 131
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 134
Chapter 5: Dar al-Ifta and the Instrumentalization of Islam in the War Against Terrorism in Egypt .... 138
The Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Endurance of Military Rule ................................ 139
The War Against Terrorism and Extremism in Egypt ............................................................................ 144
Dar al-Ifta, Its Subsidiaries, and Its Publications ................................................................................... 147
iii

Qualitative Analysis of Dar al-Ifta’s Publications .................................................................................. 149
External and Internal Terrorism ........................................................................................................... 155
Responsiveness to Terrorist Attacks ..................................................................................................... 161
Methods of Condemnation .................................................................................................................. 165
Discussion of Results ............................................................................................................................ 169
Counter Explanations ........................................................................................................................... 170
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 172
Chapter 6: Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 175
Evaluating the Theory ........................................................................................................................... 176
External Validity and China’s Exceptionalism ....................................................................................... 182
Avenues for Future Research ............................................................................................................... 188
References ..................................................................................................................................... 192

iv

List of Tables

Table 3.1: Political Challenges and Responses During the Reign of Mohammed V ................................... 48
Table 3.2: Political Challenges and Responses During the reign of Hassan II ............................................. 63
Table 3.3: Political Challenges and Responses During the Reign of Mohammed VI .................................. 71
Table 4.1: List of Words Used to Code for Religious Unity and Deviant Dawas ....................................... 119
Table 4.2: List of Moroccan Opposition Groups and Figures .................................................................... 123
Table 5.1: Accuracy of the Classifiers for Dar al-Ifta ................................................................................. 148
Table 5.2: Articles and Statements about External and Internal Terrorism in Dar al-Ifta ....................... 149
Table 5.3: Results of the Classification of Articles and Statements from Dar al-Ifta ................................ 150
Table 5.4: Dar al-Ifta’s Responsiveness to Domestic Terror Attacks ........................................................ 153
Table 5.5: List of words Used to Classify an Islamic Condemnation of Terrorism .................................... 156
Table 5.6: Number of Articles Containing an Explicit Condemnation of Terrorism in Dar al-Ifta ............. 157

v

List of Figures

Figure 1.1: Regulation of Religion in Authoritarian and Democratic Countries (1996-2014) ....................... 3
Figure 4.1: Prices for Dawa al-Haqq and Other Moroccan Magazines (1957-1992) .................................. 86
Figure 4.2: Examples of Dawa al-Haqq’s Covers and Pictures.................................................................... 90
Figure 4.3: Articles from Dawa al-Haqq Discrediting Marxism ................................................................ 100
Figure 4.4: Articles from Dawa al-Haqq on the Islamic Legitimacy of the Monarchy .............................. 108
Figure 4.5: Articles From Dawa al-Haqq on the Islamic Legitimacy of the Monarchy in the Years Before
and After the Attempted Coups ............................................................................................................... 109
Figure 4.6: Article from Dawa al-Hqq on the Islamic Renaissance ........................................................... 111
Figure 4.7: Examples of Covers From Dawa al-Haqq on the Green March .............................................. 117
Figure 4.8: Articles from Dawa al-Haqq on Deviant Dawas/Religious Unity ............................................ 126
Figure 5.1: Results of the Results of the Classification of Articles and Statements from Dar al-Ifta ........ 160
Figure 5.2: Examples of Dar al-Ifta’s Condemnations of Terrorist Attacks .............................................. 163

vi

Abstract

This dissertation attempts to explain why authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion selectively,
and why authoritarian governments choose to instrumentalize religion when they do. I argue that
instrumentalizing religion is costly. First, governments must either invest in the capacity to force
religious institutions and authorities to do their bidding, or they must offer incentives to secure the
cooperation of religious institutions and authorities. Second, when governments instrumentalize religion
they risk diminishing the credibility of the religious authorities, institutions, and rhetoric being
instrumentalized. I argue that the potential benefits of instrumentalization outweigh its potential costs
when authoritarian governments lack other options for dealing with political threats. More specifically, I
argue that governments will bear the costs of instrumentalization in the aftermath of an attempted
coup, as they will likely use religion as one means of reestablishing their legitimacy. I also argue that
governments are more likely to instrumentalize religion to discredit ideological groups that they cannot
coopt or coerce, and less likely to instrumentalize religion against groups that they can coopt or coerce.
This dissertation tests this theory in three ways. It examines when and why the Moroccan monarchy
instrumentalized religion through the regulation of religious institutions, creation of new religious
institutions, and alliances with religious groups. It analyzes how the monarchy instrumentalized religious
rhetoric through Dawa al-Haqq – a monthly magazine produced by the Moroccan Ministry of Islamic
Affairs. It also evaluates how the Egyptian government instrumentalized religious rhetoric through Dar
al-Ifta – a governmental body responsible for giving Islamic legal opinions.
1

Chapter 1: Introduction

In December 2001 Abdul Latif Nasir was captured by the United States military while attempting
to escape Afghanistan. He was sent to Guantanamo Bay without being charged for a crime and he
remained imprisoned for approximately 20 years until he was released on July 29, 2021, by the Biden
administration. At the time of Nasir’s capture the Department of Defense believed that he was a
terrorist who had aided and abetted Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda in their plan to launch attacks
against the United States. In a 2008 memo leaked by Wikileaks, the Department of Defense (DoD)
provided an account of how Nasir became radicalized. In their story, Nasir became an active member of
al-Adl wa al-Ihsan (in English: Justice and Charity) when he was in high school. The memo described al-
Adl wa al-Ihsan as an “Islamic fundamentalist group” and an “an extremist religious group that wants to
replace the Moroccan monarchy with an Islamic state and uses education to get people to support its
position” (Department of Defense, 2008:3).
The Department of Defense used the word extremism to connote violence and terrorism. When
Nasir allegedly met Osama Bin Laden, the memo stated that he became an “extremist fighter,” and
when Nasir allegedly joined Bin Laden’s organization, they wrote that he traveled to Chechnya to
“conduct extremist operations” (Department of Defense, 2008:3). By almost any definition of the word,
al-Adl wa al-Ihsan is an Islamist
1
group. Its founder, Abdessalam Yassine, founded the group to promote
his vision of an Islamic society and an Islamic polity, and this vision is based on a conservative
interpretation of Islam. However, al-Adl wa al-Ihsan has repeatedly denounced violence, and it has
never been linked to an act of terrorism. The group has also worked within the confines of the

1
I use Matesan’s (2020:13) definition of Islamism, who draws her definition from Ashour(2009) and Clark (2004),
as “sociopolitical organizations ‘that base their political principles, ideologies, behaviors, and objectives on their
understanding of Islam or on their understanding of a certain past interpretation of Islam,” and that seek “to
actively extend and apply Islam beyond what is commonly regarded as the private realm to affect the public
realm.”
2

monarchical system to push for political change (Boukhars, 2011). The Department of Defense
considered members of al-Adl wa al-Ihsan extremists not because of what they had done, but because
they were an Islamist group that challenged Morocco’s authoritarian political system. The Moroccan
monarchy is a close ally of the United States and an active participant in the global War on Terror. King
Mohammed VI has gone to great lengths to promote a more “moderate” Islam and to present himself as
a valuable ally in the War on Terror (Spiegel, 2014). In the monarchy’s, and thereby the US’s, reasoning,
religious moderation or extremism is not determined by whether a group is tolerant or non-violent, but
by whether they dare to challenge king and the stability provided by his monarchy.
Morocco is far from the only government to instrumentalize the threat of religious extremism to
maintain power. In Saudi Arabia, those who “doubt the principles of Islam”, participate in “sit-in
demonstrations”, or attend conferences that “sow discord in society” can be defined as terrorists
(quoted in Menoret, 2020:6). Bashar al-Assad’s government has labeled all of its opponents in the civil
war as terrorists or allies of the Islamic State (Saleh, 2017; Abouzeid, 2018). Assad himself has accused
the White Helmets, an organization devoted to rescuing civilians from bombed buildings in rebel areas,
of belonging to al-Qaeda (Ellis, 2017). Outside of the Middle East and North Africa, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) has sent millions of Muslims to “political reeducation camps” to learn about the
“proper practice of Islam” and loyalty to the CCP because the party fears Muslim minority groups will
become radicalized through contact with non-Chinese Muslims (Greitens, Lee, Yacizi, 2019).
Data from Jonathan Fox’s Religion and State Project (Fox, 2015) shows that these actions are far
from the exception in authoritarian systems. Fox and his team coded for whether governments around
the world regulated religion through 29 different actions including but not limited to: restricting
religious parties, restricting religious activities, restricting religious speech, and controlling religious
education. Governments that impose more restrictions, and more severe restrictions, on religious
activities have higher values on the scale, which ranges from 0 to 87. To measure democracy and
3

authoritarianism I used the electoral democracy index from the Varieties of Democracy dataset
(Coppedege et. al., 2021). The results, shown in Figure 1.1, are clear and unsurprising. Authoritarian
governments place many more restrictions on the practice of religion in comparison to democracies,
and the number of restrictions they placed increased quite substantially after 2001.
Figure 1.1:Regulation of Religion in Authoritarian and Democratic Countries (1996-2014)

Looking at these data and examining the actions of authoritarian governments since 2001, lead
to two questions. First, why do authoritarian governments regulate religious activity in the first place?
Second, why have authoritarian governments done more to regulate and control religion during the War
on Terror? Previous scholars have done an admirable job of answering the first question. To put it
simply, religious parties and movements can push for regime change (Toft, Philpott, and Shah, 2011;
Koesel, 2014; Trejo, 2009; Gill, 2008). Regulating religious activities and groups allows governments to
4

contain these sources of opposition (Arikan and Bloom, 2019). Authoritarian governments can also use
religious institutions and authorities to legitimize themselves and their policies (Plattuea, 2017; Rubin,
2017; Taylor, 2008). As for the second question, there has been comparatively less work done. Scholars
have demonstrated that authoritarian governments have justified their intervention in the religious
sphere based on security grounds: governments fear that their citizens will become radicalized by Salafi
Jihadi
2
ideas and so they use their power to stop the spread of these ideas (Wainscott, 2017; Nielsen,
2017). This explanation is compelling because it appears to be obvious. The United States and its allies
have promoted the idea that religious terrorism can be explained by radical religious ideas, and in order
to stop radical religious ideas governments must promote “moderate” ideas in their place (Haddad and
Golson, 2007; Aly and Green, 2008). I argue that the answers to the first question are sound but the
answers to the second question are, at best, incomplete.
First, the religious underpinnings of terrorist acts do not explain why authoritarian governments
have done more to regulate religion since 2001. If governments can shape the religious beliefs of their
citizens, why would they wait until 2001 to make fuller use of this power? What stops authoritarian
governments from using religious leaders and institutions to legitimize themselves the minute they
attain power? Explanations about when authoritarian leaders regulate religion assume that these
leaders cannot regulate religion at will, but they never explain what is constraining these leaders.
Second, these explanations are often under-conceptualized and untested. It is not clear what would
constitute a “religious threat”, and there have been few tests of how governments have responded to
so-called religious threats outside of the War on Terror. Thus, we do not know why authoritarian
governments instrumentalize religion when they do.

2
By Salafi Jihadi, I am referring to groups and ideas that embrace Salafism - a reformist branch of Sunni Islam that
promotes a return to the practices and traditions of the first Islamic communities (salaf) – and sanction the use of
violence to achieve social, religious, and political change.
5

This dissertation seeks to contribute to the literature on authoritarian politics, as well as the
literature on religion and politics, and the politics of the Middle East and North Africa by attempting to
answer one question: why do authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion at some points in time
and not others? The concept of instrumentalization includes, but also goes beyond, the concept of
regulating religion. By “instrumentalize,” I mean the purposeful use of religious authorities, institutions,
rhetoric, narratives, groups, or education to promote or attack political actors, positions, or ideologies. I
argue that concerns about regime security and credibility are what drive the decisions of authoritarian
governments to instrumentalize religion when they do. In line with previous scholarship, I argue
authoritarian leaders realize that religious traditions, authorities, and institutions can serve their
political interests by legitimizing the government and demonizing the government’s opposition.
However, I further argue that authoritarian leaders face a credibility cost when instrumentalizing
religion. The more religion is instrumentalized the more the religious authorities, religious institutions,
and religious rhetoric used by the government lose credibility. Thus, governments are less likely to
instrumentalize religion when they can employ coercion or cooptation to deal with threats to their
power, and they are more likely to instrumentalize religion when coercion and cooptation would be
ineffective.
I contend that authoritarian leaders are likely to instrumentalize religion to undergird their
legitimacy following failed coups and to demonize ideological opposition groups that receive support
from foreign countries or operate within foreign countries. In the aftermath of a coup, authoritarian
leaders cannot deny that their legitimacy was challenged, because one part of the state apparatus
(usually the military) tried to remove the leadership and seize power for themselves. Following failed
coups, leaders may instrumentalize religion to re-establish their legitimacy. Additionally, when
authoritarian governments are forced to deal with ideological opposition groups- that is, groups whose
opposition is framed as an ideological disagreement with the government – they are likely to use force
6

or cooptation to constrain them. However, when these groups receive foreign support or operate in
foreign countries, coercion and cooptation would be less effective and governments would be more
likely to instrumentalize religion. Foreign groups can threaten authoritarian governments in numerous
ways. They can provide training to local opposition groups, spread radical ideas among a government’s
citizens, and even organize attacks from abroad. To limit the appeal of foreign ideological groups, and
their dangerous ideas, authoritarian governments will try to discredit them and use religion as one
means of doing so.
To contextualize the theory at the center of this dissertation, and its contributions, this
introductory chapter will explain my approach to understanding religious change and provide a brief
overview of the political rationale of authoritarian leaders. It will then explain why variation in the
instrumentalization of religion is an important topic, my choice to focus on Sunni countries in the Middle
East and North Africa, and the potential contributions of this research to the scholarship on
authoritarian politics. This chapter will end by giving an overview of the dissertation and explaining the
contributions of each of the chapters.
Defining and Changing Religion
“Islam is a constant not a variable”
– Sherman Jackson (quoted in Hamid, 2017:backcover)
“After their prophet, people disagreed about many things; some of them led others astray,
while some dissociated themselves from others. Thus, they became distinct groups and
disparate parties – except that Islam gathers them together and encompasses them all.”
- Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari (quoted in Ahmed, 2015:5)
Most religious traditions center on an eternal and unchanging message, and yet, to stay
relevant, faiths must be reinterpreted in light of contemporary circumstances. Take Christianity as an
example. The Christian tradition is defined by the belief that Jesus Christ was the only begotten son of
God and that he died for man’s sins. To live according to the values and messages set by God, Christians
study God’s actions and intentions as found in the Bible. They study what God approves and disapproves
of to understand how to be moral and how to please their creator. However, the Bible, like all religious
7

texts, fails to cover all aspects of human life. For example, although the Bible makes reference to
procreation, there is no discussion of the morality/immorality of in vitro fertilization or fertility
treatments. In order to lead moral lives Christians are forced into interpreting the Bible again and again
in response to these new ideas and challenges. It should be noted that these interpretations are not all
undertaken with the goal of modernizing or changing the faith; rather, interpretation is a necessary part
of maintaining and perpetuating the faith.
Whether intentional or not, the process of interpretation causes religious traditions to change
over time. The Catholic Church moved away from centuries of tradition when it began performing the
mass in local languages rather than Latin in 1963 (Ponzo, 2021). Beginning in the 1700s the Muslim
Wahhabi movement tried to return to the roots of Islam by doing away with all “innovations”, which
they defined as interpretations and methods established through centuries of religious scholarship
(Algar, 2002). They even went so far as to destroy the tombs of the Prophet Mohammed’s family and
companions because they saw these tombs as places of un-Islamic prayer (Willis, 2014). These kinds of
changes are not random. Actors compete with one another to define the future of the faith, and politics
is an integral part of this process. The Wahhabi movement grew in popularity not because it was the
most “authentic” version of Islam, but because the Wahhabis allied with the al-Saud family and
legitimized their political conquests (al-Rasheed, 2010). The al-Saud royal family then spread
Wahhabism across the Islamic world to extend their influence and promote a more politically quiescent
version of Islam. Protestant versions of Christianity sprouted from both popular discontent with the
Catholic Church and the geopolitical interests of European states (Davies, 2014).
Political actors can influence debates on religious changes in two ways. First, the stakeholders in
religious debates can appeal to political authorities to intervene in their favor. The state can be used to
crush one side in a religious debate, as happened with the al-Saud family and the opponents of the
Wahhabis, but this option is costly because religious figures can be accused of compromising their
8

values to win political favor or influence (Grzymala-Busse, 2015). Second, political leaders can
proactively enter the fray and promote religious changes that fit their political interests, as has been the
case with the campaign for moderate and tolerant Islam in countries across the globe. In such instances,
politicians can be accused of instrumentalizing religion and manipulating religious traditions to their
political benefit. In either case, when political actors become a part of these inevitable disagreements
about religious change, they invite concerns about the loss of authenticity or credibility because the
transience of political interests often stands in direct contrast to the seeming timelessness of religious
faiths. As a work of political science this dissertation focuses on the incentives and rationale of political
actors who proactively attempt to change or reinterpret religious traditions. It looks at the political logic
that informs their attempts to reinterpret faith traditions and the political cost of diluting the credibility
of religious institutions and authorities.
The Lens of Authoritarianism and Variation in Instrumentalization
Understanding why authoritarian governments do what they do is, in some ways, very simple.
Although no human behavior is monocausal, and political leaders make decisions based on a myriad of
factors, the highest priority for the vast majority of authoritarian leaders is survival: they want to secure
either their own power or the power of the regime. To clarify, I define regimes as “the rules that identify
the group from which leaders can come and determine who influences leadership and policy” (Geddes
et. al, 2014:314) and the government/leadership as the “individual or group who [has] gained access to
state power” (Mazzuca, 2017:28). Authoritarian regimes are those regimes in which the most powerful
political actors cannot be removed through elections. Unsurprisingly, authoritarian
governments/leaders want to protect the system that gives them their power and privileges; but with
great power comes great danger.
By their nature authoritarian systems offer unequal access to power, so they create incentives
for those within the government to gain greater control within the system and incentives for those
outside the system to topple the regime. As will be explained in more detail in the theory chapter,
9

authoritarian leaders are acutely aware of these dangers and so they take every opportunity to protect
their power. Leaders jail, kill, or disappear many of those who would dare to oppose them (Art, 2012).
They can also coopt citizens by giving them a stake in the regime’s survival. Authoritarian leaders can
offer their opponents public sector jobs (Rosenfeld, 2017), positions within the executive branch (Carter,
2021), and policy concessions through carefully controlled legislative bodies (Gandhi, 2008). They can
also devise security systems to protect them from coups and mass uprisings alike (Quinlivan, 1999;
Greitens, 2016; Bellin, 2004) and deploy censorship and propaganda to keep their citizens in line
(Rozenas and Stukal, 2019; Carter and Carter, 2019).
Every tool at the disposal of authoritarian leaders has its costs and benefits. This is the reason
why all governments engage in selective repression, selective censorship, and selective cooptation. The
instrumentalization of religion is no exception. To understand how, when, and why authoritarian leaders
instrumentalize religion we must understand how leaders weigh the costs and benefits of
instrumentalization. The potential benefits are obvious. Religious authorities, institutions, and rhetoric
can be used to legitimize, mobilize, and pacify. Authorities and institutions can claim that leaders or
policies are authentically religious and thus deserving of respect or obedience. They can pacify citizens
by convincing them revolt or dissent are immoral. They can also mobilize citizens against oppositional
groups by portraying these groups as deviant or hostile to religion. The cost of all these actions, as
described in the previous section is borne by the credibility of political leaders and religious
authorities/institutions. When religious authorities and institutions do the bidding of politicians, they
run the risk of appearing corrupt or compromised, so the question arises: When do the costs of
instrumentalization outweigh the benefits?
Scholars have offered partial answers to this question. Scholars of the Middle East and North
Africa (MENA), the region in which the relationship between religion and politics has been most studied,
posit that governments in the region have mobilized Islam to counter the threats of Marxism/Arab
10

nationalism, the Islamist threat following the Iranian revolution, and Salafi Jihadism following the 2001
attacks. For example, Anne Wolf (2017) argued that the avowedly secular leader of Tunisia Habib
Bourguiba
focused upon the vocal far-left movement, and he even sought to keep it in check by tolerating
the religious activists, who fiercely denounced ‘godless Marxism’…‘Bourguiba initially accepted
the Islamist movement; he even facilitated its growth,’ claimed Ahmed Mestiri, a minister at
that time. ‘It was not an alliance but a tactical choice. He sought to control the extreme left by
supporting the Islamists,’ Mestiri argued. [Wolf, 2017: 39]

Tunisia was not alone in using Islamism against the threat of Marxism and Arab nationalism. Morocco,
Egypt (during Sadat’s tenure), and Saudi Arabia also used conservative Islamism in the same way (Rubin,
2014; Howe, 2005). Much of the literature on the MENA region argues that these same governments
changed how they instrumentalized religion after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. Instead of using
Islam against the left, they started suppressing political Islam or promoting their own political quiescent
versions of Islam in the hopes of countering the threat of revolutionary Islamism spread by Iran (Rubin,
2014; Helfont, 2018; Zeghal, 2008). In response to the threat of Salafi Jihadism from groups like al-
Qaeda, these governments shifted again, this time promoting toleration and moderation in order stamp
out extremist versions of Islam (Wainscott, 2017; Bouasria, 2015).
All of these accounts are valuable, and they offer important insight into the operations of these
governments, but they are incomplete. They explain why religion was instrumentalized, but they did not
explain why Islam was not instrumentalized at other times in response to other threats. More
importantly, these accounts generally do not provide strong tests of their explanations. These accounts
either do not analyze the instrumentalization of religious rhetoric or they fail to examine the variation in
instrumentalization over time. That said, there are a number of exceptions, and I will more fully engage
with them in the theory chapter (Rubin, 2014; Feuer, 2017; Rubin, 2017).
This dissertation builds upon the previous literature and contributes to our understanding about
the role religion plays in authoritarian governments by offering a theory of when religion is likely to be
11

instrumentalized and when it is not. It will offer a fuller conceptualization and better measurements of
the instrumentalization of religion, ones that includes both the regulation of religious
institutions/authorities and the use of religious rhetoric, and it will test whether authoritarian
governments instrumentalized religion at different points during their rule. It will also test the
applicability of the theory in different countries.
The Drawbacks and Benefits of a Regional and Religious Focus
My dissertation tries to explain the actions of authoritarian governments across the globe, but it
focuses on Sunni-majority countries in the MENA region. The empirical chapters in this dissertation
analyze Morocco and Egypt specifically. Selecting cases from the same geographical region and with
simliar religious demographics has both benefits and drawbacks. The most salient drawback is that by
focusing on one region and religious tradition this dissertation cannot make strong claims about the
actions of authoritarian governments generally. Geographical regions often share particular histories
and cultural similarities that can make it difficult to apply insights drawn from one region to another. For
example, both Morocco and Egypt were colonized by European powers, endured terrorist attacks, have
active Islamist movements, have Arabic-speaking populations, and border the Mediterranean Sea.
Additionally, Sunni Islam is well-known for having a non-hierarchical religious leadership. Religious
leaders can come from radically different backgrounds and have different centers of authority. It is likely
that all of these factors affect how the governments of both countries instrumentalize Islam. For
example, it is possible these governments have found some religious institutions more amenable to
instrumentalization because of the non-hierarchical structure of Sunnism, or some threats more salient
because of their histories with political Islam.
However, pointing out the potential problems with the generalizability of this research does not
imply that this dissertation can generate insights only about the MENA region or Sunni-majority
countries. Authoritarian governments tend to behave in similar ways regardless of their geographical
region or the demographic characteristics of their citizens. It is no coincidence that authoritarian
12

governments across the world use repression, censorship, and cooptation to compel or incentivize
compliance. In this dissertation I present religion as one instrument among many that authoritarian
leaders can use to maintain their hold on power. If we assume that authoritarian leaders want to stay in
power, that citizens use religious traditions to guide their behaviors and beliefs, and that religious
traditions are open to interpretation, then it is plausible to assume that authoritarian leaders have an
incentive to instrumentalize religion. These assumptions have nothing to do with the peculiarities of
Sunni Islam or the history of the Middle East and North Africa. Different historical and cultural factors
may affect a government’s choice to instrumentalize religion, but the logic behind the
instrumentalization is the same. Thus, Morocco and Egypt’s experiences can offer some insight into
how, when, and why governments with different histories and different demographic compositions
instrumentalize religion.
Concentrating on one region and one religious tradition also has its advantages. First, it adds
nuance to the empirical analysis. My dissertation examines the instrumentalization of religion through
the actions and rhetoric of governments. Analyzing how Islamic authorities and Islamic rhetoric are
instrumentalized requires a deep knowledge of Islamic institutions and regional history. For example,
the Egyptian government often uses the term Kharijite when referring to so-called extremist groups. The
Kharijites were an Islamic sect from the period (656-661 AD) following the death of the Prophet
Mohammed. They initially supported the Prophet’s cousin Ali in his attempt to lead the Islamic
community, but they later turned against him for accepting negotiations with his rival Mu`awiya.
Understanding this term allows us to understand that the Egyptian government tried to portray its rivals
as the latest in a long line of Islamic extremists and puritans who fostered conflict and division. Focusing
on a single region, religion, and language helps uncover the kinds of insights that a broadly-based
research agenda might miss.
13

Second, intra-regional comparisons can, in some circumstances, be more informative that cross-
regional ones. Part of my analysis rests on the comparison of Morocco and Egypt. I decided upon this
comparison because it allows me to control for factors that could confound my theory. Both countries
have authoritarian governments and majority-Muslim populations. Their similarities allow me to assume
that both countries would instrumentalize religion in broadly similar ways. That is, they would
instrumentalize the same kinds of religious authorities and make use of the same kinds of religious
rhetoric. Any comparison between the two would be relatively easy to interpret. For example, if the
Moroccan government calls members of al-Qaeda extremists and apostates, we can examine whether
the Egyptian leadership used this same language in response to this same threat. Comparing the
instrumentalization of Islam in Morocco to, say, the instrumentalization of Confucianism in China or the
instrumentalization of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Russia would produce more generalizable
results, but the results of any such comparison would be extremely difficult to interpret. Confucianism
and Orthodox Christianity have different authority structures and entirely different religious narratives.
Similarities in instrumentalization across these different countries would be difficult to establish, and
differences in instrumentalization would be difficult to interpret. Any differences between Morocco,
China, and Russia could be explained by their political, religious, or historical differences, whereas by
studying countries with broadly similar histories and religious demographics I can focus on how political
differences affect the instrumentalization of religion. In sum, this dissertation makes a compromise. It
sacrifices the generalizability of its results for more nuanced analysis and more informative
comparisons.
Plan for the Dissertation
The dissertation is divided into six chapters, including the introduction. The second chapter
explains my theory. It analyzes the scholarship on religion and politics and authoritarian politics. It
fleshes out my definitions for religion and the instrumentalization of religion. It also explains why
authoritarian regimes would be concerned that instrumentalizing religion may lead religious authorities
14

and institutions to lose credibility. The chapter ends by explaining the scope and boundary conditions of
theory and the empirical strategy used to test the theory.
The third chapter is an historical case study of Morocco from its independence in 1956 to 2020.
This chapter analyzes how religion has been instrumentalized through the regulation and control of
religious practice. It assesses how government control of religion changed in response to different
threats to the monarchy. These threats include coups, economic crises, internal revolts, revolutions, and
direct challenges to the religious legitimacy of the monarch. In particular, this chapter examines whether
and how the government instrumentalized religion by regulating existing institutions or creating new
government-controlled religious institutions.
The fourth chapter analyzes the religious propaganda produced by the Moroccan monarchy
between 1956 and 2000. It uses a novel dataset of over 7,000 articles scraped from the website of
Morocco’s Ministry of Islamic Affairs to determine when the government instrumentalized Islam
through religious rhetoric. This chapter uses both qualitative content analysis and supervised learning
techniques to assess when the regime used Islam to attack or defend political actors, positions, and
ideologies. More specifically, it looks at how the propaganda changed in response to the Sand War in
1963, two military coups in 1971 and 1972, the publication of a public letter attacking the religious
legitimacy of the monarchy in 1974, and the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
The fifth chapter tests the external validity of the theory by assessing how well it explains the
instrumentalization of religious rhetoric in Egypt between 2016 and 2020. This chapter uses a novel
dataset of over 2,000 articles from the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta – a governmental body in charge of
producing Islamic legal opinions. It examines how the Sisi government has instrumentalized Islam in
response to the War on Terror and how it has responded to the threat of ISIS and other terrorist groups,
the Muslim Brotherhood, and Islamist insurgency in the Sinai. This chapter also uses both qualitative
15

content analysis as well as supervised learning techniques to figure out why the government chose to
use religious propaganda in response to some threats and not others.
The concluding chapter evaluates the results of the empirical chapters and assess how well the
theory explained the results from chapters three through five. It discusses the usefulness of the theory
outside the MENA region and proposes avenues for future research into the instrumentalization of
religion.

16

Chapter 2: Explaining the Instrumentalization of Religion in Authoritarian Governments

Many scholars studying authoritarianism and religion assume that religion is (or might be) a
cause of authoritarianism itself (Fish, 2002; Rowley and Smith, 2009; Lewis, 2010). These scholars
assume that religious traditions promote particular beliefs about political authority and how it should be
exercised. Thus, in their reasoning, some traditions might be more conducive to democracy while others
might promote authoritarianism. This dissertation analyzes the intersection of authoritarianism and
religion from a different perspective. Instead of looking at how religion affects politics, it looks at how
politicians try to control and use religion. Religion is a powerful social force. Believers look to religious
traditions to know their place in the world and to ground their morality. If authoritarian governments
are able to manipulate religious traditions, they could use them to promote their own political interests.
In fact, authoritarian governments have many ways to manipulate religious traditions. They can use
their power to pressure religious authorities, they can use the law to regulate or shut down religious
institutions, they can promote their preferred religious interpretations through the educational system,
and so on. However, as powerful as religion might be, authoritarian governments use it selectively.
There are times when religion and religious authorities are integral parts of the government’s political
strategies and there are other times when religion plays little to no role whatsoever. This dissertation
attempts to deepen our understanding of authoritarian governments by explaining why they use religion
in some circumstances, but not others.
Governments instrumentalize religion because they can use religious authorities, institutions,
and rhetoric to legitimize their rule and/or demonize their opponents. However, instrumentalizing can
be costly. First, governments must coopt or directly regulate and monitor the religious authorities,
institutions, and groups they seek to instrumentalize. Second, religious authorities and institutions can
lose their credibility when they become partisan. Believers use religious texts, authorities, and
17

institutions to understand and connect with the sacred. When these authorities and institutions change
their messages based on political pressures, believers may start to doubt that these authorities have any
connection to the sacred, and instead are driven by profane interests. If that happens, believers will
begin to search for a less compromised and more politically autonomous version of the faith, and the
politicized authorities and institutions would lose their political utility. The more governments choose to
instrumentalize religion generally, the more they risk compromising the authenticity of the authorities
and institutions that they instrumentalize.
Authoritarian governments, driven by concerns about the preservation of their rule, will balance
the risks and rewards of instrumentalizing religion. I argue that authoritarian leaders will instrumentalize
religion when they lack other options for dealing with threats to their power. If leaders can bolster their
legitimacy or attack their opponents through other means, they have less of an incentive to bear the
costs of instrumentalization. I argue that the potential benefits of instrumentalization outweigh the
potential costs in two specific situations. First, authoritarian leaders are likely to instrumentalize religion
to undergird their legitimacy following failed coups. Coup attempts present one of the most serious
challenges to a government’s legitimacy. If members of the government could not be convinced of the
leader’s legitimacy, how legitimate could they really be? I argue that authoritarian governments will use
all means available to them to restore their lost legitimacy, and they will marshal religious institutions,
authorities, and symbols in this effort. Second, authoritarian governments will instrumentalize religion
to attack ideological groups that they cannot coerce or coopt. Governments can get most opposition
groups to acquiesce to their rule through a mixture of carrots and sticks, but some groups ideological
groups cannot be so easily coerced or coopted, because they receive foreign sponsorship or operate in
foreign countries. Foreign ideological groups can still spread ideas governments might find dangerous,
but the government cannot silence them through their usual means. Lacking better options,
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governments would be forced to discredit these groups, and they are likely to use religion as one way to
do so.
The purpose of this chapter is to explain my theory. It will begin by reviewing the scholarly
literature on authoritarian resilience and religion and politics in order to explain my theory’s potential
contributions to these fields of study. From there, the chapter will explain the concept of
instrumentalization and the assumptions behind my theory. Following that, it will explain how the costs
of instrumentalizing religion cause authoritarian governments to use religion selectively. The chapter
will conclude with a section on the limits of the theory as well as the empirical strategy used to test it.
The Politics of Authoritarianism
The literature on authoritarian resilience seeks to answer one overarching question: How do
authoritarian governments survive the many threats to their power? I define authoritarian governments
broadly as those governments in which the most powerful political actors cannot be removed through
elections. By their nature, authoritarian political systems invite challengers. In the absence of free and
fair elections, those who are excluded from power lack a clear and transparent method of acquiring
power or changing policy. The disenfranchised have, ceteris paribus, an incentive to topple to
authoritarian regimes and impose regimes which give them power. The concentration of power in
authoritarian systems also gives incentives to those inside the government to take the leadership for
themselves. Authoritarian leaders have two main ways of countering theses threats: repression and
cooptation. Repression refers to the use of force, while cooptation refers to any efforts, by
governments, to win the support of its citizens by giving them a stake in the future of the government.
Repression is the most obvious way that governments can impose their will on their citizens.
According to Svolik (2012:2) violence is “an ever-present and ultimate arbiter in authoritarian politics.”
Authoritarian governments can use violence against any groups or individuals that they find threatening.
However, using violence is costly. Governments that use violence indiscriminately can alienate their
19

citizens and even foment rebellion (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2005). Additionally, there are opportunity
costs when governments design their security apparatuses. Greitens (2016) argues that different threats
require different institutional designs. Governments that are primarily focused on threats from below
(popular unrest) will build security apparatuses that are unitary and inclusive, so they can better gather
intelligence and preempt uprisings, while those governments focused on coups will construct exclusive
and fragmented security apparatuses that cannot easily conspire against political leaders. Fragmented
security apparatuses are more likely to use violence because they compete with each other to prove
their effectiveness, but this same competition leads to less cooperation and less intelligence-sharing.
Blaydes (2018) found that authoritarian governments can solidify ethnic and religious identities
that become antagonistic to authoritarian rule through the use violence. She posits that governments
are more likely to use collective punishment against groups that they know little about. Governments,
she argues, can gather more precise intelligence, and use more targeted violence, on groups when they
are “legible” to the government’s bureaucracy through a shared language or geographic accessibility.
Groups that face collective punishment from authoritarian governments, because they have different
languages or live in inaccessible areas, are more likely to form ethnic and religious identities hostile to
the governments that attack them.
Aside from the structure of security apparatuses and the ethnic makeup of state bureaucracy,
authoritarian governments need to be certain that their security personnel will use violence when they
are commanded to. Bellin (2012) found that what separated the governments that fell during the Arab
Spring from the governments that survived was the willingness of their militaries to repress. According
to her analysis, governments with militaries that repressed popular protests survived, and those
governments with militaries that refused to repress generally fell. She argues that militaries that were
more institutionalized – wherein recruitment and performance are based on merit – were more likely to
develop an identity independent of the regime and were thus less likely to defend their government
20

against protesters. Militaries that were organized along patrimonial lines - that were linked to
government elites through ethnicity, or where promotion was based on political loyalty - did not
develop independent identities and therefore were more likely to shoot protesters on behalf of their
governments.
Authoritarian governments also have many ways of coopting their opponents. They can use
ostensibly democratic institutions to placate their citizens and grant concessions to their political allies.
Leaders have to offer some concessions to their citizens so that they will continue to acquiesce in the
government’s rule, and electoral institutions can play an important role in this process. Gandhi
(2008:20) argues that legislatures and parties act as a “forum in which the regime and the opposition
can announce their policy preferences and forge agreements.” By having elected legislatures and
allowing select political parties to compete for seats in these legislatures, authoritarian leaders can give
the opposition a modicum of power without allowing them any real legislative influence. According to
Boix and Svolik (2013), electoral institutions can also promote transparency in decision-making and
signal the commitment of authoritarian leaders to sharing power with their allies. Governments can
even use political participation as a concession in and of itself. Lust-Okar (2005) argues that
authoritarian governments use legislatures to sow division among their opponents. Those groups that
are allowed to participate in the political system will remain loyal to the government because they seek
to protect their political privileges. Those groups that are excluded from participation will be more
willing to challenge the government, but they will have fewer allies.
Leaders can use political parties to serve their interests in a similar manner. Parties can help
governments maintain their ruling coalitions – the coalition of elites that populate the government – by
acting as a forum to mediate conflict between different factions of elites (Brownlee, 2007).
Governments can also use parties to incentivize citizens and elites to serve their interests. Svolik
(2012:163) argues that governments can use parties as “incentive structures that encourage sunk
21

political investment by their members.” According to this argument, citizens compete for the jobs
controlled by authoritarian parties, and they seek to move up the party ranks in order to gain access to
better benefits. In so doing, they are forced to act on the government’s behalf by gathering intelligence,
mobilizing support, or spreading propaganda.
Elections can serve the interests of authoritarian governments as well. They can reveal
information about the opposition and increase the legitimacy of the governments that allow them
(Knutsen et al., 2017). Blaydes (2010:10) argues that elections can also act as a “decentralized
distribution mechanism that aids authoritarian survival by regularizing inter-elite competition.” To put it
differently, elections allow candidates in hegemonic-party regimes to marshal support for the
government through their campaigns, and in return, winning candidates are given positions of power
that allow them to engage in graft with immunity from prosecution. Elections can also be used as
displays of strength for authoritarian ruling parties. According to Magaloni (2006), the results of
elections can be used to bolster the legitimacy of authoritarian governments by showing the strength of
their public support and the futility of opposition.
Governments can also coopt their citizens by giving them material rewards. The literature on the
rentier state argues that authoritarian governments can use the rents from resource extraction to fund
patronage and public services (Ross, 2012; Beblawi, 1987). Similarly, Rosenfeld (2020) contends that
governments can convince those in the middle class to oppose democracy and support authoritarian
rule by giving them government jobs. Authoritarian leaders can also placate their citizens by ensuring
that the national economy is stable and prosperous (Zhu, 2011; Boegeart, 2018).
This literature on authoritarian resilience attests to the fact that governments have different
have different strategies that they can use in response to different challenges, and that each strategy
has distinct costs and benefits. However, this literature has largely ignored how authoritarian
22

governments can instrumentalize religion. This gap in the literature exists despite the fact that countries
with authoritarian governments regulate religious activities more than their democratic counterparts
(Fox, 2008) and many single-country case studies attest to the fact that authoritarian governments use
religion to further their own interests (Helfont, 2018; Mouline, 2014; Reny, 2018; Salomon, 2017;
Tabaar, 2018). This dissertation seeks to fill this gap in the literature by offering a theory that explains
when and why religion is instrumentalized by authoritarian governments.
The Politics of Religion
Many scholars of religion and politics view religions as coherent ideologies. They assume that
religious traditions have clear political positions which can be discerned from religious doctrines and
texts. As such, they study how religious traditions affect political beliefs or shape political outcomes.
This research centers on questions such as: Does Islam cause authoritarianism (Fish, 2002; Davis and
James, 2018)? Do some religious traditions cause more religious wars (Kang, 2014)? Are particular
religious traditions more inherently political than others (Cook, 2014; Hamid 2016)? More recently,
scholars have shifted their perspective. Instead of assuming religion is always the independent variable
and politics the dependent variable, they have begun to study how politics shapes religion. Due to the
salience of religious terrorism and Islamic extremism in the contemporary era, the majority of these
works have focused on Islam and the Middle East.
In his book, Nasr (2001) writes that states can use religion to impose ideological unity on their
citizens. Ideological unity enhances state capacity by making “governance more efficient and less
dependent on coercion as it facilitates greater fiscal control and makes extraction of resources easier,
and gives citizens a stake in the well-being of the state” (2001:3). In Nasr’s telling, Muslim-majority
governments increase the visibility of Islamic norms and values in the public sphere to enhance the
power and legitimacy of the state. Cesari (2014) makes a similar argument. She claims that the
Islamization of state institutions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region was the byproduct
23

of political modernization. Countries in the MENA region were transformed from imperial provinces to
new states following the retreat/defeat of the Ottoman Empire. Political actors in these new states
sought to create a national identity and national institutions as part of the state-formation process. They
wanted to erase or reframe local identities and so they nationalized Islamic institutions to create a more
unified polity. Both of these works identify how religion can enhance or complement the powers of the
state, but they cannot explain variation in when states choose to use religion or nationalize religious
institutions. For Nasr, states may seek to use religion when they desire greater extractive capacity. For
Cesari, political actors instrumentalize religion during state formation. Neither can explain why there are
periods after state formation when political actors instrumentalize religion and periods where they do
not.
Scholars have attempted to explain this variation by focusing on the interests of the regime,
rather than the state itself. Rubin (2014) argues that governments in the Middle East use religion to
balance against ideational threats. Governments face ideational threats when a neighboring state
exports an ideology that promotes rebellion and resonates with citizens in other countries.
Governments can use the state-controlled religious institutions to balance against ideational threats by
discrediting the ideologies behind them. Robbins and Rubin (2017) make the case that governments in
the MENA region used state religious institutions to increase their legitimacy and cement their control
over the religious sphere in response to popular Islamist groups during the Arab Spring.
Country-specific case studies also offer some clues to explain when governments
instrumentalize religion. In his book on the institutionalization of religion in Iraq, Helfont (2018) found
that Saddam Hussein began extending state control over religious institutions and authorities almost
immediately after he assumed power. He also found that the government accelerated its efforts to
control the religious sphere in response to the Shi’i insurgency in the south and the Iran-Iraq war in
1980. Salomon (2017) argued that the government of Hassan al-Turabi in Sudan sought to reinvigorate
24

the role of Islam in state and society at the beginning of his government. Specifically, he sought to
reform laws incompatible with Sharia, change religious education to fit the government’s preferred
interpretations, and create institutions to bring unorthodox Sufi groups in line with the government’s
conservative interpretation of Islam. In her study of Morocco, Wainscott (2017) found that the
Moroccan monarchy greatly expanded its control of religious institutions and rhetoric in response to
terrorist attacks in 2003. These books and articles are essential for understanding how states build the
capacity to regulate religion, and offer detailed analyses of when religion is used, but they examine only
instances in which religion was used. None of them explain the variation in its use.
Feuer (2017) offers a more historical argument to explain when authoritarian governments
instrumentalize religion. She argues that a government’s institutionalization of religion is dependent
upon: the legitimating ideology of the government, the government’s political opposition, and the
government’s institutional endowment. She argues that all three of these factors interact to determine
when governments bring more religion into the educational system. Governments that base their
legitimating ideology on religion, face opposition from groups that challenge the government’s religious
legitimacy, and lack a strong party or a powerful bureaucracy are more likely to make education more
ideological and more heavily religious than governments that do not meet these conditions. Feuer’s
theory is convincing, but it explains the actions of governments only in regard to their education
policies. The theory does not extend to the other aspects of instrumentalization.
Scholars drawing from the economy of religion perspective provide additional theories to
explain the instrumentalization of religion. The economy of religion is a paradigm centered on examining
religious institutions and religious authorities as if they operate in a religious marketplace. Authorities
are rational actors who wish to expand their influence and their congregations. They compete against
other religions for adherents, and they compete for believers by offering services, or by trying to
establish monopolies (Stark and Iannaccone, 1994). This literature focuses on the role of religious
25

authorities, and they model the interactions between political leaders and religious authorities as a
negotiation. Political leaders require the support of religious authorities and this support is secured
through policy concessions (usually conservative in nature) or by granting religious authorities influence
over the legislative process. Rubin (2014) argues that rulers rely on propagating agents to either coerce
citizens to follow the ruler’s dictates or convince citizens that the ruler’s dictates are legitimate. In this
framework, rulers use religious leaders to legitimize their rule when religious leaders are influential and
when the ruler’s dictates harmonize with the doctrines espoused by religious authorities. According to
Platteau (2017), political leaders instrumentalize religious authorities when they need to justify socially
inequitable or unpopular policies, but the cost of co-opting religious authorities increases as these
policies become more inequitable or if they violate religious doctrines. In a similar vein, Taylor (2008)
argues that religious authorities decide whether to cooperate with political leaders based on the level of
public opposition to the government, the agenda of the political opposition, and the source of clerical
resources and advancement. Religious authorities are more likely to use their influence to legitimize
political leaders when these leaders are popular, the political opposition is opposed to the interests of
religious authorities, or when religious authorities control their own resources and professional
advancement.
These theories are crucial for understanding the intersection of authoritarian politics and
religion, but they are flawed. First, it is difficult to determine a religious tradition’s stance on political
issues a priori. Take the Islamic tradition, for example. Despite the many claims that Islam is political in
ways that differentiate it from other religious traditions (Cook, 2014; Hamid, 2016), there is no clear
method for determining whether any ideology, politician, or policy is Islamic or not. Twelver Shiism
3
(the

3
Twelver Shi’ism is the most popular branch of the Shi’ism. Twelvers believe that God gave guides to the Islamic
community through 12 Imams. They believe the last Imam (the Mahdi) will return during the second coming of
Christ.
26

most popular sect in Shiism) has, at different times, been used to defend such varied policies as
withdrawing from politics entirely, revolutionary socialism, and theocracy (Aghaie, 2004; Tabaar, 2018).
Within the Sunni tradition some Salafi groups believe that Islam compels them to remove themselves
from political competition, while other groups argue that this same tradition demands that they wage
an unending battle against their political/religious enemies (Lauziere, 2015). Given the variety of
positions that different groups in the Islamic tradition have taken over time, it is very difficult to
determine which ideas or policies adhere to an Islamic doctrine and which violate it. That is not to say
that Islam, or any religious tradition, is infinitely flexible, but the assumption that any religious doctrine
has clear political positions is deeply problematic. Second, similar to Feuer’s (2017) book, these theories
capture only one way in which religion is instrumentalized. Religious authorities are an important part of
how governments instrumentalize religion, but they are only one aspect of a larger process. This
dissertation seeks to build on this extensive literature by examining all the means on instrumentalization
of religion and offering a theory to that focuses on the incentives of political actors rather than the
supposed limits of religious doctrine.
What is Instrumentalization?
Religion is defined here as “the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos is established,”
where sacred refers to “a quality of mysterious and awesome power, other than man and yet related to
him, which is believed to reside in certain objects of experience” (Berger, 2011:25). According to Berger,
humans created society in order to impose order in life, and religion was a means to create order on a
cosmic scale. Religion is defined by its connection to the sacred, which connects individuals to the
cosmic order and helps them understand their self and their place in the sacred cosmos. Berger’s
definition of religion is intentionally broad because it seeks to capture all the ways in which humans
define the sacred. Definitions that focus on specific characteristics such as rites or texts run the risk of
using Christianity as the mold for all religions. Such a definition would limit this study, as governments
27

have used Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism – all excluded as religions according to some definitions
– to defend their hold on power (Perry, 2008; Harris 2001; Woodside, 1998).
Broadly speaking, governments instrumentalize religion when they deliberately use religious
authorities, symbols, narratives, institutions, organization, or education to achieve a political objective.
However, this definition is difficult to operationalize because it centers on the term “political objective.”
Defining what makes something political can be difficult in authoritarian contexts, because governments
often try to define what is and is not political to suit their own interests. For example, during my
fieldwork in Morocco I found that many Moroccans had wildly different definitions of what constituted a
“political issue.” In some instances, people would refer to parliamentarians or other elected officials as
politicians, while the monarchy was considered apolitical. Additionally, ostensibly controversial subjects
– such as the status of the contested Western Sahara and the role of the monarchy in daily life – were
considered inappropriate for public debate, and thus, according to their understanding of the word,
distinctly apolitical. These semantic boundaries were designed by the monarchy to promote its
preferred narratives. The monarchy wanted Moroccan citizens to believe that only some subjects and
political authorities were subject to debate and contestation – and thus political. While the monarchy
itself, the most powerful political and economic institution in Morocco, could never be “political”
because that would mean its authority could be legitimately questioned. This small example
demonstrates that governments can try to define the boundary between the political and non-political
at their will. Thus, it would be extremely difficult to determine when instrumentalization occurred using
a subjective definition of political.
To better define when instrumentalization does and does not occur across different contexts,
this dissertation will define instrumentalization as the purposeful use of religious authorities,
institutions, symbols, narratives, groups, or education to promote or attack political actors, positions, or
ideologies. Political is defined here as any subject that relates to governance or governmental actions.
28

Although these definitions fail to capture all the ways religion can be instrumentalized, or all the
subjects that could be thought of as political, they will allow us to compare when governments
instrumentalize religion across different countries and different time periods. The purpose of these
definitions is not to define the border between religion and politics, nor do they assume that any
religious tradition encourages specific policy positions or political beliefs. Instead, they are meant to
clarify when governments use religion to spread specific political messages. For example, if an
authoritarian government forced religious leaders to announce their support for a new war, then that
government is instrumentalizing religion. If the same government pressured religious leaders to read a
sermon extolling the virtues of celibacy, then the government is not instrumentalizing religion. Although
celibacy can be a political concept, if the hypothetical sermon does not link celibacy to a specific policy
(like making sex outside marriage illegal) or a political ideology (such as conservative Christianity) then it
is considered apolitical.
As the definition of instrumentalization implies, authoritarian governments have many ways of
instrumentalizing religion. Governments can politicize religion through rhetoric alone. Authoritarian
leaders, and their deputies, can declare in speeches or write in articles that the government adheres to
Christian/Islamic/Confucian principles. They can try to frame policies or ideologies as religiously
acceptable or unacceptable. They can deploy religious narratives or symbols to justify or attack
particular ideas. For example, the government of Iran has used the Battle of Karbala – an essential part
of Shi’i history in which Husayn, the rightful leader of the Islamic community according to the Twelver
Shi’i tradition, was killed in battle – to motivate Iranians to resist the Iraqi invasion during the Iran-Iraq
war (Tabaar, 2018). By interpreting religious narratives in this way, authoritarian governments can
imbue them with political meaning.
Government can also use religious institutions, religious authorities, and religious groups to
promote or denounce particular ideas or interpretations. Religious authorities can deliver sermons with
29

political messages. They can publicly endorse government officials, attack members of the political
opposition, or lend support for specific policies. Governments can also exercise control over places of
worship in the hope of excluding any individuals or groups that might promote subversive ideas. They
can ally with religious political parties or social movements to promote particular ideas or to attack the
government’s enemies. Governments can even control or direct religious education to promote their
political interests. By religious education I mean any education about religion. That can include
education within religious institutions, education about religion within public schools, or the education
of religious authorities. Authoritarian governments can promote their own interpretations or, for
programs geared towards religious authorities, they can exclude from participation anyone who would
be politically problematic. In all the instances listed above, authoritarian governments try to control how
their citizens use religion to understand politics.
Why Do Authoritarian Governments Instrumentalize Religion?
Religious traditions provide their adherents with practices, rituals, and narratives by which to
deepen their understanding of the sacred. Religions create divisions between good and evil, sacred and
profane to help their adherents comprehend the world around them (Wydra, 2015). Believers turn to
their religious traditions to understand how to live a moral life. They use religion to determine how they
should raise their children, how they should treat strangers, how to dress, and even what to eat. In
other words, religious traditions can shape their adherents’ beliefs and guide their actions.
From the perspective of an authoritarian leader, religions are ideological weapons that have the
power to bestow or take away legitimacy. Legitimacy is defined here as the belief that a political
authority is proper and deserving of support (Gurr, 1970: 185). Leaders and governments can base their
legitimacy on any number of grounds, but religion is an especially powerful legitimator because of its
connection to the sacred. Berger (2011) argues:
30

Religion legitimates so effectively because it relates the precarious reality constructions of
empirical societies with ultimate reality. The tenuous realities of the social world are grounded
in the sacred … which by definition is beyond the contingencies of human meanings and human
activity (p. 34)
By using religion government can make its claims to legitimacy more powerful and less amenable to
debate (Meral, 2018). This power is what distinguishes religions from secular ideologies. Secular
ideologies can be used to legitimize rulers, but because they make no positive claims about the divine,
authoritarian governments will use them in different ways. The potential power of religion makes it
simultaneously very useful and very dangerous in the eyes of authoritarian leaders.
Opposition figures can use religious narratives or ally with religious authorities to mobilize the
opposition against authoritarian governments (Koesel, 2014; Sarkissian, 2015). They can argue that a
government is immoral or that it acts against the interests of their religious community. Just as some
political actors claim that to be a true Christian one must oppose abortion, opposition leaders can argue
that to be true Christians/Hindus/Muslims citizens must oppose particular governments. On the other
hand, authoritarian leaders can claim that they have religious legitimacy and therefore deserve the
unwavering support of their citizens.
Claims of religious legitimacy can take numerous forms. Governments can win/compel the
support of religious authorities. Authoritarian leaders can themselves be religious leaders. They can
claim that the government protects religious communities from the dangers of extremism, corruption,
godlessness, etc. The legitimizing narrative that authoritarian leaders choose will depend on a variety of
factors: the religious demography of the government’s citizens, the reputation of the government and
its leaders, the popularity of the opposition, etc. All of this is to say authoritarian governments have an
incentive to use religion to bolster their legitimacy and that they have many ways that they can
incorporate religion into their legitimizing narratives.
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Authoritarian governments can also use religion to discredit opposition groups. Religious
traditions often create divisions between in-groups (the community of believers) and out-groups
(disbelievers) that governments can exploit to their advantage. Governments can instrumentalize
religion to smear opposition groups in a number of ways. They can claim that the opposition is
populated by disbelievers, that the opposition is unorthodox in their approach to religion, or (as is
popular among governments in the MENA region) they can claim that those in the opposition are
religious extremists.
In sum, authoritarian governments use religion to legitimize themselves and attack their
opponents. Due to the fact that religion is connected to the sacred and it guides the lives of believers, it
can be a powerful tool. However, as the next section details, as powerful as religion may be, it is not a
panacea.
When Do Authoritarian Governments Instrumentalize Religion?
Authoritarian governments incur costs when they instrumentalize religion. First, when
governments instrumentalize religious authorities or religious groups they must bear the cost of
securing their cooperation or directing their activities. Governments can either ally with religious
authorities and groups, or they can simply command religious authorities and groups to follow their
orders. If governments choose to seek an alliance with religious authorities and groups, they must give
them an incentive to cooperate, either in the form of patronage or policy concessions. If governments
choose to exercise top-down control, they must invest in institutions and staff to monitor religious
authorities and groups and regulate their actions. Either option is costly.
Second, when governments instrumentalize religion in any form they risk compromising the
authority religious traditions hold over their believers. Religions are powerful because they connect
believers to the sacred. As Berger (2011:35-36) states, religions “relate the humanly defined reality to
ultimate, universal, and sacred reality. The inherently precarious and transitory constructions of human
32

activity are thus given the semblance of ultimate security and permanence.” The messages and
guidelines given by religious traditions are meant to transcend our ordinary reality, and thus they are
not meant to change. The interpretations of religious traditions can and do change, but nearly all
religious interpretations are meant to relate to a religion’s central and eternal message, and nearly all
changes must be defended on these grounds. Christianity will always be connected to the journey of
Jesus Christ, just as Islam will always be connected to the divine message given by God in the Quran.
This feature of religion causes problems when religious traditions are used to explain political matters.
Citizens and politicians have ever-changing interests and positions, so it is difficult for believers to assess
whether a religious tradition supports one side over another, or if different sides simply exploit religion
to win support.
Governments run the risk of being accused of exploitation every time they try to instrumentalize
religion. Additionally, the more often a governments instrumentalizes religion – the more it uses religion
to support or attack specific political actors or ideas – they more likely it is that believers will begin to
accuse the government of exploiting religion. For example, if a political leader were to say that Hinduism
is incompatible with abortion, many believers would probably believe her, or at least they would be
more likely to accept her position as a legitimate interpretation. If, however, this same politician were to
say that Hinduism is incompatible with abortion, land redistribution programs, and wealth taxes then it
is more likely believers would see her as cynically exploiting religion for political gain. Sacred religious
traditions are not meant to change according to the whims of a politician or political party. If politicians
are seen as exploiting religion, then believers will simply ignore what those politicians or their allies say
about it. There is empirical support for the claim that believers prefer their religious authorities to avoid
politicization. Williamson et al. (2020:1) conducted a survey experiment using 12,000 respondents in the
MENA region, and they found that “open political involvement undermines the authority of religious
leaders, even when individuals agree with their political stances” and “religious leaders are perceived as
33

more authoritative when they position themselves as apolitical experts.” In the American politics
literature scholars have found that as churches and Christian groups became more partisan fewer
people began to identify as Christian or attend church (Djupe et al. 2018, Campbell and Putnam, 2012;
Hout and Fischer, 2002). Thus, in authoritarian contexts, once religious authorities appear too politicized
believers may start actively searching for religious leaders who embrace a more authentic and less
compromised version of the faith (Nielsen, 2017). Either way, governments risk the credibility and the
political utility of religious traditions the more often they instrumentalize them, and thus they have an
incentive to instrumentalize it selectively.
However, acknowledging the costs associated with instrumentalizing religion does not tell us
when authoritarian governments would choose to instrumentalize it. Simply put, I argue that
governments instrumentalize religion when they have no other options. There are two broad
circumstances in which governments would choose to bear the costs of instrumentalization:
governments instrumentalize religion to shore up their legitimacy following an unsuccessful coup and to
instrumentalize religion to discredit ideological groups that they cannot control by force or through
cooptation.
Coups, according to Powell and Thyne (2011:252), are “illegal and overt attempts by the military
or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.” Authoritarian leaders face a
myriad of challengers, but coups present one of the most direct challenges to the legitimacy of these
governments because it is elites within the state – which the leader is presumed to control – that are
trying to seize power. If those that constitute the government do not accept the authority of the leader,
citizens themselves may begin to doubt his legitimacy. Following failed coups, authoritarian
governments have every incentive to reassert their legitimacy (Shen-Bayh, 2018) and religion can be an
important part of these efforts. Governments can use religious symbols or authorities to attest to their
religious legitimacy and to attack those who participated in (and supported) failed coups. They can use
34

religion to persuade the citizens that those who plot against the governments are not only criminals, but
that their actions also violate religious principles. Although governments have many ways to establish
their legitimacy, they have an incentive to use religion to bolster it because they need to reassure the
citizens of the government’s legitimacy and ward off any future coups attempts.
Authoritarian governments will also use religion to discredit ideological groups (parties,
organizations, and movements) that challenge their right to rule. However, governments will not
instrumentalize religion in response to every ideological challenger. Authoritarian leaders would be
most secure if they could control the Overton Window – that is, the range of political positions that
citizens find acceptable or unacceptable (Lehman, 2012). If citizens believed that any criticism of the
government were beyond the pale, then authoritarian leaders would face few to no challenges.
Governments use propaganda and censorship to shift the Overton Window, but no authoritarian
government can exercise full control over what their citizens believe or where they get their
information. Recognizing that they cannot eliminate every idea they find subversive, authoritarian
governments use force and cooptation to control ideological groups and pressure them to either
withdraw from the public sphere or moderate their positions. They can arrest, torture, harass, or
disappear members of groups that they disapprove of. They can also use carrots instead of sticks by
offering their ideological challengers seats in local or national government (or other perks) or simply a
reprieve from punishment so long as they remain silent on certain subjects. Through the use of force
and cooptation governments can exercise a great deal of control over what their citizens know to be
acceptable or unacceptable.
When ideological groups do not yield to these pressures, authoritarian governments are put in a
precarious position. They do not want there to be a public debate about their legitimacy. Governments
want their citizens to act as if their legitimacy is unquestionable. However, if governments cannot stop
ideological groups from spreading politically dangerous ideas, then they are forced to discredit them. At
35

this point, they can use religion to smear their opponents or to characterize them as extremists or
apostates. In this way, they try to shape the beliefs of the citizenry in the hope that the citizens will view
any ideological challengers as morally repugnant.
If governments decide to instrumentalize religion based on whether or not they can control and
subdue their ideological challengers, the natural follow-up question is: When would authoritarian
governments be unable to coerce or coopt their ideological challengers? I argue that governments will
fail to control their ideological challengers when these challengers operate in foreign countries or have
foreign sponsors. Foreign sponsors are outside patrons that assist ideological groups in the form of
funds, training, or the provision of favorable propaganda. Groups with foreign sponsors are more
difficult to contain because they have members and leaders in multiple countries and are thus less likely
to bow to the pressure of any single government. In these circumstances, I argue that authoritarian
leaders would be willing to bear the costs of instrumentalization in order to discredit the spread of ideas
that might endanger their rule.
To reiterate, I argue that instrumentalizing religion is costly for authoritarian governments. They
have to give concessions to win the cooperation of religious authorities or religious groups. If they try to
exert top-down control on religious authorities or groups, governments have to bear the costs of
monitoring and regulating their activities. Additionally, governments risk corrupting the influence of
religion by appearing to exploit it. Believers turn to religious traditions to guide their lives because they
believe these traditions connect them to a sacred and transcendent reality. If they see that politicians
are using religion to win political support, they will reject the messages that these politicians (or their
allies) circulate. If authoritarian governments are seen to exploit religion, then they will compromise its
political utility. This risk increases as they instrumentalize religion more often. Thus, governments have
an incentive to be selective in instrumentalizing religion and they will be willing to bear the costs of
instrumentalization when they have no choice but to use religion. Specifically, I argue that authoritarian
36

governments will instrumentalize religion following failed coups because they need to reassert the
legitimacy of their rule. I also argue that governments will instrumentalize religion to discredit foreign
ideological groups because they cannot control them through coercion or cooptation.
Limits of the Theory
Undoubtedly, there are many reasons authoritarian governments might instrumentalize
religion. Every authoritarian leader makes decisions based on a myriad of factors. In regard to decisions
on religion, governments have to consider: the religious demography of their citizens, the government’s
legitimizing narrative, support from allies/patrons, and histories of religious conflict. Despite the number
of factors affecting the deliberations of governments, I argue that by focusing on the incentives,
strategies, and opponents of authoritarian governments we can arrive at a much better understanding
of why they choose to instrumentalize religion when they do.
However, this theory has clear boundary and scope conditions. First, governments must have
enough state capacity to instrumentalize religion. As stated in the previous section, governments need
resources to either force or convince religious authorities and groups to do what they want. If the state
is very weak then a government cannot instrumentalize religion in response to threats or shifting
circumstances: they would simply lack the capability to do so. Second, governments are less likely to
instrumentalize religion at any point if they staked their legitimacy on their hostility to religion.
Governments do not need a cache of religious legitimacy in order to benefit from instrumentalization,
but if a government based its legitimacy in part on hostility to religious groups or the practice of religion,
it is less likely to benefit from instrumentalization. Governments hostile to religion could face backlash
from supporters if they tried to use religion for their political benefit, and all their attempts at
instrumentalizing religion would be less persuasive to their citizens because of their established hostility
to it.
37

Additionally, the theory at the center of this dissertation does not purport to explain why some
regimes or leaders base their legitimacy on religion while others do not. There are many sources of
legitimacy that political authorities can draw from. To highlight just a few examples, authors have
studied how authoritarian governments have used nationalism (Brand, 2014), the rule of law (Whiting,
2017), and even prestigious consulting firms (Jones, 2019) to legitimize their rule. Political authorities
choose legitimizing narratives that fit their reputations, their current political circumstances, and their
citizens’ conceptions of just political rule. The decisions of political leaders will depend upon a diverse
set of historical factors, and once they settle on a legitimizing narrative, they cannot change it without a
significant amount of time and effort. However, even supposedly secularist governments can, and have,
instrumentalized religion (Helfont, 2018; Wolf, 2017). In other words, religion can fit into multiple
legitimizing narratives. This dissertation is incapable of explaining why governments choose one form of
legitimacy over another because the bases of these decisions are conceptually distinct from
instrumentalization.
Finally, the theory focuses on the perceptions, actions, and incentives of authoritarian
governments, not the effects of instrumentalization. The theory does not predict that governments will
be successful or unsuccessful in their attempts to instrumentalize religion. The theory assumes that
governments are broadly aware of the potential costs and benefits of their actions, but their knowledge
is imperfect – otherwise no authoritarian government would ever fall.
Empirical Strategy
Authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion through their actions and rhetoric. By
actions I mean specific efforts on the part of the government to shape, control, or direct religious life.
These include: changes to public education or religious education, regulations of religious institutions
and authorities, and alliances with religious groups. Rhetoric refers to speech acts by members of the
government or their allies that attempt to instrumentalize religion. Distinguishing between actions and
38

rhetoric is important, as they represent different aspects of instrumentalization and require different
empirical tests. The following chapters will analyze both the actions and rhetoric of authoritarian
governments.
Chapter 3 will analyze the actions of the Moroccan monarchy between 1956 and 2020 through a
historical case study. This chapter will focus on how the government instrumentalized religion through
regulating religious institutions/authorities, creating new religious institutions, allying with religious
groups, and changing religious educations. The analysis will focus on political threats to the monarchy in
the form of massive protests, economic turmoil, riots, coups, geopolitical rivalries, Islamic revolutions
abroad, and campaigns against the monarchy’s religious legitimacy. That chapter will assess when the
monarchy instrumentalized religion in response to these threats, and why the monarchy
instrumentalized religion in response to some threats and not others. The chapter will evaluate whether
the monarchy’s instrumentalization of religion was dependent on how well it was able to coerce or
coopt its ideological challengers, and whether the monarchy made a concrete effort to instrumentalize
religion following failed coups.
Chapter 4 will analyze the religious propaganda produced by the Moroccan Ministry of Religious
Endowments and Islamic Affairs. This ministry has been the governmental body in charge of regulating
religious life since Morocco’s independence in 1956. As part of its mission, the ministry has published a
religious and cultural magazine entitled Dawa al-Haqq (Call of the Truth) from 1957 up to the present
day. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has always been under the authority of the monarchy and thus this
chapter will examine the articles in Dawa al-Haqq to evaluate whether the monarchy instrumentalized
religious rhetoric in response to four specific threats: the Sand War in 1963, the failed military coups in
1971 and 1972, the publication and circulation of a letter challenging the monarchy’s religious
legitimacy in 1974, and the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. The chapter also looks into whether the
39

monarchy used religious rhetoric to attack or discredit its domestic opponents at any point during the
magazine’s publication.
Chapter 5 will look towards the presidency of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to test the external validity of
the theory. It will examine the religious propaganda produced by the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta. Dar al-Ifta is
one of the governmental bodies used by the presidency to spread approved religious and political
messages. This chapter will examine statements and articles published by Dar al-Ifta to determine
whether Sisi instrumentalized religious rhetoric to attack domestic groups opposed to his rule (Islamist
insurgents in the Sinai, the Muslim Brotherhood, domestic terrorist groups) or foreign ideological groups
(ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc.)
The concluding chapter will evaluate the results of these analyses. It will assess how well the
theory was able to explain when and why Morocco and Egypt instrumentalized religion.
Conclusion
Authoritarian governments have many ways of maintaining their hold on power. Authoritarian
leaders can instrumentalize religion to bolster their government’s legitimacy and to attack their
opponents. However, as useful as religion might be, governments appear to instrumentalize it in some
circumstances but not others. To explain this variation, I argue that governments are constrained in their
attempts to use religion by the fact that building the capacity to instrumentalize religion is costly and
that by instrumentalizing religion governments run the risk of diminishing the credibility of the
authorities, institutions, and rhetoric that they instrumentalize. Keeping these costs in mind,
authoritarian governments opt to instrumentalize religion when they lack other options. When
governments face direct and substantial threats to their legitimacy in the form of a failed coup, they will
use religion to reinforce their legitimacy and to attack those who challenged the government.
Additionally, when governments face ideological opponents that that they cannot control through force
or cooptation, governments will use religion to discredit them. Groups and movements that operate in
40

foreign countries and receive foreign support are less amenable to cooptation, so we would expect
authoritarian governments to be more likely to instrumentalize religion when foreign/transnational
groups spread ideas that threaten their rule. The next three chapters will test this theory.

41

Chapter 3: The Instrumentalization of Islam in Post-Independence Morocco

The Alaouite royal family has reigned and ruled in Morocco since the middle of the 17
th
century,
with a brief interruption from 1912 to 1956 when the French established a protectorate and assumed de
facto control of the government. Morocco’s kings are both political and religious leaders, as they claim
the title of Commander of the Faithful (amīr al-m ū’minīn). As such, they are duty-bound to lead and
protect the Islamic community in Morocco (Wyrtzen, 2016). Morocco’s kings claim descent from the
Prophet Mohammed, and they have used this heritage, alongside numerous religious ceremonies, to
lead in both spiritual and political matters. The history and legitimizing narrative of the Alaouite
Monarchy
4
offers an interesting case study for this dissertation. Over the monarchy’s long reign it has
endured numerous challenges and crises (coups, riots, regional insurrections, wars, economic
recessions, etc.) and it has been actively opposed by numerous ideological groups (nationalists,
socialists, Islamists, and Salafi Jihadis). Although the royal family has a well-established and well-
respected claim to religious legitimacy, the monarchy chose to instrumentalize religion in response to
some of these challenges and some of these groups, but not others.
Few authoritarian leaders have claims to religious legitimacy as strong as those of Morocco’s
kings
5
, and yet, they, too, have been economical in instrumentalizing religion. This chapter will examine
the reign of Morocco’s three post-independence kings - Mohammed V, Hassan II, and Mohammed VI –

4
The governing system in Morocco, which includes the monarchy is sometimes called the makhzen. Makhzen is a
difficult concept to translate, but Daadaoui (2011:41) provides a relatively clear and comprehensive definition in
his book where he defines it as “an apparatus of state violence and domination, and at the same time a system of
representation of traditional royal power. Makhzen is also a system of conflict resolution controlled by the king,
who dominates all fields in the social universe.” This definition is disputed, and I heard different definitions during
my fieldwork, so for the ease of cross-country comparisons I will only refer to the governing system as the
monarchy, the palace, or the government.
5
Determining which leaders do and do not have religious legitimacy is a very difficult task. I would argue that the
Alaouite kings/sultans have well-established legitimacy because their claims to being Commanders of the Faithful
have been respected for centuries. In fact, during some points in Moroccan history, some groups have rejected the
political authority of the king while still respecting his spiritual authority (Waterbury, 1970). Additionally, survey
evidence on present-day Moroccans indicate that the king is considered the most influential religious leader in the
country (Sheline, 2019).
42

to determine when and why they instrumentalized religion. Specifically, it assesses when the monarchy
expanded its control of religious activities and religious education, when it tried to incorporate more
religious material into public education, and when it allied with or co-opted religious groups. The
chapter will also analyze the timing of each of these actions, and the justifications for these actions to
understand the monarchy’s motivations. The analysis begins with the reign of Mohammed V and
extends to 2020. It is presented chronologically in order to give the historical context behind the
monarchy’s actions and to draw comparisons between the different eras. If the theory presented here is
valid, we should observe the Moroccan monarchy instrumentalizing religion to establish its legitimacy
following unsuccessful coups and in response to foreign groups/movements whose ideology threatens
it. We should also observe the monarchy opting to repress or co-opt domestic groups that challenge its
right to rule.
Before proceeding, it should be noted that this chapter examines only government actions
which indicate the instrumentalization of religion. It does not examine how the monarchy used
governmental bodies or political allies to spread specific messages or discredit particular groups. That
analysis will be included in Chapter 4.
Morocco and the Alaouite Royal Family
The Alaouite family first came to power in Morocco under Sharif ibn Ali in 1631. He was then the
prince of Tafilalt, a region located in central Morocco, but his sons and grandsons assumed the title of
sultan and expanded their rule. From the beginning, the Alaouites claimed to be descendants of the
prophet Mohammad through his daughter Fatima and his son-in-law Ali. Due to their heritage the
Alaouites claimed that they were blessed and that they could make use of this blessing (in Arabic:
baraka) in their rule. The Alaouite sultans also assumed the title of Commander of the Faithful based, in
part, on their religious heritage. As Commanders of the Faithful they saw it as their duty to protect, lead,
and reform the Islamic community in Morocco (Wyrtzen, 2016). The Alaouites reinforced their authority
43

in religious and political matters through the bay’a – a concept rooted in the early history of Islam
according to which believers pledged their loyalty/allegiance to a ruler. In Morocco the bay’a became an
annual ceremony in which the ulama (religious scholars) and other notables would pledge their
allegiance to the new king or sultan.
Although the Alaouites were the most powerful political actors in Morocco prior to colonization
they did not control large swaths of territory in modern day Morocco. (Prior to the protectorate the
royal family controlled many of the cities on the Mediterranean coast, but they failed to control the
regions past the Atlas Mountains and some areas in the northern tip of Morocco.) The Alaouites also
faced constant challenges from tribes that refused to recognize the authority of the sultans (Waterbury,
1970). Beginning in 1830 the royal family had to contend with the encroachment of European powers
upon Moroccan territory. This encroachment advanced until France claimed dominion over Morocco
under the guise of the protectorate.
The Protectorate and the Reign of Mohammed V: The Beginnings of the Regime
In 1912 the French government signed the Treaty of Fez with Sultan Abdulhafid, who
immediately abdicated his throne. The protectorate was designed to give France effective control over
all facets of Moroccan politics and society while portraying this control as a form of political and social
education for the Moroccan people (Wyrtzen, 2016). Prior to their invasion, French authorities decided
they did not want to rule Morocco directly, as they did Algeria, so they elected to keep the sultan in
power and outwardly respect his legislative and religious authority (Miller, 2013). In reality, the French
selected Morocco’s sultans and used them to pass any legislation the colonial administrators desired. In
return for the sultan’s compliance the French expanded the territorial extent of the authority of the
Moroccan government and the sultan himself. From 1912 to 1934 the French military expanded the
reach of the central state to nearly all of modern-day Morocco through a mixture of military might and
44

cooptation of local leaders (Wyrtzen, 2016). The French allied with local leaders who submitted to their
rule and laid siege to any area that refused their, and thereby the sultan’s, authority.
As part of their governing strategy, the French authorities attempted to cultivate a base of
support for the colonial regime by pitting Morocco’s Arab and Amazigh (popularly known as Berber
6
)
communities against one another. In a 1913 letter to his regional commanders, Morocco’s first Resident-
General, Hubert Lyautey, wrote that the Amazigh population “remain faithful to their language,
traditions, and customs, some of which are opposed to the doctrines of Islam” (quoted in Wyrtzen,
2016: 74). The French sought to exploit the ethnic, religious, and linguistic differences between the two
groups because they believed that the Amazigh were amenable to French culture, because of their
supposed non-Arab characteristics, and therefore capable of serving as loyal allies and soldiers in
France’s “civilizing mission.” Colonial authorities attempted to cement the Arab-Amazigh divide with the
so-called Berber Dahir of 1930. The dahir- a decree issued by the sultan that had the force of law -
exempted Amazigh tribes from being judged according to Islamic law. Instead, they would be subject to
their own local laws in criminal and civil matters. Nationalist groups saw the dahir as a transparent
attempt to undermine Morocco’s identity as a unified and Islamic nation (Zisenwine, 2010). Following
the publication of the dahir, nationalist groups began holding protests in Morocco’s largest cities and
around its many mosques. The French responded by forcing the sultan to order imams around the
country to publicly read a letter criticizing the protests for politicizing mosques (Wyrtzen, 2016). Anger
over the dahir did not abate, and early nationalist groups built upon the dahir controversy to begin
Morocco’s fight for independence.
Two actors dominated the nationalist struggle: Sultan Mohamed Ben Youssef (Mohammed V)
and the Istiqlal (Independence) Party. Colonial administrators picked Mohammed Ben Youssef in 1927,

6
The French used the term Beber, but the population referred to as the Berbers prefer the name Amazigh and
consider the term “Berber” to be akin to a slur.
45

when he was eighteen, to be Morocco’s sultan. They believed that he was too young and too passive to
pose a threat to their rule, and in the early years of his reign the sultan played his role to their
satisfaction. However, after the Berber Dahir he began to quietly resist the French occupation by subtly
subverting their orders while also carefully avoiding any direct criticism of the protectorate or its
officials. Nationalist groups challenged the French more directly and publicly. The Istiqlal Party was the
most predominant of the many nationalist groups and it was composed of mostly urban, Arab, and well-
educated Moroccans. Its leader was Allal al-Fassi, a religious scholar from the famed al-Qarawiyyin
University in Fez. Al-Fassi, and many leaders of the Istiqlal, were Salafis – a reformist branch of Sunni
Islam that promotes a return to the practices and traditions of the first Islamic communities (salaf).
They believed Morocco had a distinct Arabic and Islamic identity that was slowly being erased by the
French occupation and that part of protecting Morocco’s national identity meant returning to the roots
of Islam (Zisenwine, 2010). However, the Istiqlal’s Salafism was distinctly nationalist and modernist. Al-
Fassi believed in an Islam that placed the Quran and the Sunna - a literature on the practices of the
Prophet Mohammed and the early Islamic community - at the center of Islamic practice, but he also
believed that the struggle against the French took priority over maintaining the purity of this doctrine
(Lauizere, 2012). He believed that the correct interpretation of Islam guaranteed particular rights for
women including the right to vote and greater rights within family law. Members of the Istiqlal
vigorously resisted the French and sought to undermine their influence on Moroccan politics and
culture. Most members of the Istiqlal wanted Morocco to become an independent republic, but they
also supported the sultan because they saw him as a national symbol whose stature would draw people
to the nationalist cause.
Colonial authorities tried to crush the nationalist movement by repressing the Istiqlal and
forcing Mohammed V to abdicate his throne. Over the course of his reign Mohammed V had begun to
refuse the orders of colonial authorities, and he became more openly sympathetic to the Istiqlal. The
46

French decided to force the sultan into exile, and prior to his removal they circulated a petition to local
authorities stating that Mohammed V’s policies were un-Islamic (Miller, 2013). On August 20, 1953
Mohammed V was forced from his throne and replaced by Mohammed Bin Arafa – a distant relative.
The Istiqlal rallied to the sultan’s cause and refused to recognize the new sultan. Al-Fassi even called
upon religious scholars to refuse to recognize the so-called pretender to the throne (Zisenwine, 2010).
The sultan’s exile prompted two years of demonstrations and regular violence against colonial
authorities. The French relented under the pressure, and in 1955 they began negotiations with the
Istiqlal to end the protectorate. The Istiqlal refused to enter negotiations while the rightful sultan
remained in exile in Madagascar (Willis, 2012). Mohammed V was allowed to return that year and the
Istiqlal supported him throughout the negotiation process. In 1956, Morocco was granted
independence, and the protectorate was officially ended. As soon as their common rival left, the Istiqlal
and Mohammed V began competing for power. This split laid bare the differences between their
conceptions of religion and politics in post-independence Morocco. Members of the Istiqlal saw Islam as
an essential part of the Moroccan national identity, but they did not necessarily see the sultan as the
paramount authority in religious affairs. They also believed that an independent Morocco should move
towards becoming a constitutional monarchy in which political parties held the reins of power. The
sultan believed that Morocco’s future should be a continuation of its past. He saw the Alaouite royal
family as the rightful and legitimate rulers of the newly independent nation. He believed that the royal
family should control the process by which Morocco moved into the modern era. To bolster his image as
a modernizer Mohammed V changed his title from sultan to king soon after independence.
In the immediate post-independence period neither the monarchy nor the Istiqlal could
dominate the political system. Both sides agreed that Morocco would become a constitutional
monarchy, but they disagreed on what that system entailed. Mohammed V presented himself as the
arbiter of political conflicts and the guardian of national interests. In so doing, he tried to de-politicize
47

the monarchy. In this narrative the king was not a political figure because he did not seek political
power and his was a power was not granted through electoral competition. Instead, the royal family had
a unique historical bond with the Moroccan people, and its unique status was based upon the covenant
made between the monarchy and its subjects. Instead of pursuing a partisan or political agenda, the king
was duty-bound to secure the welfare of his people. The historical connection between the king and the
people was both religious and political in nature and Mohammed V tried to present himself as a
reformer who respected tradition. In speeches he declared his unequivocal support for democracy, but
he also made mention of his historical role as Morocco’s rightful king (Howe, 2005). In one speech about
Morocco’s post-independence future, he stated “this democracy must also conform to our national
traditions, which have known no political regime but that of imams” (quoted in Zeghal, 2008: 25).
Mohammed V saw it as his right and duty to actively protect Morocco’s future from all potential threats,
including feckless and self-interested politicians. The Istiqlal believed the king, as a symbol of national
unity and tradition, could and should set up a functioning government and then largely remove himself
from politics.
Following the negotiations for independence, control of the government and the transition
process was given to the monarchy. Mohammed V created the National Consultative Assembly and
staffed the twenty-one ministries of the new government in 1956. The Istiqlal received only nine of
these ministries with the remainder going to smaller parties and nominally independent ministers who
were in fact close to the crown (Miller, 2013). The Consultative Assembly was a largely toothless
institution that served at the king’s discretion as the king retained the right to dissolve the assembly and
remove its members at will (Ashford, 1961).
The king also inherited control of Morocco’s colonial military, a force of approximately 14,000
troops, the vast majority of whom were Amazigh (Wyrtzen, 2016). After independence, the Moroccan
military became the Royal Armed Forces (RAF), and the king changed their motto from “God, the Nation,
48

and King” to “God, the King, and the Nation” (Wyrtzen, 2016:277). The king assumed the title of
Commander-in-Chief and crown prince Hassan became the Chief of Staff. During the first two years of
his reign Mohammed V also choose close allies of the monarchy to staff the Ministry of the Defense.
The national police (in French: Sûreté Nationale) was similarly dominated by the monarchy. Like the
RAF, it was formed by a dahir and officially it was under the supervision of the Ministry of the Interior,
but the king named close confidantes to staff the ministry (Ashford, 1961). Younger and more leftist
members of the Istiqlal, like Mehdi Ben Barka, within the consultative assembly criticized royal control
over the armed forces and the police, but the Istiqlal was too weak and fractured by their infighting to
challenge the king’s control.
The palace used its control of the military to undercut the Istiqlal. Although the party was
credited for helping Morocco achieve independence, it was deeply unpopular in many parts of the
country. Rural populations saw the Istiqlal as a collection of entitled interlopers who disregarded all
those who did not agree with their vision. In particular, the Istiqlal’s drive to create a unified Arab and
Islamic nation was off-putting for many Amazigh. Noticing this weakness, Crown Prince Hassan
encouraged the monarchy’s allies in rural areas to create parties such as The Popular Movement and the
Liberal Independents to blunt the influence of the Istiqlal and support the monarchy (Howe, 2005).
According to Mouline (2015), the palace tried to exploit the Istiqlal’s divisive image by fomenting a
rebellion in the northern, and largely Amazigh, region known as the Rif. Many Riffians were deeply
upset because the post-independence government had outlawed the use of the Spanish currency
popular in the region (and left over from Spain’s colonial presence in the North of the country) and
cracked down on the lucrative cannabis trade. (Wyrtzen, 2016). In October 1958, the monarchy
convinced the Moroccan Liberation Army – a nationalist military resistance group - to exhume and
publicly rebury one of their leaders who was allegedly killed by the Istiqlal, with the intent of starting a
riot. The riot then served as a pretext for imposing martial law and removing Istiqlal officials from the
49

region. The demonstrations around the public reburial originally focused their ire on the Istiqlal and the
new government, but they soon turned into a general rebellion that the government and the police
could not control. The rebellion ended only after the armed forces, under the command of Prince
Hassan, were called in to crush it, at the cost of approximately 3,000 lives (Wyrtzen, 2016: 281).
While the Istiqlal and the palace were competing for political power, the ulama were fractured
and did not collectively back either the monarchy or the Istiqlal. During the protectorate, most ulama
had given their blessing to the sultans picked by the French, while a small minority supported nationalist
groups and the Istiqlal (Hammoudi, 1997). Prior to the protectorate, the ulama were seen as the
guarantors of the sultan’s religious legitimacy, and each new sultan was supposed to receive their
blessing in order to rule. If the sultan failed in his duties, it was incumbent on the ulama to withdraw
their blessing (Sater, 2008). However, during the course of the protectorate the ulama had lost their
collective power and they lacked any organizational basis by which they could participate in political life.
The ulama were not part of the government and they did not have a national organization that
advanced their interests. During the first years of independence, groups of ulama tried to create
organizations that criticized the so-called secularization of education and advocated for more funding
for Arabic and Islamic studies, but all of those efforts failed (Zeghal, 2008).
The palace did not fully co-opt the ulama during the early years of independence. The palace did
not want the ulama to develop the capacity for collective action, so it focused on co-opting them on a
piecemeal basis without fully absorbing them into the government (Zeghal, 2008). Outside of the ulama,
the palace did not expand its power to supervise religious practice. The Ministry of Pious Endowments
and Islamic Affairs
7
(hereafter referred to as the Ministry of Islamic Affairs) was created in 1956 to
oversee religious affairs, but it had little funding and very few enumerated responsibilities (Feuer, 2017).

7
Also known as the Habous.
50

The first minister of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs was an ‘alim (singular of ulama) and a member of the
Istiqlal. During the first years of independence the Ministry did little more than establish a monthly
magazine on culture and religion titled Dawa al-Haqq (in English: The Call of Truth). The first issues
focused on the renewal of religious life in the post-independence era and they included articles from
and about members of the Istiqlal (al-Fassi, 1957).
During the first four years of independence, it became clear that the king had decisively
outmaneuvered the Istiqlal. He had cemented its control of the armed forces, fomented dissent against
the Istiqlal, and marginalized the party in the post-independence government. The Istiqlal’s position was
worsened by its internal fissures. Throughout the struggle for independence the party had been able to
remain relatively united, but after it began to govern, different ideological camps within the party
became more prominent. In 1959 the party split, with its more conservative members remaining and its
more leftist members leaving in order to form the National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP, in French:
Union Nationale des Forces Populaires). Taking advantage of his position, Mohammed V dissolved the
government in 1960 and took the position of prime minister for himself. After having secured his power,
and that of the royal family, Mohammed V died unexpectedly in February 1961 and Crown Prince
Hassan ascended to the throne.
This period of Moroccan history demonstrates several important points. First, the Alaouite royal
family established and successfully reinforced its religious legitimacy many, many years before the first
post-independence government. The French recognized the royal family’s religious stature and
attempted to use it to launder their image. Mohammed V referred to this legitimacy in numerous
speeches, and the Istiqlal used the sultan’s legitimacy to further the nationalist cause (Howe, 2005;
Zeghal, 2008). Thus, the monarchy did not need to establish a new legitimizing narrative following
independence. Second, Mohammed V used his first years in power to simultaneously marginalize the
Istiqlal and secure his control over the military and the police. The palace recognized that the Istiqlal was
51

its main competitor, but it focused on using political institutions and the state’s coercive apparatus to
undermine its main rival because that was most effective way to secure its power and undermine
potential rivals. Third, Mohammed V did not ally with the ulama or invest in the Ministry of Islamic
Affairs as a way to discredit or attack the Istiqlal. The monarchy kept the ulama fractured and the
Ministry was relatively marginal during Mohammed V’s reign. The palace’s actions indicate that the
palace did not prioritize religion as one of the ways to secure its power vis-à-vis the Istiqlal.
Table 3.1: Political Challenges and Responses During the Reign of Mohammed V
Challenge Monarchy’s Responses
Struggle for power with the Istiqlal and the UNFP
(1956-1961)
• Assumed control of the armed forces
(1956)
• Assumed control of the national police
(1957)
• Supported the creation of pro-monarchy
political parties in rural areas (1957)
• Fomented rebellion in the Rif to remove
members of the opposition (1958)

To secure the future of the Alaouite royal family, Mohammed V concentrated on securing
control of Morocco’s coercive apparatus, building the monarchy’s base of support in rural and Amazigh
areas, and marginalizing the Istiqlal in Morocco’s first post-independence governments. Mohammed V’s
actions during the period effectively established the monarchy as the most powerful actor in Moroccan
politics.
Hassan II: Repression, Cooptation, and Compromise
Hassan II did not begin his reign enjoying the same prestige as his father. Mohammed V was
seen to have sacrificed his throne to protect his nation’s sovereignty, while his son was seen as being
more focused on worldly pleasures (Howe, 2005). Although Hassan II might not have enjoyed the same
respect as his father in the beginning of his reign, he and the palace did control the government. The
Istiqlal and the UNFP were forced into working within a political system dominated by the monarchy.
52

Since the split, Allal al-Fassi and the Istiqlal had decided that they would become the monarchy’s loyal
opposition while the UNFP took a harder line. In 1961, at the urging of the Istiqlal, Hassan II began the
process of drafting Morocco’s first constitution. The drafting process was controlled by the palace and
the constitution was written by royal appointees without substantive input from the public or the
opposition parties (Miller, 2013). Although the text of the constitution included language that protected
Morocco’s “democratic” system, it gave little legislative power to the parliament, and it did nothing to
limit the king’s power. It also established Islam as the national religion and the king as the Commander
of the Faithful. The Istiqlal, hoping to remain in the monarchy’s good graces, supported the constitution
when it was put to a vote. The leadership of the UNFP, on the other hand, saw the constitution as a tool
of an authoritarian monarchy and called for a boycott of the constitutional referendum. Mehdi Ben
Barka, the UNFP’s leader, while talking about the monarchy stated that “the primary task of the
Moroccan people is to battle this totally feudal regime” (Miller, 2013: 166). The referendum was held in
December 1962 and the new constitution was reported to have won 85 percent of the vote.
The constitutional referendum was a political victory for the palace, but Hassan II’s early years
were marked by constant turmoil. The UNFP challenged the monarchy from the left, and it refused to
participate in Hassan II’s coronation or in his “national unity” government following his ascension to the
throne (A’boushi, 2010). In addition to his domestic rivals, Hassan II was menaced by the Cold War
battles of that era. Mohammed V had supported the Non-Aligned Movement during his reign and he
supported other countries in North Africa who were fighting for their independence (Miller, 2013).
However, any semblance of anti-colonial solidarity in North Africa vanished as soon as the colonial
powers left, as newly independent regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) turned their
attention to the ideological battles shaping the region.
Although the ideological currents and the political actors in this period were diverse, many
political leaders, Hassan II included, saw a clear divide pitting conservative monarchies against Pan-Arab
53

socialist republics (Barnett, 1998). While Morocco remained a bastion of conservative monarchism, it
saw many of its neighbors fall under the control of socialist and nationalists opposed to monarchical
rule. In July 1952 the Free Officers Movement overthrew the Egyptian monarchy and soon became the
leading voice for revolution and Pan-Arabism in the Middle East. In 1956 Tunisia gained its
independence, and in 1957 the Neo-Destour Party abolished the Tunisian monarchy. In 1958 Syria and
Egypt unified to form the United Arab Republic (UAR), and later that year a group of army officers
overthrew the monarchy in Iraq. In 1962 Algeria won its war of independence and the National
Liberation Front (FLN, in French: Front de libération nationale) – a revolutionary nationalist party – came
into power. Throughout this period there were active and acrimonious battles between the remaining
monarchies and the new republics. Gamal Abdel Nasser used his position and the Voice of the Arabs
radio service to push for more radical change in other states. His call for Pan-Arab unity (under his
leadership) and revolution resonated throughout the Arab world. The security of the remaining
monarchies in the MENA region often depended on their ability to co-opt this nationalist/socialist
message or counteract it.
For Hassan II, this ideological conflict manifested itself most clearly in Morocco’s
confrontations with Algeria. The Moroccan monarchy had supported Algeria as it fought its war of
liberation
8
, but after the victory of the FLN the two countries began clashing because of territorial
disputes and ideological differences. These tensions erupted in a short war between the two countries
in 1963. Algeria received support abroad from the UAR and Cuba (Farsoun and Paul, 1976). On the
domestic front, Mehdi Ben Barka supported Algeria in the conflict and fled into exile that year. Hassan II
was also perturbed by a media and radio campaign launched by Algeria against Morocco. In a letter to

8
In fact, France offered Morocco the chance to take possession of disputed territory in Algeria if Morocco agreed
to restrict its housing of Algerian troops. Moroccan authorities refused the deal because they did not want to
undermine, or be seen as undermining, the Algerian struggle for independence (Farsoun and Paul, 1976).
54

Gamal Abdel Nasser about negotiating an end to the conflict, he mentioned the press campaign as one
of the factors that was preventing a peaceful resolution to the border dispute (Hassan II, 1963). Both
sides reached a ceasefire four months after the war began, but this short war established Algeria as
Morocco’s chief rival in the region.
In 1963, Morocco also held is first parliamentary elections. Pro-monarchy parties won a large
share of seats, but their gains were matched by the Istiqlal, the UNFP, and independent parties (Howe,
2005). Following the election, the monarchy began repressing the UNFP. The police arrested and
tortured hundreds of the UNFP’s supporters and accused many of them of plotting to overthrow the
monarchy (Farsoun and Paul, 1976)
9
. University students sympathetic to the UNFP responded by
demonstrating in the streets and using their platform to call for the end of the monarchy. In March 1965
a group of high school students in Casablanca began protesting against a decision by the Ministry of
Education that restricted students older than seventeen from enrolling in secondary schools (Bogaert,
2018). The demonstrations devolved into a riot which the army brutally suppressed. Hasan II took the
opportunity to declare a state of emergency wherein he suspended the constitution and the parliament.
The king ruled by decree from 1965 to 1970.
Beginning in 1963 Hassan II had hinitiated a set of reforms to expand the presence of Islam in
public life. That year he began broadcasting lectures by religious scholars, popularly known as Hassani
Lectures, every night during the month of Ramadan. Hassani Lectures were delived by Isalmic scholars
and focused on various aspects of the Islamic tradition and they were delivered in front of the king. In
1964 the palace established the Dar al-Hadith al-Hassania, a religious university in Rabat, to compete
with the famed Qarawiyyin University in Fez and produce scholars more subservient to the monarchy
(Zeghal, 2008). In 1966 prayer was made obligatory in all public schools (Feuer, 2017). In 1968, Hassan II

9
Also, in October 1965 agents of Morocco’s intelligence agencies, in cooperation with French intelligence,
kidnapped and killed Mehdi Ben Barka in France (Hughes, 2001).
55

launched a Quranic school program that required children to attend khuttabs (Quranic schools) before
attending primary school. These policies served to make the palace and public schools appear more
Islamic, but they did little to change the curriculum of public schools or the regulation of religious
education.
In public speeches commemorating the inauguration of the Dar al-Hadith and the Quranic
School Program, Hassan II argued that the purpose of these programs was to provide guidance and
instruction on religious matters for Moroccans. The Dar al-Hadith was meant to train a new generation
of religious scholars who would adjust to the realities of the modern world while also honoring
Morocco’s unique religious heritage (Hassan II, 1964). The king presented the Quranic School Program
as a tool for deepening the social bonds between all Moroccans (Hassan II, 1968). He argued that
Morocco was a Muslim society and so an early religious education centered on Arabic and the pillars of
the Islamic faith would reinforce Morocco’s national identity and prevent Moroccans from experiencing
alienation and self-doubt as a result of cultural dissonance. In particular, the Quranic schools would
provide an alternative to French schools and missionary schools that promoted the French language and
Christianity. However, the government did not provide funding for students to attend Quranic schools
(Feuer, 2017). Hassan II called upon parents to make extra sacrifices so that their children could attend
them.
During the years of emergency rule many of the political and ideological battles that had pitted
political parties against one another moved onto college campuses. Two groups characterized this shift:
the leftist ila al-Amam (in English: Forward!) and the Islamist al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya (in English: The
Islamic Youth). Ila al-Amam began as an offshoot of the Party of Liberation and Socialism – a socialist
party that was founded in 1968 and banned by the monarchy in 1969 (Storm, 2007). The group
embraced a Marxist-Leninist ideology and pushed for a political revolution that would pave the way for
the establishment of a socialist society in Morocco (Koumita, 2018). Al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya was a
56

conservative Islamist organization that was fiercely opposed to the secular/materialist ideologies
espoused by leftist groups. During the 1970s Hassan II jailed leaders and supporters of Ila al-Amam and
suppressed their publications, while al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya was legalized by the palace and allowed to
operate with relatively few restrictions. The palace even encouraged it to more actively counter leftist
groups on campuses by mobilizing students against Marxist and leftist ideologies (Boukhars, 2011)
10
. The
monarchy focused on the threat posed by leftists at this time not only because many of Morocco’s
neighbors embraced some type of leftist ideology, but also because in March 1973 Moroccan national
security forces stopped a coordinated terrorist attack by a left-wing guerilla group. The group had been
trained in Algeria, they acquired their weapons in Libya, and they had links to the UNFP (Damis, 1975).
The guerillas planned on bombing targets in Casablanca and Rabat to start a general revolt, but the plan
failed and later that year 159 conspirators were charged with threatening state security. Although the
palace never directly stated its reasoning for tolerating al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya, the notion that the
monarchy used Islamists to counter the left is supported by the fact that during this period it also
allowed Saudi Salafi groups to spread Wahhabism - an extremely conservative interpretation of Islam -
freely through mosques, cassette tapes, and religious organizations (Masbah, 2016; Howe, 2005).
Emergency rule ended when the palace allowed elections in 1969 and drafted a new
constitution in 1970. However, Hassan II’s troubles were far from over. In 1971, during the king’s forty-
second birthday party at his palace in Skhirat – a coastal city located between Casablanca and Rabat -
armed forces under the direction of General Mohammed Medbouh stormed the grounds and attempted
to capture the king and assume control of the government (Howe, 2005). The king was caught off-guard,
and the attack on the party killed 92 people, but the coup was ultimately crushed by military forces loyal
to the king. Hassan II escaped unharmed, and he reorganized the military and named General

10
The palace’s tolerance of al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya ended in 1975 when individuals linked to the group
assassinated Omar Benjelloun – a leftist political activist and labor leader.
57

Mohammed Oufkir – a longtime ally of his – to be the new Minister of Defense. Little more than a year
after the coup, a plane carrying the king was attacked by members of the Moroccan Air Force. Hassan II
survived the attack, for which his new Minister of Defense was responsible. Following a meeting with
the king in his palace, Oufkir was shot in the chest five times (Hughes, 2001). For his betrayal, Hassan II
had Oufkir’s wife and family sent to Tazmamart prison deep in Morocco’s interior, where they were
imprisoned for eighteen years.
Hassan II’s legitimacy had been severely challenged by the coups. The royal armed forces, one of
the pillars of the monarchy, had attempted to kill him twice in two years. As a result of these coup
attempts Hassan II realized the precariousness of his rule, and he searched for ways to regain his
authority. He tried to reach an agreement with opposition parties, but they refused his overtures
(Miller, 2013). One of the ways he tried to make his rule more secure was to further incorporate Islam
into the educational system and thereby undergird the monarchy’s religious legitimacy. The palace
increased the number of hours devoted to Islamic studies, it made Islamic studies a required class in
every grade for primary and secondary schools, and it added religious topics to other academic subjects
such as history (Feuer, 2017). The goal of religious education also shifted during this period. Whereas
the curriculum from the past focused on teaching students about Morocco’s Islamic heritage and Islamic
practices, the newer curriculum was focused on teaching students about proper Islamic ethics and
morals. The curriculum was intended to protect students from ideologies, like Marxism, that were
deemed hostile to Islam. The goals of the new curriculum were articulated in the introduction to a 1979
tract on Islamic and Arabic Education which stated that an Islamic education “would grant our youth an
immunity from all danger, arming them with a powerful weapon to defend their religion, their
authenticity, and their values, against the invasion of destructive ideological currents, ideologies inciting
doubt, and temptations that threaten the faith” (quoted in Feuer, 2017: 81).
58

In several speeches from 1972 to 1975 the king addressed why these educational reforms were
important and necessary. In a 1972 speech commemorating Laylat al-Qadr (the night the first verses of
the Quran were revealed), Hassan II stated that Islam’s adversaries had attempted to attack and subvert
the Islamic faith through radio, television, and print media (Hassan II, 1972e). This subversion was
ideational and aimed at sowing doubt in the minds of Moroccans. According to the king, in order to
combat the “adversaries of Islam” parents and educators needed to act as moral examples for
Morocco’s children. In a 1975 message to the League of Moroccan ulama he made his plans much
clearer. In the message Hassan II discussed the formation of a committee composed of ulama and
educators to review all books from schools and colleges in order to remove all profanity, false theories,
and anything that should not be taught to people who are proud of the Quran and the Islamic religion
(Hassan II, 1975c). He argued that the committee was necessary to protect the next generation of
Moroccans from the “adversaries of Islam” who continued to undermine Islam by sowing doubt and
skepticism.
In 1974, Hassan II’s religious legitimacy was challenged more directly. In that year Abdesalam
Yassine- a schoolteacher and a former member of the Budshishiyya Sufi brotherhood - sent a letter to
two thousand professionals around Morocco with the title Islam or the Deluge (Zeghal, 2008). In the
letter Yassine attacked the king for manipulating Islam for his political gain and abandoning Islam’s true
message. He castigated the ulama for bending to the will of the monarchy and doing its bidding. He
called into question the king’s status as Commander of the Faithful and enjoined him to embrace true
Islam or face the consequences of his actions. Yassine even suggested that the two coups were warnings
from God and that his letter was a third and final warning (Howe, 2005). In response, the palace had
Yassine confined to a mental asylum for three years and suppressed his writings. After Yassine was
allowed to leave the mental asylum, he was placed under house arrest. During his time under house
arrest Yassine and his followers attempted to negotiate with the monarchy in order to form an
59

organization based on Yassine’s teachings and philosophy. They were repeatedly denied until Yassine
decided to disobey the regime and create the group Justice and Charity in 1987. The group was, and
remains, illegal but it was allowed to operate so long as it stayed out of the political sphere and
refrained from directly challenging the king.
Following the two coup attempts Hassan II also attempted to shift the monarchy’s base of
support. During the first decade of his reign, the king had focused on placating the rural elites and
Amazigh communities that had supported his father and remained loyal to the monarchy. Hassan II used
government patronage to gain the support of the urban middle class and better secure his rule. The
Moroccan government owned a monopoly on phosphate extraction, and in 1973 the price of
phosphates rose dramatically thanks in part to the 1973 Oil Crisis. The monarchy used its sudden wealth
to massively increase government spending. From 1974 to 1976 the government’s spending doubled in
real terms and as a proportion of Morocco’s GDP it grew from 20 percent in 1973 to 40 percent in 1977
(Sater, 2008: 82). The monarchy used this windfall to increase the number of public sector jobs and
publicly-owned companies, increase funding for higher education, guarantee public sector jobs to
college graduates, and subsidize basic goods (Bogaert, 2018). The palace also launched a program to
“Moroccanize” the ownership of domestic companies. The government forced foreigners to sell
substantial portions of their land and their companies to Moroccans which resulted in approximately
1,500 companies and 400,00 hectares being “Moroccanized” (Bogaert, 2018:69).
Apart from his economic initiatives, Hassan II used irredentism to reinvigorate popular support
for the monarchy. He decided to renew Morocco’s quest for “territorial unity.” Members of the Istiqlal
and other nationalists had long dreamed of a Greater Morocco that included territories claimed by
Morocco’s neighbors and old colonial powers. They considered the Western Sahara – a region to the
south of Morocco – in particular as an integral part of the Moroccan nation (Wyrtzen, 2016; Hughes,
2001). In 1974 the Western Sahara was still controlled by Spain, but Morocco had spent years lobbying
60

international institutions to recognize Morocco’s claims to it. The International Court of Justice issued a
ruling in 1975 that recognized the existence of historical ties between Morocco and Sahrawi tribes
(Miller, 2013). Although the court did not recognize Morocco’s right to annex the territory, the palace
proceeded as if it had. That year Hassan II began planning his campaign to reclaim what he called the
“Moroccan Sahara.” In November 1975 he launched the Green March and sent 350,000 volunteers
accompanied by 20,000 troops to march into the disputed territory and claim it for their homeland. The
king tried to portray the march as an Islamic mission. He ordered the marchers to carry copies of the
Quran and recite verses of holy book (Benomar, 1988). When addressing the possibility that Spanish
forces would fire upon the marchers, the king stated “there is no infidel however hardened who can give
the order to open fire on 350,000 unarmed civilians brandishing only the book of Allah” (Hughes, 2001:
239-240).
The Green March was perhaps Hassan II’s greatest political accomplishment. Seizing the
Western Sahara proved so popular that even the king’s opponents praised him for protecting Morocco’s
territorial unity (Boukhars, 2010). The people living in the Western Sahara, however, rejected Morocco’s
occupation. Morocco tried to assert its authority over the indigneous population (Sahrawis) through
military force. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro (Polisario Front)
which orignally formed to oust the Spanish began to fight against the Moroccan occupation, and the
conflict between the two ignited a war which raged until the 1990s and which remains unresolved at the
time of this writing. Following the Green March, the Western Sahara became a part of Morocco’s
national mythology and any Sahrawi resistance was attributed to Algerian interference in Moroccan
affairs. Additionally, the palace expressly forbade any criticism of the occupation of the Western Sahara
(Sater, 2008).
In the early 1980s the monarchy faced renewed difficulties as the pace of economic growth
began to slow down. The price of phosphates began to fall in 1976 and the government no longer afford
61

to pay for the public services it offered during the boom years or for the new war in the Western Sahara
(Sater, 2008). The government took on increasing amounts of debt to pay for its expenditures until it
was forced to turn the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for support. As part of its agreement with the
IMF, the Moroccan government was forced into making a number of politically unpopular spending cuts.
In 1981 the government tried to remove the subsidies on basic goods like wheat, oil, butter, and flour,
but these moves caused a demonstration that turned into a large riot in Casablanca in June of that year
(Bogaert, 2018). The palace responded by sending the military to put down the riot and reversing some
of the price increases. The government attempted a second round of austerity measures in 1984, and
those resulted in a second set of riots that began in Marrakesh and spread to the major northern cities.
The police’s response to the riots left two hundred people injured or killed.
The so-called IMF riots erupted in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution which fed into Hassan
II’s paranoia about his security. In February 1979 the Shah of Iran was replaced by the Ayatollah
Khomeini and his followers, who installed a revolutionary and theocratic government in Iran. Khomeini
believed that his revolution would be the first step in the establishment of a worldwide Islamic
government that would lead to the return of the Mahdi – a messianic religious figure in Twelver Shiism
(Ramzani, 1986). The Iranian government tried to export its revolution through various means including
broadcasting its propaganda into neighboring states, hosting conferences for foreign ulama, and
sponsoring groups/parties sympathetic to its ideology. The Islamic Revolution in Iran also sparked
demonstrations sympathetic to its cause in countries around the region. The deposed Shah was hosted
by Hassan II in Marrakesh following the revolution, but his presence incited multiple protests around
Morocco, and even prompted the Ayatollah Khomeini to cast doubt about Hassan II’s claim to be
Commander of the Faithful (Eickelman, 1987). Political leaders throughout the MENA region saw Iran’s
efforts and the appeal of its Islamic revolution as serious threats to their rule (Rubin, 2014). Hassan II
even blamed “Khomeinists” for fomenting the IMF riots (Feuer, 2017). He also believed that the Shah
62

was partially at fault for allowing the revolution to occur. In particular, Hassan II thought the Shah failed
to appreciate the role of religion in public life. In an interview with a New York Times reporter about the
deposed Shah, Hassan II stated, “His first error of analysis … was not to have been able to appreciate the
place of religion in social life. He wanted to rule as an emperor, but as a lay emperor” (Markham, 1980:
29). The king learned from the Shah’s mistake.
In April 1981 the king issued a dahir creating the Supreme Council of the Ulama whose task was
to regulate the ulama and direct their interactions with the public (Dawa al-Haqq, 1981). The Supreme
Council was staffed by ulama who would then direct and cooperate with regional councils of local
ulama. Local councils were tasked with protecting the “doctrinal unity” of the nation by providing advice
and guidance to citizens that adhered to Moroccan Islam. This meant that their Islam adhered to the
Maliki madhab (school of religious interpretation), the Quran, and the Sunna. The Supreme Council was
chaired by the king and, in addition to directing the local councils, it was responsible for dealing with any
issues presented by the king as well as connecting with other Islamic organizations around the world.
The text of the dahir stated that “Islam was and remains the most important component of Morocco’s
national character” and that Morocco’s national unity was rooted in its spiritual unity (Official Gazette,
1981). The dahir explained that Morocco’s unity was under attack from foreign ideologies and doctrines
and that the councils were meant to protect Moroccans from these threats. In 1984 the king passed a
dahir expanding the powers and responsibilities of the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Although it had been a
sovereign ministry in 1957 – meaning the palace exercised direct control over the ministry’s activities –
the Ministry of Islamic Affairs focused mainly on the management of pious endowments, and it had
done little to regulate other aspects of religious life (Feuer, 2017). Hassan II’s dahir made the ministry
responsible for licensing the building of all new mosques, approving the reconstruction or the
modification of current mosques, managing the activities of all mosques, and appointing the preachers
and imams who worked in Morocco’s mosques (Official Gazette, 1984).
63

The palace began allowing Islamists to participate in the political system in the 1990s. Most
prominent among these groups was the Islamic Group, which splintered from the Islamic Youth in the
1980s under the leadership of Abdelilah Benkirane (Willis, 1999). The group had applied to be
recognized as a legal organization in 1983, but the palace had refused their request. They made several
more attempts to enter politics, but they were repeatedly rejected by the palace because of their
Islamist ideology. To appear more moderate, the group removed the reference to Islam from their name
and they became the Reform and Renewal party in 1992. In 1996, they changed their name again to the
Movement of Unity and Reform (MUR). That year the palace finally relented, and the MUR was allowed
to participate in parliamentary elections so long as they recognized the king as the Commander of the
Faithful, respected Morocco’s territorial integrity (i.e. supported Morocco’s claims to the Western
Sahara), respected the authority of the ulama, and campaigned with an established political party – the
Popular Democratic and Constitutional Movement party (Zehgal, 2008; Miller, 2013). In 1998, the party
changed its name to the Party of Justice and Development (PJD).
The palace’s acceptance of an Islamist political party, after the threat posed by Islamists for
years following the Iranian Revolution, was motivated by several factors. First, and foremost, the
Islamists of the MUR never directly challenged the monarchy, and they agreed to operate within the
strict boundaries set by the palace (Spiegel, 2015). Second, the king and his advisers saw Algeria plunge
into a bloody and protracted civil war because the Algerian government refused to recognize the victory
of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS, in French: Front Islamique du Salut) in its 1991 parliamentary
elections. In an interview with the Moroccan journalist Driss Ksikes, Morocco’s Minister of Islamic Affairs
Abdelkebir Mdeghir defended the palace’s acceptance of the PJD by saying: “Violence against Islamists
will not achieve anything. Worse, it might precipitate their resort to underground activities, and
endanger state security … Given this, I have always defended and contributed to dialogue with them”
(quoted in Boukhars, 2011: 166). Although Morocco did not experience anywhere near the same level of
64

violence as Algeria, there were clashes between Islamists and other groups on college campuses around
Morocco for years and in 1994 the murder of two Spanish tourists in Marrakesh was blamed on Islamists
(Sweet, 2001). Third, beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s Hassan II sought to make the political
system more pluralistic and less repressive than it had been.
Since the state of emergency in 1965, the palace had allowed parliamentary elections in 1970,
1977, 1984, 1992, 1994, and 1997 (Zerhouni, 1998). The palace had begun negotiations with a
collection of opposition parties known as the Democratic Bloc in 1992 to entice them into becoming part
of the government. The Democratic Bloc was composed of five opposition parties including the Istiqlal
and the USFP (A’boushi, 2010). In 1975 the UNFP essentially became the USFP (Socialist Union of
Popular Forces, in French: Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires)
11
, and it remained one of the most
prominent parties opposing the monarchy. The original negotiations faltered but eventually both sides
agreed on a number of systemic changes that were included in the drafting of a new constitution which
was officially approved by referendum in 1996. The USFP won a plurality of seats in the 1997
parliamentary elections, and Hassan II selected Abderamane Youssofi – a leader of the USFP who had
been jailed for two years and lived in exile for fifteen years because of his anti-monarchy activities – as
the prime minister. Youssoufi’s selection marked the beginning of the so-called “Alternance
government” and this government characterized the era of political liberalization that the king had
initiated in the 1990s. He had freed a large number of political prisoners (including the Oufkir family),
closed down a number of prison camps, signed several human rights treaties, and established
governmental organizations responsible for protecting human rights and the rights of women (Brand,
1998; Howe, 2005; Sater, 2009).

11
Technically the UNFP split with many of the UNFP’s members joining the USFP, but the UNFP stopped running in
elections after 1975 (A’boushi, 2010).
65

Although each of these moves signaled real progress towards a more liberal and inclusive
political order, the system was still controlled by the monarchy. The king still selected the prime
minister, chose which issues were outside the scope of political debate (the Western Sahara), and
determined the extent to which the government would respect human rights. The parliament during the
Alternance government was still largely powerless as it could not pass any significant legislation without
the king’s support (Zerhouni, 2008). By the end of his reign, Hassan II had secured the monarchy’s
supremacy over the political system while also co-opting many of his opponents (Sater, 2008). He died
on July 25, 1999.
Hassan II’s reign had lasted nearly forty years and in that time he faced a great many crises and
challenges, clearly instrumentalizing religion in response to some. The palace made a tacit alliance with
conservative Islamist groups in the late 1960s and early 1970s to balance against the threat posed by
leftist and Marxist groups. Following the two failed military coups in 1972 and 1973 the palace made
public education include more religious material, and the religious education curriculum was made more
ideological in order to undergird the regime’s ideological foundations and protect Moroccan students
from the dangers of secularist and materialist (i.e. Marxist and Leftist) ideologies. In the early 1980s the
monarchy incorporated religious authorities into the government through the Supreme Council of the
Ulama and it began to manage, license, and staff religious establishments through the Ministry of
Islamic Affairs in 1984. The alliance between the palace and al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya and the educational
reforms of the 1970s were both motivated by the palace’s fear that leftist ideological groups posed a
threat to the unity of the nation and the safety of the monarchy. The palace reasoned that Islam and
Islamic groups could be used to discredit its ideological rivals. The palace also believed that promoting a
particular brand of Islam through the educational system could help restore the monarchy’s legitimacy
after the coups. When Islamists led a successful revolution against the Shah in 1979 the monarchy
shifted its focus from leftists to conservative Islamist groups.
66

Table 3.2: Political Challenges and Responses During the reign of Hassan II
Challenge Monarchy’s Responses
Cold War/Leftist and Nationalists Challenges from
Abroad (1963-1979)
• Legalized and tolerated al-Shabiba al-
Islamiyya (1972-1975)
• Suppressed ila al-Amam and jailed its
leaders (1973-1976)
• Encouraged the spread of Wahhabism
(1970s)

Student Riots in Casablanca (1965) • Suppressed the riots (1965)
• Declared emergency rule (1965-1970)

Attempted Coups (1971 and 1972) • Reorganized the military (1972, 1973)
• Made Islamic Studies a requirement in
public schools and increased number of
schools hours devoted to religious
studies (1973-1976)
• Shifted the focus of religious education to
focus on ethics, morals, outside
ideologies, and adversaries of Islam
(1972-1975)
• Organized the Green March to annex the
Western Sahara (1975)
• Massively increased public spending on
social services and “Moroccanized” the
economy (1973-1977)

Publication of Yassine’s Letter (1974) • Sent Yassine to an asylum and then
placed him under house arrest (1974-
2000)

Iranian Revolution (1979) • Created the Supreme Council and
Regional Councils of Ulama (1981)
• Expanded the powers of the Ministry of
Islamic Affairs (1984)
Economic Recession and IMF riots (1980-1984) • Suppressed the riots (1981, 1984)
67

These are not the only points in history during which the monarchy appeared to instrumentalize
Islam. It promoted Islam through educational programs during the early 1960s, it Islamized the Green
March in 1975, and it allowed the PJD to compete in elections in the early 1990s. The regime’s 1960s
reforms were geared towards increasing the role of religion in public life, but they did not use religion to
promote particular political ideas or groups. The establishment of the Dar al-Hadith al-Hassania, the
Quranic School Program, and the Hassani Lectures were all used to promote Islam, but their political
objective was unclear. Similarly, the co-optation of the PJD lacked a clear political end goal. The
monarchy wanted to avoid a possible civil war by placating the Islamist group, but otherwise the PJD
was not used to promote or attack particular ideas or groups – which stands in contrast to the regime’s
instrumentalization of al-Shabiba al-Islamiyya. The PJD were clearly co-opted but it is not clear how they
were instrumentalized. The Islamization of the Green March, on the other hand, had a very clear
political objective. It was meant to legitimize Morocco’s claims to the Western Sahara and legitimize
their occupation of contested territory. However, the Islamization of the Green March is outside the
scope of this analysis because it is a case of the discursive use of Islam to make a particular action
appear Islamic.
There are also points where the monarchy did not appear to instrumentalize religion at all.
Morocco experienced the largest riots in its post-independence history in 1965, 1981, and 1984. These
riots caused an immense amount of property damage and had to be put down by the military and
police, but the regime made no changes to its religious policies or its regulation of religious activities in
response to these riots. The Supreme Council of the Ulama was established prior to the first IMF riot in
1981 and there were no actions taken in response to the riots of 1965 and 1984. More interestingly, the
monarchy did not instrumentalize religion in response to Yassine’s public attack on the monarchy in
1974 or his subsequent attempts to organize a movement around his ideals. Additionally, the speeches
of the king and legislative texts that changed the religious landscape failed to mention the regime’s most
68

popular opposition parties – the UNFP, the USFP, and the Istiqlal (after 1962). Instead, the regime opted
to repress or co-opt its domestic opponents.
Mohammed VI: The Authoritarian Reformer
Mohammed VI ascended to the throne on a wave of good will and hope. Many Moroccans and
international observers believed that the new king would continue the reforms of his father and make
the Moroccan government more responsive to the needs of its citizens. Mohammed VI fed into this
narrative by declaring his support for the Alternance government and Prime Minister Youssoufi (Howe,
2005). In public speeches the new king portrayed himself as a constitutional monarch committed to
liberalism, reform, and the protection of human rights. In the beginning of his reign Mohammed VI freed
tens of thousands of political prisoners, amnestied Moroccan political activists who lived in exile, and
established a commission to investigate and compensate the victims of torture and human rights abuses
during the reign of his father (Slyomovics, 2005). He released Abdessalam Yassine from his house arrest,
although he kept him under surveillance. He replaced Driss Basri, the Minister of the Interior responsible
for helping Hassan II manipulate elections and imprison his political opponents, in 1999.
Although Mohammad VI signaled his commitment to political reform, he was not bound by the
parliament or any other political authority in Morocco. Even in his early years the palace banned
newspapers that published stories on corruption in the government or that criticized Morocco’s
occupation of the Western Sahara. Although he respected the results of the 1997 elections, King
Mohammed VI appointed Driss Jettou, a non-partisan technocrat, to be the new Prime Minister in 2002
even though the USFP won a plurality of seats in the 2002 elections (Miller, 2013).
Mohammed VI faced one of the first major challenges to his rule following the 2001 terrorist
attacks in the US and the onset of the American-led war on terrorism. From the 1980s onward Morocco
had been very wary of the threat posed by Islamists, and in 2001 Moroccan security services had
discovered al-Qaeda linked terror cells operating within Morocco (Miller, 2013). In the aftermath of the
69

2001 attacks the king organized an inter-faith service honoring the victims of the attack. This service
angered a group of sixteen conservative ulama who wrote a fatwa (Islamic legal decision) denouncing
the service as well as the Ministry of Islamic Affairs for forcing ulama to uncritically support America. In
the fatwa they stated
We condemn and disapprove of the distortions of religious texts made by the Ministry of
[Islamic Affairs] as well as the falsification of the political sermon of Friday, which the preachers
in Moroccan mosques were forced to deliver the Friday of 14 September 2001 after the events
that occurred in America. (Boukhars, 2011: 213)
The palace immediately denounced the fatwa. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs pressured seven of the
ulama responsible for the fatwa to recant their support and, in an interview with a French magazine,
Mohammed VI declared that the fatwa writers lacked the authority or legitimacy to issue a fatwa
(Zeghal, 2008).
In 2003 Morocco suffered its own terrorist attack. In May an al-Qaeda splinter cell bombed
tourist sites and a Jewish community center in Casablanca, killing over thirty people. From that point on,
the palace drastically increased its efforts to regulate religious activities and promote a more quiescent
and tolerant form of Islam. In a dahir from December 2003, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs was
restructured with specific divisions devoted to regulating mosques, Islamic affairs, and religious
education (Arroub, 2016). The same dahir made the Ministry of Islamic affairs responsible for
“increasing the understanding of authentic concepts of the Islamic faith and ensuring “the dissemination
of [Islam’s] tolerant and true values”, as well as preserving Islamic values, supervising mosques and
developing the state’s policy on religious education (quoted in Wainscott, 2017: 142-143). The palace
also increased the number of regional councils of the ulama from approximately nineteen prior to the
2003 attacks to thirty in 2004. In 2004, the Supreme Council of the Ulama was granted the exclusive
right to issue fatwas in Morocco (El-Katiri, 2013). In 2004 and 2005 the palace launched the Mohammed
VI radio and tv stations which focused on producing religious content that embraced moderation and
70

tolerance. In 2006, the palace established the Mohammadian League of Religious Scholars as a think
tank to organize and provide guidance for religious scholars through its publications and conferences.
The palace also expanded the budget and workforce for the Ministry of Islamic Affairs after the attacks.
From 2003 to 2014 the ministry’s budget increase from approximately 12.3 million USD to 230 million
USD, and the number of employees working for the ministry jumped from 451 to 4,081 during that same
period (Wainscott, 2017).
In a speech on the palace’s religious initiatives following the 2003 attacks, Mohammed VI
argued that the palace’s interventions were his responsibility as Commander of the Faithful. He argued
that protecting Morocco’s spiritual security and religious unity required the government to promote a
singular school of thought. The king argued that the government was responsible for protecting
Moroccan Islam from invaders, outsiders, and extremists who sought to exploit Islam and corrupt its
message (Mohammed VI, 2006). Moroccan Islam, in the king’s view, was inherently tolerant and
moderate, and in order to preserve the nation’s identity it was necessary for the Ministry of Islamic
Affairs and the Supreme Council of the ulama to play an active role in protecting the religious sphere
from those who would use Islam to promote extremism.
However, it should be noted that regulating religious practice was only one part of the
monarchy’s response to the terrorist attacks. The palace also arrested numerous Wahhabi and Salafi
preachers following it (Maghraoui, 2009) in addition to launching major programs to reduce urban
poverty, such as the Cities Without Slums initiative and the National Initiative for Human Development
(Bogaert, 2018). The monarchy also promoted Sufism as an apolitical alternative to Islamism. In 2002,
Mohammed VI appointed Ahmed Tawfik to be the Minster of Islamic Affairs. Tawfik was a notable
choice because he was an academic, instead of an ‘alim like all the previous ministers, and a prominent
member of the Budshishiyya Sufi order (Bouasaria, 2012). Following the attacks the palace sponsored
numerous conferences and festivals dedicated to Sufism, such as the annual Fez Festival of Sufi Culture
71

and the Marrakesh World Festival of Sufi Music and Meetings (Lauizere, 2012). In a message to one of
these meetings in 2008 Mohammed VI stated that he wanted to assist Sufi groups “in all efforts that can
strengthen spiritual values, divine virtues, and moral supervision of society” (quoted in Bouasaria, 2012:
47).
In conjunction with these efforts, the palace sought to reform the personal status law
(Mudawana) in accordance with its more liberal interpretation of Moroccan Islam. The proposed
reforms began as a set of initiatives advocated by feminist civil society groups during the reign of Hassan
II. They were then pushed forward by members of the USFP in the Alternance government, but after
trying to turn them into law the proposed reforms faced a widespread backlash from Islamist parties,
members of Justice and Charity, and members of the ulama (Howe, 2005). Any plans to reform the
Mudawana were shelved during the last years of Hassan II’s reign and the beginning of Mohammed VI’s,
until the 2003 attacks prompted the monarchy to present them again as a means of reforming the laws
which were no longer compatible with Moroccan Islam. The 2004 reforms restricted polygamy, gave
women more freedom to initiate divorce, and raised the legal marriage age (Bourdat and Kouzzi, 2008).
While expanding the legal rights of women, the reforms also became the benchmark for acceptable
religious thought in Morocco (Engelcke, 2017). For example, the Ministry of Education reviewed Islamic
studies textbooks to ensure that they respected human rights, tolerance, and gender equality as
interpreted by the regime. If these textbooks defended interpretations which appeared to contradict
these values, the offensive material was removed (Feuer, 2017). The reforms were also used to justify
the creation of government agencies which trained and employed women as religious authorities and
guides (Wainscott, 2017).
In the aftermath of the 2003 attacks the PJD faced renewed pressure to demonstrate its
moderation. Since entering the political fray in 1997, the PJD had become one of the most popular
political parties in Morocco. In 1997 it won 9 of 319 seats in parliamentary elections, in the 2002
72

elections it won 42 of 325 seats. The palace remained wary of the PJD despite the fact that it continued
to support the monarchy. For example, prior to the attacks in 2003, Ahmed al-Raysuni - then head of the
MUR and a prominent religious scholar – was forced to the leave the MUR for daring to say that the king
lacked the credentials to be Commander of the Faithful (Zeghal, 2008). After the attacks, the PJD faced
pressure from secular and pro-monarchy political parties to demonstrate its commitment to combatting
religious extremism by supporting an anti-terrorism bill that restricted civil liberties (Hamzawy, 2008). In
2005 it was pressured to into supporting the reforms to the Mudawana, the same changes it had
vigorously protested when they were first introduced by the USFP (Maghraoui, 2015).
Moroccan politics remained relatively stable between 2003 and 2011. The government held
elections in 2007 with the Istiqlal winning the most seats, followed by the PJD. This calm was broken on
February 20, 2011 with the outbreak of protests in fifty-three cities and towns demanding social justice
and political reform. The protesters were inspired by similar protests in other Arab states as part of the
Arab Spring movement. In Morocco, the protesters formed the February 20
th
Movement and they were
largely organized by civil society activists and liberal groups who had previously focused on socio-
economic issues (Bergh and Ahmadou, 2018). The February 20
th
Movement demanded a number of
political and social reforms including: changing the constitution, dismissing the cabinet, dissolving the
parliament, installing an independent judiciary, prosecuting corruption, making Tamazight (the language
of the Amazigh) an official language, and freeing all political prisoners (Benchemsi, 2014). The original
protesters were later joined by Justice and Charity, while the PJD tried to maintain its carefully crafted
neutrality. The king responded to the protests by announcing the drafting of a new, more democratic,
constitution and pardoning a number of prisoners.
The new constitution made some concessions to the protesters. It made Tamazight an official
language and it compelled the king to choose a prime minister from the party that won the most seats in
parliamentary elections. A referendum on the new constitution was held in July 2011 and it won a
73

reported 98.4 percent of the vote. The February 20
th
movement decried the drafting of the new
constitution for excluding any real opposition voices, and they denounced the constitutional vote as a
farce. However, the movement began to fracture soon after the king announced the new constitution,
as different factions fought with each over how to continue their fight for political reform. The
movement splintered soon afterwards and ceased their regular protests.
The palace accelerated the timetable for parliamentary elections as part of its response to the
February 20
th
protests. In 2011, the PJD won a plurality of seats in the parliament and Abdelilah
Benkirane became the Prime Minister. In the 2016 elections the PJD won even more seats, but
Benkirane was unable to form a governing coalition for months after the election. Due to the gridlock
Mohammed VI asked the prime minister to step down and he named Saad-Eddine Othmani, a former
leader of the PJD, to take his place. It is widely believed that parties allied with the monarchy sabotaged
the process by asking for more ministerial positions and refusing to join the PJD unless their demands
were met (Jacobs, 2017). Whatever the ultimate source of the gridlock, Othmani was forced to concede
several powerful ministries to pro-palace parties in order to form a governing coalition (Jacobs, 2017).
Soon after the 2016 elections protests broke out in the northern coastal city of al-Hociema after
Mouchine Fikri, a fish seller, was crushed to death while trying to retrieve one his fish that had been
thrown into a garbage truck by the police. Fikri’s death spurred the creation of the Hirak, a movement
which protested economic underdevelopment, corruption, and unemployment in the Rif region (Bergh
and Ahmadou, 2018). The Rif had been declared a military zone in 1958 because of the rebellion, and
Hassan II had long diverted government resources away from this rural and largely Amazigh region
(Wolf, 2019). The Hirak, under the leadership of Nasser Zefzafi, demanded a change to the Rif’s status,
and they called on the government to reduce corruption, respect the rights of the Riffians, and invest in
the region. Mohammed VI expressed sympathy with the general demands of the protesters, and he
dismissed government ministers in October 2017 and July 2018 for failing in to improve the economic
74

situation in the region, while security forces regularly arrested protest leaders for inciting disorder. The
king eventually amnestied most of the leaders of the Hirak, but Nasser Zefzafi was given a twenty-year
prison sentence for threatening state security (Masaiti, 2018). Like many of the protest movements in
Moroccan history, the Hirak unraveled in response to the concessions from the palace and pressure
from the security services.
Table 3.3: Political Challenges and Responses During the Reign of Mohammed VI
Challenge Monarchy’s Responses
Terrorist Attacks in Casablanca (2003) • Created new divisions in the Ministry of
Islamic Affairs to regulate mosques and
religious education (2003)
• Gave the Supreme Council of Ulama the
exclusive right to issue fatwas (2004)
• Massively increased the budget of the
Ministry of Islamic Affairs (2003-2014)
• Launched of Mohammed VI radio and TV
stations (2004-2005)
• Established the Mohammedian League of
Religious Scholars (2006)

February 20 Movement/Arab Spring Protests
(2011)
• Drafted a new constitution (2011)
• Called for new parliamentary elections
(2011)

Hirak Movement (2016) • Dismissed government ministers (2017,
2018)
• Arrested leaders of the movement (2016-
2018)

Mohammed VI’s reign has been more stable than his father’s, but his responses to political
crises have been similar. First, the palace massively increased the government’s religious bureaucracy in
response to the threat of Salafi Jihadism following the 2003 terrorist attacks. The palace believed that in
an unregulated religious marketplace violent and extremist ideologies could attract new adherents and
cause more violence and destruction. The palace dictated and promoted its own interpretation of Islam
as a means to counter these ideologies, and it used religious authorities, religious institutions, and
75

schools to promote “Moroccan Islam.” Second, the palace used multiple means to battle its ideological
rivals. It did not simply promote moderate Islam, it arrested conservative Salafi preachers and
established anti-poverty programs in order to reduce the number of people susceptible to radicalization.
Third, the palace co-opted and suppressed its internal rivals. It pressured the PJD into moderating its
positions, and pro-monarchy parties diluted its power within the parliament even though it continued to
win a plurality of seats. Fourth, the palace did not appear to increase its regulation of religion or change
its religious messaging in response to protests movements. Despite the fact that Justice and Charity,
perhaps the largest opposition movement in Morocco that still refused to recognize the king, joined the
protests in 2011, the monarchy did not change its approach to religious regulation or education on
religion. Similarly, the palace suppressed the Hirak movement while taking largely symbolic actions to
demonstrate that it responded to the demands of its citizens.
Analysis
The purpose of this chapter was to examine the history of the Moroccan monarchy in order to
understand when it chose to instrumentalize religion and why it instrumentalized religion when it did.
The analysis focused on particular aspects of instrumentalization. It tried to understand when and why
the regime chose to regulate or ally with religious authorities or organizations. It also focused on when
and why the regime regulated religious institutions, and when and why it politicized religious education.
Through these different actions the Moroccan monarchy attempted to use religion to promote or attack
particular political ideologies, actors, and positions. From this analysis we see that the Moroccan
monarchy drastically increased its regulation of religious activities, co-opted religious groups, and
reformed religious education in response to two failed coups and to discredit transnational ideological
movements that threatened the monarchy. Many movements, parties, and organizations challenged the
monarchy, but the government focused on using religion to attack and delegitimize ideological
76

movements with foreign sponsors. For those groups without foreign sponsors, the monarchy elected to
contain them through repression and cooptation.
Despite the fact that many scholars credit the monarchy’s religious legitimacy for its longevity
(Daadaoui, 2011; Hammoudi, 1997; Combs-Schilling, 1989), the instrumentalization of religion is only
one of the tactics it used to remain in power. The palace jailed its opponents, it murdered members of
the opposition or had them disappear, it set up a parliamentary system where no single party could win
a majority, it conducted elections where votes were manipulated, it created political parties loyal to the
monarchy, it invaded and occupied disputed territory, it offered basic subsidies and jobs to its citizens,
and it changed the constitution and the political system to try to appear to be liberal and democratic.
The monarchy managed the threats posed by domestic groups by relying upon these tactics. From the
beginning, Morocco’s kings realized they could not simply eliminate any threat to their rule. Mohammed
V was forced into accepting a parliamentary system because the Istiqlal was instrumental in securing
Morocco’s independence. The Istiqlal and Allal al-Fassi were so popular that they had a chance to define
Morocco’s post-independence future, but the monarchy capitalized on its control of the government
and the party’s own internal divisions to force it into submission. Rather than antagonize the monarchy,
the Istiqlal chose to be a member of the loyal opposition. It accepted the palace’s authority and opted to
respect the rules that the palace established. The USFP followed the same path. Originally, it was a
radical offshoot of the Istiqlal that distinguished itself by refusing to cooperate with the monarchy and
opposing the constitution drafted by Hassan II’s royal committee. After enduring show trials,
assassinations, and arbitrary arrests it agreed to a compromise with the monarchy. The USFP moderated
its positions and agreed to participate in the government after Hassan II enacted several piecemeal
reforms.
The monarchy used similar tactics against Morocco’s most popular Islamist groups. Abdessalam
Yassine was placed in a mental asylum, then placed under house arrest, and then placed under
77

surveillance. When he and his followers created Justice and Charity, they began a series of ongoing
negotiations with the palace to determine the nature and extent of their participation in social and
political life. The palace tried to force them into recognizing the king as Commander of the Faithful and
showing him due deference, but Justice and Charity have repeatedly refused to do so (Bouasria, 2015)
12
.
According to many accounts, Justice and Charity is one of the most popular and powerful groups in
Morocco, but the palace has managed its presence and constrained its activities by setting boundaries:
Justice and Charity remains an active, but illegal, organization. It can participate in public life, but it
avoids active repression by limiting its public presence and refraining from directly challenging the
regime. The palace managed the threat posed by the Movement of Unity and Reform (MUR) in much
the same way. The MUR began as an Islamist organization, but it moderated its positions, changed its
name, and expelled members in order to appease the monarchy. The MUR was eventually allowed to
form a political party in the PJD, but the monarchy continued to closely monitor its public presence
(Graiouid and Belghazi, 2013). Even after the king was forced to choose a Prime Minister from the PJD
by the new constitution, pro-palace parties were able to blunt the PJD’s electoral gains and force the
removal of its Prime Minister by refusing to form a governing coalition. Neither the PJD nor Justice and
Charity threaten the monarchy, because the palace was able to effectively tame both groups.
The monarchy was not forced into increasing its regulation of religion, allying with religious
groups, or changing religious education to discredit or delegitimize the Istiqlal, the USFP, the PJD, or
Justice and Charity, because it was able to use carrots (cooptation) and sticks (repression) to effectively
neutralize these groups as threats to the regime. However, the palace was incapable of negotiating with
or forcing into submission those movements and ideologies with foreign sponsors. It could not negotiate
with leftists and nationalists from the 1970s that funded, trained, and equipped Moroccans in the hope

12
Bousaria (2015) reports that Justice and Charity wanted to establish a political party akin to the PJD, but the
negotiations faltered as they refused to kiss the king’s hand.
78

of causing a general insurrection against the monarchy. The palace could not force Ayatollah Khomeini
and the Islamic Republic of Iran to moderate their rhetoric and cease their revolutionary struggle in the
early 1980s. It could not reach a compromise with the terrorist cells that bombed Casablanca in 2003.
Although the monarchy did have numerous ways of containing these threats, it was unable to manage
them in the same way that it managed domestic opposition groups because negotiation was effectively
impossible. In order to limit the spread of these ideologies the monarchy had to discredit them. Thus,
the monarchy entered into a tacit alliance with Islamist groups and Saudi Salafis during the 1970s. It also
made religion a larger part of public education and made religious curriculum more explicitly ideological.
The monarchy refrained from incorporating the ulama into the government until after the Iranian
revolution, and the legislation which created the Supreme Council of the Ulama explicitly cited the
danger posed by foreign ideologies and schools of thought. After the 2003 bombings the monarchy
massively expanded its control of religious affairs and religious establishments to root out seditious and
extremist ideologies. Religion was an integral part of mitigating all of these threats.
Additionally, the monarchy used religion to bolster its legitimacy. The monarchy did not change
policy or forge alliances to establish the royal family’s religious legitimacy immediately following
independence because their legitimacy was already well-established. Their historical legitimacy was
reinforced and exploited by Morocco’s earliest colonial administrators. When Morocco gained its
independence, Mohammed V’s religious legitimacy was never seriously questioned. However, the
monarchy used religion to support its right to rule after the two failed coups. In particular, Hassan II
initiated changes in religious education that reinforced the notion that Islam was under constant threat.
Of course, the king used his educational reforms to cement the palace’s vision of Moroccan Islam and to
attack the regime’s ideological opponents. Hassan II never explicitly stated in his speeches on the
importance of religious education that he was using Islam as a way to undergird his legitimacy, but his
other actions in the aftermath of the coup – investing in social programs aimed at the urban middle
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class, attempting to forge a deal with opposition parties, the Green March – point to a leader hoping to
reestablish a justification for the rule. Additionally, the curricular changes centered on defending
Moroccan Islam, and he used his position as Commander of the Faithful to lead the efforts in protecting
Morocco’s religious identity.
Possible Counterarguments
The facts of the case study would seem to provide support for the theory but there are a
number of plausible counterarguments one could use to explain the monarchy’s actions without
reference to repression, cooptation, or foreign sponsors. One could argue that the monarchy’s actions
were not directed at countering ideological groups with foreign sponsors. Instead the monarchy
instrumentalized religion in response to the largest threats it faced. According to this argument, leftists,
Islamists, and Salafi Jihadis posed the greatest threats to the regime and the regime used all the means
available to it to counter these threats. If the UNFP, Justice and Charity, the PJD, and the Istiqlal simply
been larger threats, then the monarchy would have instrumentalized Islam to discredit or undermine
them. This argument is flawed, however, because it is very difficult to argue that the Iranian Revolution
or Salafi Jihadis posed significant threats to the regime. The Iranian revolution inspired numerous
protests but otherwise it had no discernible impact on Moroccan politics or society. Similarly, Salafi
Jihadist ideologies have inspired terrorist attacks in Morocco, and in many countries around the world,
but followers of these ideologies remain unpopular and politically weak in Morocco (Wainscott, 2017).
On the other hand, Abdessalam Yassine directly challenged the king’s religious legitimacy and then
founded Justice and Charity – one of the most popular religious movements in Morocco. Justice and
Charity has a fairly large base of support, it has been politically active, and it still refuses to recognize the
religious legitimacy of the monarchy. By almost any measure Justice and Charity represents a larger
threat to the regime, and yet the palace did not increase its regulation of religion or change religious
education in response to Yassine’s letter or the founding of his group. Additionally, the palace failed to
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mention or refer to Yassine or Justice and Charity in the laws or speeches explaining/defending its
religious policies. Thus, it is unlikely that the monarchy instrumentalized religion in response to the
largest threats to its power.
One could also argue that monarchy’s instrumentalization of religion could be explained by
resource constraints. This argument is based on the assumption that the monarchy would have brought
Islamic authorities, institutions, and education under state control when the state had the resources to
do so. This argument has some validity because all of the monarchy’s religious initiatives require
substantive state resources. However, resource constraints alone cannot explain when or why the
monarchy instrumentalized Islam. If resource availability had been the palace’s main consideration, it
would have massively increased its regulation of religion during the years of the phosphate boom from
1972-1976. Although the monarchy did initiate some reforms to religious education during this period, it
made no other concrete attempts to extend its control over religious practice. The palace did extend its
control over the ulama in 1981 – years after the phosphate boom ended and the government started
running massive budget deficits. Additionally, the palace’s post-2003 reforms did not coincide with a
sudden and substantive increase in the government’s revenues. The palace was certainly aware of its
available resources as it sought to instrumentalize religion, but it was one factor among many that
entered into the palace’s decision-making process.
This analysis suggests that the Moroccan monarchy instrumentalized religion as a way to
establish the regime’s legitimacy and to discredit foreign ideologies, as my theory predicts. However,
this theory does not and cannot explain all the ways the Moroccan monarchy attempted to
instrumentalize religion. The government’s instrumentalization of religion does not have a singular
cause. All of the government’s actions have a multitude of causes including but not limited to: budget
concerns, Morocco’s international reputation, the personality of the king, domestic opposition groups,
Morocco’s particular history, the availability of certain technologies, etc. All of these factors affect the
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palace’s decisions, but particular factors affect some decisions more than others. Mohammed VI’s
decision to revise the constitution can be explained almost entirely by the 2011 protests and the success
of protests movements in other countries in the MENA region. To suggest that the monarchy’s
instrumentalization of religion can be explained by its focus on securing the regime’s legitimacy and
discrediting ideological groups does not imply that these were the only factors that explain the
monarchy’s actions. Instead, the theory at the center of this dissertation proposes that that these two
factors can explain a large part of why authoritarian governments – including the Moroccan monarchy –
choose to instrumentalize religion when they do.
Conclusion
This chapter conducted a historical case study to examine when and why the post-
independence Moroccan monarchy instrumentalized religion in response to the numerous threats it has
faced. The analysis also examined how the monarchy defended its religious policies in speeches and
legislative texts. From this analysis we learned that the monarchy instrumentalized religion following the
two failed military coups to help re-establish the regime’s legitimacy. The monarchy also
instrumentalized religion during the 1970s to undermine leftists, during the 1980s to counter the appeal
of Islamists, and then during the early 2000s to discredit Salafi Jihadi groups. The monarchy publicly
defended these actions as necessary to counter foreign ideologies or schools of thought that had
entered Morocco and sought to undermine Moroccan Islam. Although numerous political parties and
ideological movements vigorously challenged the regime, the palace was able to manage these threats
by repressing them and then negotiating with them to determine the nature and extent of their
involvement in public life. Overall, the Moroccan case study provides substantive, but imperfect,
support for the theory.
The next chapter examines the instrumentalization of religion from a different perspective, it
analyzes when and why the Moroccan monarchy instrumentalized religious rhetoric.
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Chapter 4: The Call of the Truth and the Imperatives of Politics

Every year the magazine published by the Moroccan Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Dawa al-Haqq
(in English: Call of the Truth), has a special issue devoted to Throne Day
13
– the day that commemorates
when the current king ascended to the throne. In the 1983 Throne Day issue, Ahmed Tsouki wrote an
article about the monarchy and the challenges facing Morocco entitled “Homeland of the Challenges”
(waṭan al-taḥadī) (Tsouki, 1983). Like most of the articles in these issues, Tsouki’s extolled the many
virtues of the king. In particular, he praised the king for protecting Morocco’s territorial unity and its
Arab and Islamic identity. He claimed that Morocco is engaged in a battle against forces that seek to
undermine the nation’s identity and sovereignty, and the interests of Muslims and Arabs generally. In
explaining this existential conflict, Tskoui wrote:
Unfortunately, we rarely recognize the ideational or ideological aspects of our battle for
liberation and unity. Weapons, no matter how precise, no matter their shape or size, are only
one tool in a battle that takes place across multiple domains, and the role played by the spiritual
and ideational can be more dangerous than the material. How? Because guns, cannons, missiles,
and bombs kill the body, but they do not kill the spirit. While false ideas, concepts, and values
can kill the conscience, distort the personality, and tamper with ancient and authentic values.
In the subsequent paragraph he argued that Morocco was engaged in a spiritual war against deceptive
ideologies, and that God would grant Morocco victory because the nation’s will is derived from the
truth.
Tskouki’s article articulates what many other articles in the magazine attest to: ideas can be
weaponized. King Mohammed V created Dawa al-Haqq in part as a recognition of this fact. In its first
issue, published in Morocco’s first year of independence, Mohammed V wrote that the goal of the
magazine was to challenge misguided ideas about Islam and Morocco, and promote proper and
righteous ideas in their place (Mohammed V, 1957). This chapter uses Dawa al-Haqq to examine how

13
Throne Day was on November 8 during Mohammed V’s reign, March 3 during Hassan II’s reign, and July 30
throughout Mohammed VI’s reign.
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the Moroccan monarchy, and authoritarian governments in general, instrumentalize religion in response
to the threats they face. The previous chapter analyzed how the Moroccan monarchy instrumentalized
religion through regulating religious institutions, creating religious organizations, and changing school
curricula. However, that analysis covered only one aspect of instrumentalization because each of those
actions required significant investments to either create new policies or regulate existing institutions
and authorities. This chapter examines how the monarchy used one institution – the Ministry of Islamic
Affairs – to instrumentalize religion. More specifically, through analyzing the articles published in Dawa
al-Haqq this chapter assesses how the monarchy instrumentalizes religion through its use of religious
rhetoric.
My theory predicts that authoritarian governments are more likely to use religion to discredit
ideological groups that they cannot coerce or coopt – usually because these groups receive foreign
support or have foreign leaders – and less likely to instrumentalize religion when they can coerce or
coopt their ideological opponents. The theory also predicts that authoritarian governments will
instrumentalize religion to re-establish their legitimacy following a failed coup. This chapter will use
qualitative and quantitative analyses to determine whether the articles published in Dawa al-Haqq
match the expectations of my theory. The qualitative analysis will focus on four critical events in
Morocco’s post-independence history: The Sand War of 1963, the 1971 and 1972 coups, the publication
of Abdessalam Yassine’s letter attacking the monarchy’s religious legitimacy in 1974, and the Iranian
Revolution in 1979. These events represent an array of threats to the monarchy, and the qualitative
analysis will examine how the content of the articles published in Dawa al-Haqq changed, if at all, in
response to these events. These sections will then be complemented by a quantitative analysis which
will assess whether the qualitative findings can be generalized, and by an additional section that
examines whether and how often the government used Dawa al-Haqq to attack its domestic opponents.
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The first section of this chapter examines the history of Dawa al-Haqq and explains what kind of
magazine it is. The second section outlines how the articles in the magazine were analyzed and coded
for the analysis. It explains how and why I chose the four critical events I did and what I looked for in
reading the articles published around the time of these events. The following three sections are in-depth
analyses of the articles published around the four events. The section following those examine whether
and how often the Moroccan monarchy used Dawa al-Haqq to attack or discredit its domestic
opponents. The final sections analyze all of the findings and offer an assessment of how they fit with the
theory.
Dawa al-Haqq: High Culture and Political Propaganda
Dawa al-Haqq was established through a royal dahir – a royal decree with the force of law - in
January 1956 (Official Gazette, 1957). The dahir specified that the Ministry of Awqaf (the Ministry of
Islamic Affairs) was to publish a monthly magazine in Arabic under the title Dawa al-Haqq. The first issue
was published in July 1957 and the magazine was still in publication at the time of this writing. The
purpose of Dawa al-Haqq was to shape religious and intellectual discourse within the kingdom. From
the outset, it sought to undo the cultural and national damage inflicted during colonial rule. In its
inaugural issue, King Mohammed V wrote that one of the duties of the monarchy at the dawn of
independence was to “liberate minds” from traditions and misconceptions that were inconsistent with
the teachings of their religion (Mohamed V, 1957). He wrote that Dawa al-Haqq would serve this
mission through its coverage of social and cultural issues.
According to the monarchy’s narrative, the purpose of the magazine was to reconnect
Moroccans with their religion, and it worked to fulfill this mission by serving as a forum for researchers,
intellectuals, writers, and ulama to write about social, cultural, political, historical, literary, and religious
issues. Writers for the magazine boasted of its cultural impact and intellectual seriousness (Dawa al-
Haqq, 1978d). It carried articles by renowned intellectuals like Abul A'la Maududi (Maududi, 1958),
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published works by many young writers, and even published a number of books as a series of articles
(Dawa al-Haqq, 1978d). Since 1957 the magazine has been published approximately seven times per
year. The average issue was approximately 139 pages long and contained about 23 articles. An average
article, according to the available data, is about 1,300 words. Articles could run much longer for book
excerpts, and special issues could reach nearly 400 pages in length.
Dawa al-Haqq was geared toward highly educated Moroccans. Although World Bank statistics
on Morocco’s literacy rate are sparse, during the first year of its publication Morocco’s adult literacy was
likely below 30 percent (its literacy rate in 1982), and it was not until 2004 that Morocco’s literacy rate
surpassed 50 percent (World Bank, 2018). Additionally, the magazine was published in classical/Modern
Standard Arabic – a language that many Moroccans were unfamiliar with or at least not literate in in
1957. During the protectorate era many Moroccans were educated in French primary schools and
universities, and Arabic was not widely taught outside of national schools and religious institutions
14
.
The magazine’s use of Arabic was meant to normalize the language, and it was part of the monarchy’s
efforts to promote Arabic as a part of Morocco’s national heritage. Many articles refer to Arabic’s being
the national language, discuss Arabization campaigns, and detail the history of the language (Bin
Abdallah, 1985; al-Zamarani, 1982; al-Samaraai, 1960; al-Khitab, 1960). Writers for the magazine also
made it clear that their writing was intended for educated Moroccans. For example, in the first issue of
the magazine, one article stated that the magazine existed to bring knowledge to those who thirst for it
and that Dawa al-Haqq could act as one part of a nexus of cooperation between researchers, ulama, and
government officials to spread knowledge about Islam (Buayad, 1957). In an anniversary issue another
writer boasted that the magazine was read by thinkers, intellectuals, researchers, writers, literature

14
It should be noted that when I refer to Arabic, I am speaking of fusha or Modern Standard Arabic. This is the
form of Arabic used for almost all forms of writing, in the media, and for government communications. It is also
the language that most articles within Dawa al-Haqq are referring to when they mention the Arabic language or
Arabization. The spoken language of most Moroccans is Darija – a dialect of Arabic with a very different grammar
and style of speaking than fusha.
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university professors, scholars, scientists, orientalists, and leaders of thought in Morocco and in
Arab/Islamic countries (Dawa al-Haqq, 1978d). Dawa al-Haqq’s prices, recorded for the first 35 years of
its publication, shown in Figure 4.1 demonstrate that, although it catered to the highly educated, it was
made affordable in relation to other Arabic magazines that specialized in long form articles from that
time
15
. The magazine is also the only publication produced by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs whose
archive is made available online on the ministry’s website.
Figure 4.1: Prices for Dawa al-Haqq and Other Moroccan Magazines (1957-1992)

15
I drew the price comparison data from https://archive.alsharekh.org/ which houses an archive of magazines
from the Middle East and North Africa. Unfortunately, this archive does not contain every issue for every magazine
and thus there are gaps in the price data.
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As mentioned previously, Dawa al-Haqq published an incredible variety of articles including but
not limited to: book excerpts, opinion pieces, literary criticism, poems, short stories, book reviews, news
items, historical scholarship, philosophical treatises, and royal speeches. Despite the variety of content,
the political allegiance of the magazine and its writers was consistent across its history. The magazine
has always supported the monarchy, Islam, and Moroccan nationalism. As we will see in later sections,
the specific positions taken by the magazine’s authors have changed over time, but the centrality of the
monarchy and the monarchy’s vision of politics and religion were unquestioned in Dawa al-Haqq’s
thousands of articles. In addition to publishing yearly Throne Day issues, the magazine published semi-
regular special issues on Youth Day
16
(including a royal speech for the occasion), and the (celebration of)
the day of King Mohammed V’s return from exile -referred to as the Revolution of the King and the
People
17
. It also published special one-time issues for national anniversaries, such as the Battle of Wadi
al-Mahkzan in 1578, and for important national events like the death of the king.
The magazine’s long history, combined with the diversity of its articles, make its content a
compelling data source for studying the instrumentalization of religion. There are numerous articles that
politicize religion, but the vast majority do not
18
. Assuming that the monarchy uses Dawa al-Haqq to
circulate its preferred religious/political messages - a reasonable assumption given that it is published by
a ministry controlled by the monarchy
19
- we can examine the variation in Dawa al-Haqq’s
political/religious content to determine when and how the monarchy chose to instrumentalize Islam.

16
Youth day was established during the reign of Mohammed V. It was celebrated on July 9 – the birthday of then
Crown Prince Hassan II. The date changed to August 21 when Mohammed VI became king.
17
The Revolution of the King and the People is celebrated on August 20, the day Mohammed V was exiled by the
French.
18
Literary criticism and poetry make up a large portion of an average issue’s articles.
19
The parliament has at various times has had some say in choosing ministers. However, the monarchy has
declared the Ministry of Islamic Affairs a sovereign ministry which means that no matters who wins control of
parliament the king selects its minister.
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The analysis of Dawa al-Haqq will be based on three different sources: an internet archive of
articles hosted on the Ministry of Islamic Affairs website, a dataset on the contents of the magazine’s
articles published by a think tank connected to the monarchy (The Mohammedian League of Ulama),
and a set of photocopies of the magazine’s issues from the first 33 years of its publication. The three
sources cover different eras of the magazine and they each have information the others lack. The
internet archive has machine-readable articles available for the issues published between 1957 and
2001, as well as three individual issues from 2011 and 2013. The archive appears to have been hand-
copied, and it contains a small number of user errors. Some issues have no articles, identical articles
appear in different issues, some “articles” are comments by data collectors about some mishap during
data collection
20
, and so on. Additionally, the archive has no data about the date of publication, the
price of the issue, or the authors for the vast majority of articles. The metadata, on the other hand, are
uniform, comprehensive, and contain data on all articles published between 1957 and 2010. This
dataset includes the author, page number, and keyword classifications, and publication date for every
article. However, the metadata do not include the texts of the articles themselves. The photocopies
cover the magazines first few decades, but they stop at issue 294, the articles are not machine readable,
and the quality of the photocopies varies wildly. The analysis will combine and cross reference data
across these three sources.
Reading Dawa al-Haqq
The goal of the qualitative and quantitative analysis in this chapter is to determine whether and
how the content of articles in Dawa al-Haqq changed in response to threats to the monarchy. By looking
at the many issues of the magazine with the king on the cover, or the special issues devoted to extolling
the monarchy’s virtues, or the issues in which a portrait of Hassan II graces the first page and a portrait

20
The title of one article is literally “the front page is missing”, because the coders apparently didn’t have access to
the front page of the article.
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of the crown prince the second, one can see that the magazine serves a political purpose. However, the
magazine politicized Islam in varied and sometimes contradictory ways. This analysis seeks to describe
this variation and test whether this variation can be explained by the theory at the center of this
dissertation.
My theory predicts that authoritarian governments are economical when instrumentalizing
religion. Realizing that politicizing religion can lead to diminishing returns, governments are likely to
instrumentalize religion only when they lack other options for dealing with political threats. They are
likely to instrumentalize religion in the aftermath of failed coups because the occurrence of a coup
demonstrates that at least some faction of the government rejects the regime’s legitimacy. After a failed
coup, authoritarian leaders need to reassert their legitimacy and they can use religion as a way to do so.
Authoritarian governments are also likely to use religion against ideological groups that they cannot
coerce or coopt. Most ideological groups located in lands controlled by an authoritarian government can
be made to obey the government’s dictates through a mixture of punishments and rewards. However,
some groups, usually because they receive foreign support, cannot be so easily controlled or coerced.
Transnational ideological groups are more difficult to control because governments cannot stop outside
propaganda from entering their country, and they cannot control all the sources of outside funding and
support for ideological groups. Thus, governments have an incentive to instrumentalize religion to
discredit these groups. Based on this logic, authoritarian regimes are more likely use religion against
transnational ideological threats, and less likely to instrumentalize it against domestic ideological
threats.
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Figure 4.2: Examples of Dawa al-Haqq’s Covers and Pictures

The top two images are covers of the magazine. The upper-left image is a cover of a Throne Issue of the
Magazine with King Hassan II pictured. The Upper-right image is a cover of a non-Throne Day Issue that also
pictures King Hassan II. The bottom two pictures (Hassan II on the left and Crown Prince Mohammad on the right)
were taken from issue 284 of Dawa al – Haqq. They were taken from pages 7 and 9 respectively.

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To test this theory, I look at how Dawa al-Haqq has politicized Islam. For the analysis, I look at whether
and/or how authors within Dawa al-Haqq interpret Islam to support or attack political positions,
ideologies, and actors. To be categorized as politicizing Islam, an article must have a clear political
position and the author must argue that a specific political actor, idea, or position is Islamic or somehow
anathema to Islam. Authors do not have to argue that an idea/actor/position is a violation of Islamic
tradition or the Islamic sharia: they could also politicize Islam by arguing that an idea/actor/position is
harmful to the Islamic community, Islamic countries, or the advancement of Islam. Articles were
categorized as not politicizing religion if they have no political content or if they had no religious
content. Some articles merely summarized or analyzed news events without offering an opinion (Dawa
al-Haqq, 1957; Dawa al-Haqq, 1958), some took a clear religious position about narrow issues such as
what counts as interest in the Islamic Sharia (al-Musawi, 1961), and others attacked vague ideas such as
colonialism without ever discussing politics
21
. None of these articles would be classified as politicizing
Islam.
To give a few brief examples: In the 200
th
issue of Dawa al-Haqq the magazine reprinted the text
of speech given by King Hassan II before one of his Hassani lectures. (Hassan II, 1979d) In the speech
Hassan II excoriated Mauritania for breaking an agreement with Morocco. The king quoted from a story
from the life of the prophet Mohammed to show the seriousness of Mauritania’s transgressions, he
claimed that Mauritania undermined the link between Islamic nations, and that Mauritania’s actions
demonstrated that it gave no weight to prophetic Sunna - a literature on the practices of the Prophet

21
The case of whether any reference to colonialism should be categorized as political was difficult to determine.
Authors in Dawa al-Haqq would often define anything they did not like, or anything they found inauthentic, to be
colonial. Thus, literary influences, childrearing techniques, and religious interpretations, were criticized for being
colonial and anathema to Morocco’s Islamic identity. For ease of comparison with other articles, I classified only
those articles that specified a political actor/ideology as colonial and antagonistic towards Islam, as politicizing
religion. For example, if an article argued that Marxism and/or Zionism were colonial ideas and un-Islamic I would
classify that article as politicizing Islam. If an article argued that Taha Hussein, a famous Egyptian literary figure and
intellectual, promoted colonialism and denigrated Islamic culture by suggesting that western culture influenced
Arabic literature, I would not classify that article as politicizing Islam.
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Mohammed and the early Islamic community. That article was classified as politicizing Islam. The 63
rd

issue of Dawa al-Haqq published an article about a summit in which authors debated the concept of
Socialist Realism and whether novels should try to capture the empirical realities of life or its ineffable
aspects (Buradat, 1963a). This article was classified as not politicizing Islam. In the fourth and fifth issue
of the magazine
22
Abd al-Qader al-Sahrawi wrote a 3,400-word essay about the historical relations
between Saladin and one of the caliphs of Morocco’s earlier dynasties - the Almohads (al-Sahrawi,
1957). The vast majority of the essay focused on the reasons why the Almohad caliph failed to support
Saladin, but in the final few paragraphs the author interprets these relations in light of the struggle
against Israel. Al-Sahrawi argues that Israelis are analogous to the crusaders that Saladin repelled, and
that people in Arab countries should strive to be more united in their resistance to Israeli aggression. Al-
Sahrawi never stated that resistance is a moral duty or that Israel imperiled Islamic community, and
therefore this article was classified as not politicizing Islam.
For the qualitative analysis I examine how authors politicized Islam in the time around four
critical events in Moroccan history to understand whether Islam was instrumentalized in response to
these events, and if it was, how it was instrumentalized. For each event I read approximately 35 articles
that focused on politics and religion in the six months before and eighteen months after the event. I
chose articles with political titles, articles with political keywords in the metadata, and failing that, I read
two to three articles from the front pages of the issues of Dawa al-Haqq. I read looking for sudden
changes and consistent themes within the articles. In my reading I noted when there was sudden shift in
how writers talked about particular issues or ideologies, or if writers in the magazine suddenly began
attacking a new political actor or ideology. I also noted if the magazine initiated a new campaign, or if
they continued to write about the same issues and ideas before and after these pivotal events. The four

22
The magazine sporadically published double issues. These issues were often not much longer than single issues
and they cost the same.
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events are: the 1963 Sand War, the 1971 and 1972 coups, the publication of Abdessalam Yassine’s letter
in 1974, and the beginning of the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
The Sand War was the first major clash between Morocco and Algeria. In 1963 Morocco seized
a portion of Algerian territory and the two countries fought a short war over the occupied land. Algeria
had started giving support to Morocco’s leftist opposition before the war, but after the war started
Algeria stepped up its propaganda efforts. The Sand War serves as rough proxy for Morocco’s cold war
rivalry with Algeria and Marxist/socialist ideologies in general. Algeria and the Marxist groups aligned
with Algeria’s regime represented an ideational threat that the Moroccan regime could not easily
control. Thus, the theory predicts that the monarchy would use Islam to discredit the leftist ideologies
promoted by Algeria and its allies.
The 1971 and 1972 coups are counted as one event because they occurred approximately a year
apart from one another. In each instance the military attempted to kill the king and seize control of the
government. My theory predicts that the coups would undermine the legitimacy of the monarchy, and
thus the monarchy would instrumentalize Islam to reassert its right to rule and to attack those who
plotted against it.
The publication of Abdessalam Yassine’s letter represents relatively a unique threat to the
monarchy’s religious legitimacy. In early 1974 Yassine, a Sufi religious leader and a former schoolteacher
who had penned an article in Dawa al-Haqq prior to his political awakening (Zeghal, 2008), wrote a
letter in which he stated that the king was ruling in an un-Islamic way and that he lacked the legitimacy
to continue ruling the country. Yassine sent the letter to hundreds of professionals around the country.
He was arrested, sent to an insane asylum and later imprisoned for his public opposition to the king.
Yassine eventually started a popular organization based on his religious and political vision. Yassine and
his organization challenged the legitimacy of the regime, but he and his group operated entirely within
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Morocco and received no foreign support. Thus, the theory predicts that the regime would not
instrumentalize Islam to attack or undermine Yassine.
The Iranian Revolution represents a different kind of ideological threat. The revolutionary
government established in February 1979 sought to export the revolution beyond Iran’s borders, and it
used many different means to foment Islamic revolutions in states across the Middle East and North
Africa. The Iranian regime was so actively hostile to its enemies that it named a street after Anwar al-
Sadat’s assassin, and it called into question the religious legitimacy of all its opponents in the region
(Tabaar, 2018). The Iranian Revolution was a foreign ideological threat but, unlike the Sand War, the
ideas promoted by the Iranians lacked a base of support in Morocco. There were few groups that
supported the Ayatollah Khomeini or his political ideas. Given Iran’s revolutionary ambitions and its
support for foreign actors, the theory would predict that the monarchy would use Dawa al-Haqq to
attack Iran and its more revolutionary form of Islam. The next four sections will examine the articles
published before and after these events.
The qualitative analysis of the articles will be complemented by a quantitative analysis of the
magazine’s contents. Dawa al-Haqq is a compelling data source because the number and length of
articles in an average issue offers researchers a wealth of material to study and analyze. However,
reading and analyzing every article in the magazine’s history, or even every article available on the
Moroccan Ministry of Islamic Affairs’ website would be a nearly impossible task. Thus, I elected to hand-
code 165 articles randomly chosen from the magazine’s history, excluding poetry, and use them, as well
as the articles from the qualitative analysis, to build classifiers that would code the articles that I was
unable to read. I used both supervised learning techniques and dictionary methods in the quantitative
analysis. The choice in method was determined by data availability. For all the quantitative sections, I
excluded all articles that were classified as poetry, literary analysis, or short stories. Due to its unique
structure, poetry would not be amenable to most forms of quantitative text analysis, and in my reading
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of 305 articles from Dawa al-Haqq none of the articles that focused on literature or short stories
politicized Islam.
The Sand War
The Sand War began on October 25, 1963 when Algerian troops attempted to reclaim two
border posts that had been occupied by Moroccan forces (Gleijeses, 2002). The war effectively ended
four days later when Algeria’s president, Ahmed Ben Bella, and Morocco’s king, Hassan II, who had
recently ascended to the throne, signed a peace treaty in Bamako, Mali. Although the war was short-
lived, it signaled a transformation in the relationship between Morocco and Algeria. As mentioned in the
previous chapter, the Moroccan monarchy had supported the FLN (National Liberation Front, in French:
Front de libération nationale) during its fight for Algerian independence. Dawa al-Haqq even published
several articles in support of the Algerian cause (Murad, 1960; Abu Zuhir, 1960; Abd al-Majid, 1957).
However, after Algeria won its independence in 1962 the solidarity that had existed between the two
countries dissolved. During the colonial era, the border between Algeria and Morocco had not been fully
demarcated, but both countries believed that they could resolve any potential territorial disputes
amicably after independence. After the FLN won its war against France Hassan II was left unsatisfied
with the demarcation. He laid claim to Algerian territory and sent his troops to occupy the border posts
of Hassi-Bejda and Tindjoub to secure the area for Morocco.
The conflict between the two countries became intertwined with their ideological differences.
King Mohammed V had supported neutrality in the Cold War, but Hassan II was decidedly more
conservative and suspicious of Marxism (Hughes, 2001). The FLN, on the other hand, sought to spread
its revolution far beyond Algeria’s borders. Ahmed Ben Bella stated that “Maghrib [meaning the area
spanning Mauritania to Libya] unity will exist once the countries of the of the Maghrib have made the
same choices in the domestic and external domains” (Byrne, 2016:185). Soon after Algeria won its
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independence in 1962, the FLN began funding revolutionary and socialist groups throughout Africa and
broadcasting its propaganda on the airwaves of neighboring countries, including Morocco.
When the war began both countries highlighted their ideological differences to garner support.
Algeria’s then defense minister Houari Boumédiène said of the war, “the battle is not one of frontiers, it
is a battle between republic and monarchy, a battle between reaction and progress, a battle between
revolution and imperialism” (Byrne, 2016:218). The FLN won the support of the revolutionary
governments of Egypt and Cuba, and the Cuban government even sent troops and a tank unit to Algeria
(Gleijeses, 2002). Meanwhile, Hassan II lobbied the American government for support. He told American
officials that “Algeria was a subversive socialist virus that threatened all of Africa and could only be
stopped by the pro-Western virus of his [Hassan II’s] constitution, his democratic ideals, and his
economic progress’” (Byrne, 2016:218, quotes in the original).
The Sand War represented an ideological threat to the monarchy. By the beginning of the
tensions with Algeria, opposition to the monarchy had crystallized around the leftist UNFP (The
Nationalist Union of Popular Forces, in French: Union Nationale des Forces Populaires). When the war
started, the leader of the UNFP, Mehdi Ben Barka, even fled to Algeria and publicly supported its cause.
Articles Published Before the War
In the months before the October 1963 war, Dawa al-Haqq published numerous articles that
politicized Islam. These articles focused on broad ideational currents – like socialism, secularism, and
colonialism – and national politics. Writers criticized Marxism for being hostile to religion. One argued
that Marxist and Hegelian philosophies allow no room for religion because they focus on the material
aspects of history while ignoring the moral/religious ones (Maududi, 1962). Another article entitled
“Socialism of Islam” used a story about the Prophet Mohammed scolding a man for how he treated his
servant to explain equality and respect for servants within the Islamic tradition (Shubana, 1963). Other
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articles focused on the dangers of colonialism (al-Haras, 1963a), the United States and Russia (al-Haras,
1963b) secularism (al-Barjali, 1963a), and Zionism (al-Bahi, 1963). Some articles examined concepts like
Cold War era political neutrality (al-Gharbi, 1963) and the foreign relations of the Soviet Union (al-
Barjali, 1963b) without making any reference to religion.
The magazine also published articles that focused on national political issues. After a
commission chosen by Hassan II drafted Morocco’s first constitution, Dawa al-Haqq published an article
on its first page exalting the virtues of the constitution and the heroism of Hassan II (Birkash, 1962). The
article went so far as to say that the new constitution was sanctioned by God. Another article examined
the Baha’i Affair of 1962-1963. This affair began when members of the Baha’i faith were arrested for
attempting to convert Muslims, a crime in Morocco. Those Baha’is accused of undermining Islam were
arrested, and three were sentenced to death for their crimes (Lauzière, 2008). Numerous countries,
including the United States, lobbied Hassan II to give amnesty to the Baha’is, and the Moroccan
government eventually agreed to commute the sentences of those who had been arrested. The Salafi
scholar Muhammed Taqi al-Din al-Hillali penned an article in Dawa al-Haqq that examined apostasy in
Islam within the context of this controversy (Hillali, 1963b). Although Hillali refrained from giving his
opinion on the accused Baha’is, he argued that the Quran and the hadith mandated the death penalty
for apostasy and that those who leave Islam are traitors to their faith and their state.
Articles Published After the War
The first three articles in the October 1963 issue of Dawa al-Haqq consisted of a reprint of a
speech on the modern methods of spreading Islam and the dangers of westernization (Maududi, 1963),
the contributions of Islam to civilizational advancement (al-Mubarak, 1963), and the role of Islam in
contributing to the economic development of West Africa (Qadahi, 1963). The first of these articles was
the only one with an explicitly political message. The author argued that post-independence leaders in
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the Muslim world imposed a westernized secularism on their citizens, and because of this imposition,
their citizens revolted. Taking advantage of this tension, military leaders seized power unjustly, and,
once in power, these leaders failed to deal with urgent social problems. The articles in the November
1963 issue focused on social and religious subjects such as birth control (Hillali, 1963a), religious life
during the Marinid Dynasty (Harakat, 1963) and the necessity of religion in forming social morality (al-
Buti, 1963).
Articles from the following months politicized Islam, but they focused on familiar themes like
the virtues of the monarchy (Hillali, 1964). One article that directly engaged with the ideologies of the
Cold War argued that the concept of Positive Neutrality – a term popularized by Gamal Abdel Nasser
which referred to neutrality between Cold War powers - adhered to Islam’s rules on engaging in conflict
(al-Faruq, 1964). Outside of politics and religious studies, articles in the magazine focused mostly on the
importance of integrating Islam into public life (al-Haras, 1964a; al-Haras, 1964; al-Haras, 1964c; al-
Faruq, 1964) - a theme that the magazine has emphasized since its first issues. Although some articles
focused on the many forces arrayed against Islam, and others analyzed political issues and ideologies,
none of the articles focused their criticism on socialism, Marxism, or Algeria specifically. Instead, articles
in the magazine published during and after the Sand War either engaged with political issues without
making any reference to religion or focused on ideologies and actors that had little to no connection to
the war.
Quantitative Analysis of Articles Before and After the War
This section analyzes when and how often articles in Dawa al-Haqq attacked the ideas the
monarchy associated with Algeria and its revolutionary allies: namely, Marxism, socialism, and
communism. The propaganda produced by the monarchy used these labels interchangeably. Writers in
Dawa al-Haqq argued, in nearly all the articles they wrote about Marxism and socialism, that these
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ideologies were foreign and actively hostile towards Islam. As the previous sections stated, Algeria
actively promoted socialist and revolutionary ideas in the hopes that the monarchy would be
overthrown. The monarchy was attuned to the danger posed by leftist and communist groups early in its
post-independence rule: it banned the Moroccan communist party in 1960 (Heckman, 2020); and Dawa
al-Haqq published on the incompatibility of Communism and Marxism with Islam from its first issues
(Maududi, 1958).
To code whether articles in Dawa al-Haqq politicized Islam to discredit Marxism and socialism, I
trained a naive bayes classifier. The classifier uses a hand-coded sample of articles to code articles
outside of the sample. Given that there were 36 articles in the hand-coded sample in which authors
argued that Islam and Marxism/socialism/communism were antagonistic, I was able to build a classifier
to classify articles as to whether or not they used Islam to discredit Marxism. The model had an average
precision of .90, an average recall of .88, and an average accuracy of .88. The classifier found that Dawa
al-Haqq published approximately 530 articles denouncing Marxism, socialism, and communism as anti-
Islamic between 1957 and 2001. As the graph in Figure 4.3 demonstrates, Marxism was a popular target
of criticism throughout Dawa al-Haqq’s history, but the number of articles focusing on the threat posed
by Marxism and socialism dropped in the mid-1980s and early 1990s as the rivalry with Algeria and its
allies died down with the end of active warfare in the Western Sahara and as politically assertive Islamist
groups became more prominent.
Additionally, the classifier confirmed that that were fewer articles discrediting Marxism and
socialism in 1963 and 1964; however, there was a marked increase in articles using Islam to discredit
Marxism after Algeria began its propaganda campaign in 1962. Between 1957 and 1962 the average
issue had 1.9 articles attacking Marxism per issue, while between 1963 and 1979 the average jumped to
2.6.
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Figure 4.3: Articles from Dawa al-Haqq Discrediting Marxism

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Conclusion
The qualitative analysis found that articles in Dawa al-Haqq did not mention the war, they did
not name Algeria, or discuss the territorial or ideological disputes that Morocco had with Algeria’s
leadership. Additionally, the analysis found that articles did not discuss socialism or Marxism in a
different way, nor did the magazine publish more articles about the dangers of Marxism/socialism
directly after the war. The quantitative analysis confirmed that the magazine did not publish more
articles about the dangers of Algeria’s leftist ideas in the immediate aftermath of the Sand War.
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However, the magazine did publish numerous articles on the dangers posed by Marxism, socialism, and
communism throughout the time covered in the dataset. Additionally, Dawa al-Haqq published
significantly more articles using Islam to attacking Marxism and socialism after Algeria began its
propaganda campaign in 1962. It published fewer articles on the danger of leftist ideas after Morocco’s
rivalry with Algeria waned and leftist ideas lost their popularity in 1980s and 1990s with the rise of
Islamism.
The 1971 and 1972 Coups
In the summers of 1971 and 1972 Hassan II survived two military coups. The first occurred on
July 10, 1971 during the king’s forty-second birthday party at his palace in Skhirat- a coastal city in
northwestern Morocco. A group of soldiers attacked Hassan II’s party and killed scores of attendees, but
the soldiers failed to capture the king and the coup failed. On August 16, 1972 Hassan II’s plane was
attacked by four fighter jets from the Royal Moroccan Air Force as it was returning to Morocco from
France. Again, the king survived the attempt on his life, and he imprisoned or killed those soldiers and
government officials who attempted to seize his power. The two coups demonstrated that one of the
pillars of the monarchy’s authority, the Royal Armed Forces, was not as loyal as the king had imagined.
The coups were a direct and unmistakable challenge Hassan II’s legitimacy as king of Morocco.
Articles Published Before the Coups
Before the coups, the magazine focused on two overarching political topics: 1) The threat of
Zionism and 2) The legitimacy of the monarchy. The articles within Dawa al-Haqq reflected the sense of
unease that followed the overwhelming victory of Israel in the 1967 War. In comparison with the earlier
eras of the magazine – particularly the first years of the magazine and the era surrounding the Sand War
– Palestine and the Palestinian cause became a much more salient issue. A few articles in Dawa al-Haqq
examined the Israel/Palestine conflict without any reference to religion (Hassan II, 1970) but the vast
majority portrayed Zionism/Israel as a threat to Islam and the Arab world. One author, in an article
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about celebrations of the prophet Mohammed’s birth, called Zionism a challenge that all Muslims face.
He stated that Zionism is the most wicked form of colonialism because it seeks to kill, exterminate, and
displace others (Birkash, 1971). Another author detailed the ways in which Israel used psychological
warfare during the 1967 war to weaken Muslims through undermining their morale. He concluded the
article by arguing that Israel is the enemy of Islam and that all Muslims should oppose it and use
psychological warfare against Israelis themselves (Khitab, 1971). Others described Zionism as one of an
array of forces that endangers Islam or Islamic countries (Dawa al-Haqq 1971d; Mihat, 1971; Hillali,
1971).
Articles published in the months before the first coup also emphasized the legitimacy of the
monarchy. Unsurprisingly, these themes are prominent in the March 1971 Throne Day Issue of Dawa al-
Haqq. In that issue writers praised Hassan II for his visionary leadership, his commitment to democracy,
his faith, and his service to the Islamic cause in Morocco (al-Mashrafi, 1971; Birkash, 1971). One article
argued that obedience to Hassan II is mandated by the Islamic tradition (Hillali, 1971). The basis of his
argument is that political leaders were successors to the prophet in that they protect the message of the
Quran and apply sharia. As such, they deserve the obedience of Muslims. Even if these leaders act
unjustly, they are to be obeyed, and disobedience of these leaders is akin to disobeying God.
Articles Published After the Coup
Following the first coup, the magazine continued to publish articles on the threat of Zionism, but
it also began attacking the coup plotters and promoting the Islamic Renaissance (al-ba’th al-i`slāmiyy)
campaign. The Islamic Renaissance was an initiative launched by the Hassan II to “return to Islam” and
make Islam a larger part of life for all Moroccans.
In the July 1971 issue of Dawa al-Haqq, the very first article of the magazine addressed and
denounced the first coup (Dawa al-Haqq, 1971b). The author framed the coup as a reckless and
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traitorous attack on a peaceful and innocent gathering. The attackers were described as criminals,
traitors, insane, manipulated, stupid, driven by their reckless ambitions, and betrayers of God’s trust.
They massacred women, children, and the elderly and incited sedition (fitna). In contrast, the king stood
resolute and displayed divine determination, Arab chivalry, and Islamic bravery. The author claimed the
king stopped the attackers by reciting the first verses of the Quran. Although the king’s authority and
piety helped him survive the attack, it was God’s kindness that saved the king and the nation. Articles in
subsequent issues portrayed the coup plotters as lawless criminals driven by their avarice and the king
as a stalwart defender of the nation. One article contrasted Hassan II’s faithful governance with those
who betrayed God and men through their pursuit of money and status (Dawa al-Haqq, 1971c). The
author argued that only a system based on Islamic ideals would prevent such corruption and that
Hassan II served Islam and protected the people from corruption. In a throne day speech reprinted in
Dawa al-Haqq after the first coup but before the second, Hassan II claimed that the conspirators were
angry with God and that despite the actions of the “rebels” (mutamarridīn) God continued to guide
Morocco down the right path (Hassan II, 1972b). In a different speech, also reprinted in Dawa al-Haqq,
given after the second coup, Hassan II called the two coups terrible tests that Morocco survived through
God’s grace (Hassan II, 1973e). He also criticized the coup plotters for their greed and arrogance in
trying to sever the bond between the crown and the people of Morocco.
The messaging on the coups and the reasons for their failure were consistent across almost all
the articles in Dawa al-Haqq, except for one published in the 1973 Throne Day issue. In an article
entitled “The Moroccan Monarchy Has Always Been at the Center of Civilization” (Anan, 1973) the
author reviewed a book about the coups which argued that the soldiers who had participated in them
were isolated, low-ranking, unpopular, and incapable of governing even if they had succeeded in their
mission. The author of the article argued that the book was mistaken about the cause of the coups.
Although soldiers participated in both, the coups were actually part of a Zionist conspiracy to unseat
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Hassan II and sow division within Morocco. According to this narrative, Hassan II threated Zionist forces
because he organized conference of Muslim leaders in 1969 and he marshalled support for the
Palestinians. It is unsurprising that authors in Dawa al-Haqq would link the coups to Zionism as the
magazine continued to publish numerous articles that declared Zionism either an enemy or the chief
enemy of Islam after the first coup. These articles accused Zionists of importing anti-Islamic ideas like
secularism (Bikhati, 1971), atheism (al-Idrisi, 1972) Freudianism (Bikhati, 1972), and Marxism (al-Jundi,
1973) in their attempts to undermine and destroy Islam.
In addition to the articles about the coup plotters, Dawa al-Haqq began promoting the so-called
“Islamic Renaissance.” Hassan II introduced this concept in a 1972 speech on Youth Day in which he
declared 1972 the year of Islamic Renaissance (Hassan II, 1972a). In the speech he decried how
Moroccans had drifted away from Islam. The Islamic Renaissance was meant to reverse this trend and to
make Moroccan society more Islamic. Dawa al-Haqq devoted its 1973 Throne Day issue to the Islamic
Renaissance campaign. The first article of that issue stated that the Islamic Renaissance was driven by
the inspired and pioneering leadership of Hassan II (Dawa al-Haqq, 1973c). The author described the
renaissance as a chance to renew each individual’s commitment to God as well as the centuries-old
feelings of attachment that link the Moroccan people to the crown. In a speech reprinted in that issue,
Hassan II stated that one of the goals of the Islamic Renaissance was to purify the people’s spirits and
immunize them against immoral or deviant ideologies (Hassan II, 1973a). An article in the subsequent
issue of Dawa al-Haqq argued that the Islamic Renaissance would form the core of a new Islamic
movement and that it would allow Moroccans to resist old divisions, foreign attacks, and materialism
(Dawa al-Haqq, 1973b). The magazine published numerous articles into 1974 about the Islamic
Renaissance that reiterated the importance of adhering to Morocco’s authentic Islamic principles and
the role of the monarchy in protecting and supporting Islam (Dawa al-Haqq, 1974a; al-Nasir, 1974; Dawa
al-Haqq, 1974c).
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The magazine continued to publish articles about the legitimacy of the monarchy outside of the
Islamic Renaissance campaign. Hassan II was written about as a pious king who based his own thoughts
and actions on the Quran and the Sunna (Birkash, 1972; al-Katani, 1972). Authors described Hassan II as
the heir to a royal family that had devoted itself to the protection of Islam and the implementation of
Sharia despite the machinations of hostile forces (Maininu, 1972; Hillali, 1972; Maininu, 1973). Dawa al-
Haqq also published the speech in which Hassan II announced his plans to expand religious education
and Arabic language education in public schools (Hassan II, 1973d).
In sum, prior to first coup the political articles in Dawa al-Haqq focused on the dangers of
Zionism to Islam and Islamic countries, and the legitimacy of Hassan II as king of Morocco. After the first
coup, the magazine continued to publish these kinds of articles; however, there were two distinct
changes. The magazine began publishing articles and reprints of speeches that attacked the coup
plotters for contravening God’s will because of their greed and material ambitions. Hassan II was
portrayed as a righteous and religious leader committed to God and loyal to his country. His survival is
explained by dint of God’s grace as well his own piety and righteousness. The plotters, on the other
hand, are men without morals who might well have been the agents of Zionists – that group that seeks
to undermine Islam by any means necessary and the progenitor of all the ideologies that threaten Islam,
according to the magazine’s writers. In June 1972, in a Youth Day speech, Hassan II announced his
Islamic Renaissance campaign. In his 1971 Youth Day speech – given just two days before the first coup
– he focused on the promise of technology, that year’s census, and the problem of corporal punishment
in schools (Hassan II, 1971a). One year later the king’s speech centered on religious education, the
importance of moral development, the need to make Moroccan society more Islamic (Hassan II, 1972a).
Dawa al-Haqq devoted an entire issue of the magazine to the Islamic Renaissance campaign, and it
published articles on the necessity and merits of the campaign for years after it was first announced.
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Quantitative Analysis of Articles Before and After the Coups
This section analyzes how articles in Dawa al-Haqq politicized Islam in support of the
monarchy’s legitimacy in general, and specifically in the time period around the two coups. To code for
legitimacy, I used a naive bayes classifier as there were approximately 95 articles in the hand-coded
dataset that politicized Islam to support the monarchy’s claim to power. The model had an average
precision of .932, an average recall of .9, and an average accuracy of .872. The religious legitimacy of the
monarchy was the most popular political topic in my reading of Dawa al-Haqq. As can be seen in Figure
4.4, the legitimacy remained a popular topic throughout the magazine’s history. Approximately 1509
articles from the dataset used Islam to defend the monarchy’s legitimacy. The popularity of legitimacy
can be explained in part by the annual Throne Day issues of Dawa al-Haqq. An average Throne Day issue
contained 11.32 article that politicized Islam to defend the monarchy’s legitimacy, while a typical non-
Throne Day issue contained 4 such articles.

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Figure 4.4: Articles from Dawa al-Haqq on the Islamic Legitimacy of the Monarchy

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Figure 4.5: Articles from Dawa al-Haqq on the Islamic Legitimacy of the Monarchy in the Years Before
and After the Attempted Coups

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Looking at the years from 1970-1974, whether or not we include Throne Day issues, we do not
see an increase in the number of articles about the monarchy’s legitimacy after the coups. In fact, there
appears to be a slight drop-off in the number of articles about legitimacy in the aftermath of the coups.
If we look at the number of articles that mentioned the world Islamic Renaissance before and after the
coups in Figure 4.6, we see the that term was used less than one timer per year until 1970 and then it
was mentioned in approximately 3.4 articles per year until 1986, after which point the term is rarely
used.

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Figure 4.6: Article from Dawa al-Haqq on the Islamic Renaissance

Conclusion
Articles within Dawa al-Haqq addressed and denounced the failed military coups aimed at
unseating King Hassan II. The articles gave the coups an explicitly religious framing. In the story told by
Dawa al-Haqq, the coup plotters were avaricious and greedy, Hassan II survived due to his faith and
God’s blessing, and the coups were a test of the sacred bonds between the king and the Moroccan
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people. Additionally, following the coup, Dawa al-Haqq published numerous articles about the
monarchy’s attempt to Islamize Moroccan society through the Islamic Renaissance campaign.
However, after the coups, Dawa al-Haqq did not publish more articles using Islam to support the
Monarchy’s hold on power. There was a notable increase in the number of articles that used the term
Islamic Renaissance after the coups. The magazine continued to use the term regularly for more than a
decade after the coups.
Abdessalam Yassine’s Letter
In June 1974 Abdessalam Yassine, sent a letter entitled Islam or the Deluge to King Hassan II and
approximately 2,000 professionals across the kingdom (Miller, 2013). In the letter Yassine presented
himself as an Islamic mystic chiding a political leader for straying from the Islamic path. He accused the
king of being corrupt and violating the tenets of Islam. He attacked Hassan II for politicizing Islam and
using the ulama. He wrote of the ulama:
Some of them play the role of hypocrites and liars in public life. In their company, the king learns
how to use Islam as a subterfuge to win over the trust of the umma [Islamic Community]. They
produce fatwas saying that Hassan is the reformer of Islam. They are lying and they know they
are lying. (quoted in Zeghal, 2008: 107)
Yassine also criticized the king for ruling through terror, hoarding his wealth, and allying with Islam’s
adversaries (Zionists, Marxists, Westerners, etc.). He called the coup attempts in 1971 and 1972
warnings from God, and his letter was a third (Howe, 2005). Yassine urged Hassan II to repent for his
actions and his deviations lest he incur the wrath of God again.
Yassine, at the time he wrote the letter, was a former Arabic teacher and inspector for the
Department of Education. In 1965 he suffered a spiritual crisis and joined the Budshishiyya Sufi
brotherhood – Morocco’s largest Sufi order. He left the brotherhood in 1971 because he claimed that
the brotherhood had lost its way and had been coopted by the monarchy, while those in the
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brotherhood claimed Yassine left because it had refused to become political (Bouasria, 2015). During his
spiritual journey Yassine drew inspiration from the writings of Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Qutb, both
famous Egyptian thinkers who were prominent among the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Although he
was drawn to Islamist writers, Yassine’s vision and ideology were unique. Unlike most Sufis in Morocco,
he promoted a revolutionary Islamism that was based on the premise that an authentically Muslim
society and polity would resolve all social problems and that any imitation of the West or non-Islamic
systems would inevitably lead to disaster. Unlike most Islamists, both inside and outside of Morocco,
Yassine embraced mysticism and mystical practices such as dream interpretation and dhikr (the
ritualistic repetition of words and phrases) (Munson, 1993; Bouasaria, 2015). When Yassine eventually
created his own group, it resembled a Sufi brotherhood, with the organization centering on himself and
his wisdom as a mystical figure.
All of this is to say that Yassine and his letter represented a unique threat to the monarchy. The
monarchy’s legitimacy had been challenged before, but at no other time had its religious legitimacy
been attacked so directly and so publicly as when Yassine published his letter. Additionally, unlike the
threat of revolutionary socialism, or the future threats of revolutionary Islamism and religious terrorism,
Yassine’s ideology and movement was unique to Morocco. No other states or movements embraced
Yassine’s particular blend of Sufism and Islamism. Thus, we can look at Yassine’s letter as an instance in
which the regime faced a direct and public threat to its religious legitimacy from a movement that
lacked any foreign support. Looking at the articles published in Dawa al-Haqq, we can understand
whether and how the regime instrumentalized religion in response to the letter.
Articles Published Before the Letter
Prior to the letter, Dawa al-Haqq publicized the Islamic Renaissance campaign that Hassan II
initiated after the two coup attempts. The purpose of the Islamic Renaissance was to re-Islamize
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Moroccan society, with Hassan II being the leader of this renaissance. However, beginning in October
1973 Hassan II shifted the meaning of the Islamic Renaissance to include what he called Islamic
Socialism. The king introduced this concept in his 1973 Youth Day speech (Hassan II, 1973b). Hassan II
defined Islamic Socialism as a more authentic socialism that aimed for a more just distribution of goods
across all levels of society. This socialism, the king claimed, was rooted in national traditions and served
to strengthen national solidarity. More concretely, Islamic Socialism entailed: industrialization, shared
ownership of factories, investing in smaller farmers, and state employment of college graduates. Hassan
II made it clear that his socialism would not be revolutionary. All change would come through daily work
and struggle rather than a sudden revolution. He stressed that his reforms would not impoverish the
rich but instead it would enrich the poor and allow them to lead more comfortable lives. In his speech,
he emphasized that his form of socialism was not “imported” and that therefore it was more authentic
and suited to the needs of Moroccans. Articles within Dawa al-Haqq used the Islamic Socialism
campaign as an example of Hassan II’s commitment to Islam. According to some authors, Islamic
Socialism represented an attempt to apply Islamic principles to economic problems (Dawa al-Haqq,
1974a; Dawa al-Haqq, 1974c).
The magazine portrayed the larger Islamic Renaissance campaign as a response to the
temptations of Western materialism and the dangers of deviating from Islam. Authors lamented the fact
that Moroccan youth were threatened by the dangers of atheism and “mental slavery” imposed by
foreigners (Dawa al-Haqq, 1974c). It was these dangers that prompted the king and his allies to revive
Islam and even review educational materials that might promote dangerous ideas. Other authors linked
the Islamic Renaissance to Hassan II’s commitment to the struggle of the Palestinians and solidarity with
the broader Islamic community in the face of all the other forces that threatened Islam (al-Nasir, 1974;
Dawa al-Haqq, 1974b).
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During this period Dawa al-Haqq attacked Marxists and Zionists as the chief adversaries of
Islam. Although some authors tried to portray Islam as a social system distinct from all other forms of
government and all other ideologies, they focused their criticism on the Marxist hostility towards Islam
(Akadira, 1973). Zionists were depicted as the masterminds behind a global media campaign to
undermine Islam, destroy social morals, and paint Palestinians as terrorists (Zakaria, 1973). One author
went so far as to write that God abandoned the Jewish people because of their supposed treachery, and
that it is the Muslims who are now guided by God and it is they who fight on his behalf (Dawa al-Haqq,
1973a).
Articles Published After the Letter
The articles published in the months after Yassine’s letter were similar to those published
before, with a few important exceptions. The magazine continued to publish articles about the deep
bonds that link the Moroccan people to their king (Dawa al-Haqq, 1975a). Dawa al-Haqq also continued
to publish articles attacking Marxists for importing secularism (al-Risuni, 1974), for seizing the minds of
Muslims (Bikhati, 1975; al-Nasir, 1975a), for distorting Islam, and imposing Western philosophies on
Muslim countries (al-Nasir, 1975b). It also published articles attacking Zionism for promoting anti-Islamic
ideologies, like Marxism, (Bikhati, 1975) or articles attacking Israel for “Judaizing” Jerusalem (Dawa al-
Haqq, 1975b). Apart from these familiar topics, the magazine published articles that argued that
conscription in the military was an Islamic duty (al-Tanji, 1974) and others that contended that human
rights were compatible with Islam (Ibn Khadra, 1974).
Dawa al-Haqq began a new campaign in its March 1975 issue. That issue was devoted to the
jihad of the throne to secure the return of the “violated land of the nation”. By “violated land” the
crown and Dawa al-Haqq were referring to Ceuta, Melilla, and the Western Sahara. Ceuta and Melilla
are towns on Morocco’s northern coast that were, and remain, Spanish territories. During the colonial
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period Spain had controlled parts of northern Morocco and a much larger territory on Morocco’s
southern border (the Western Sahara). When Spain evacuated control of Morocco it retained control of
the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in the north, and the Western Sahara in the south. In the monarchy’s
telling, Morocco had an indisputable claim to those lands and their inhabitants yearned to return to
their homeland. Dawa al-Haqq and the monarchy portrayed Morocco’s territorial claims as the logical
and historical conclusion of Morocco’s quest for sovereignty and independence (Hassan II, 1975b).
Hassan II, as the protector of Morocco’s sovereignty and religious identity, would expel the non-Muslim
colonial occupiers (Bin Abdallah, 1975). Dawa al -Haqq, in addition to the special issue, published
appeals from the League of Moroccan Ulama directed to those living in the Western Sahara (Dawa al-
Haqq, 1975c). The league wrote that there was a sacred connection between the people of the Sahara
and their kingdom. All Moroccans knew the sting of colonialism and they had shared in the struggle
against colonial powers that sought to uproot Islam and Arabism and replace their shared history with
the false history concocted by the Spanish occupiers. The magazine also had writers arguing the Sahara
had been the base from which the Islamic Dawa (the mission to spread Islam) had spread across Africa,
until they were crushed by the French (al-Khitabi, 1975).
Dawa al-Haqq’s focus on the “violated lands” was part of the monarchy’s preparation for the
Green March in November 1975. The Green March was a plan organized by the monarchy to have
350,000 volunteers and 20,000 troops enter the Western Sahara and claim it for Morocco. Hassan II
depicted the march as a peaceful act of protest aimed at forcing the Spanish to either give up their
claims or fire upon unarmed civilians carrying the Quran and placards of their king (Hughes, 2001). The
entirety of Dawa al-Haqq’s November 1975 issue was devoted to defending the Green March. The cover
of the magazine had a dove covering both Morocco and the Western Sahara, and on the map, it had the
words “20 years after independence. Liberation…Building…Unity…”. The articles in the issue defended
the march as a moral action because the people of the Sahara had given an Islamic oath of allegiance
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(bay’a) to the monarchy, and they claimed that the march was entirely peaceful (al-Barjali, 1975). The
magazine also reprinted a speech from then Crown Prince Mohammed in which he referred to the
march as a jihad that was being conducted for the sake of Islam and their Muslim brethren in the
Western Sahara (Mohammad VI, 1975). Authors wrote about the march as an extension of Morocco’s
long fight against the machinations of colonial powers (al-Katani, 1975) and the Palestinian struggle for
justice (Arafat, 1975). The November 1975 issue was the culmination of the monarchy’s campaign to
legitimize its hold on the Western Sahara and to gird itself against any of the countries or groups that
would challenge Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara and its resources.
Figure 4.7: Examples of Covers From Dawa al-Haqq on the Green March

The two issues from March 1975 (left) and December 1975 (right).
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The articles published before and after Yassine sent his letter in 1974 show that that Dawa al-
Haqq did not instrumentalize religion to attack Yassine or his ideas. Despite the fact that Yassine
denounced the king and the ulama for betraying their commitment to Islam, and despite the fact that
Yassine sent his letter to thousands of others, Dawa al-Haqq did not publish a single article naming
Yassine or attacking his ideas in the year and a half after he sent his letter. It did not even attack Yassine
indirectly by criticizing errant religious leaders or religious hypocrites who did not understand the
sanctity of the monarchy. Instead, the magazine continued to attack its favored targets and print well-
worn defenses of the monarchy. The only major difference between the political messages of the
magazine before and after June 1974 was that in March 1975, and four issues after Yassine sent his
letter, the magazine’s writers shifted their attention to defending the religious and historical legitimacy
of Morocco’s irredentist claims and the Green March. Dawa al-Haqq ignored Yassine, and it did not
devote any noticeable attention to discrediting him or responding to his attacks on the monarchy.
Quantitative Analysis
This analysis looks for any mention of Yassine or his activities at any time between 1957 and
2001. I searched for the names of Yassine ( ن ي سا ي ملا سلا د ب ع ), his daughter ( ن ي سا ي ة ي دا ن ), his famous letter
( ن اف وط لا و أ ملا سلأا ) and his group ( ن اسح لإاو ل دعل ا ة ع ام ج ). I could not find a single article in which any of these
were mentioned or used. I elected to search for any mention of just Yassine’s last name ( ن ي سا ي ) and,
although there were many people with that last name there was no clear instance in which Abdessalam
Yassine was referenced or criticized. Simply put, there is no evidence that Dawa al-Haqq published a
single article that instrumentalized religion to denounce Yassine, his ideas, or his large (and still quite
popular) Islamist social movement.
The Iranian Revolution
In February 1979 the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after nearly a decade and a half in
exile. Khomeini had been one of the leaders of the opposition to the Iranian monarchy and the Shah
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Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Shah had fled in January of that year and when Khomeini returned he
took control of the revolution that had ousted the Shah and installed a government based on his
philosophy of vilayet al-faqih (in English: Rule of the Jurist). Khomeini became the Grand Ayatollah of
Iran and he headed a government devoted to his revolutionary ideals. As mentioned in the previous
chapter Khomeini saw the revolution in Iran as a precursor to Islamic revolutions throughout the Middle
East and the entire world. The Iranian government sponsored opposition groups in neighboring
countries, it broadcast revolutionary propaganda in the Gulf region, and it sponsored conferences for
ulama sympathetic to the revolution (Ramazani, 1986).
After the Shah fled Iran, one of the first stops in his exile was Marrakesh, Morocco. Hassan II and
the Shah were friendly because they had similar external alliances and Hassan II had very little sympathy
for the Iranian Revolution. The Shah’s presence in Morocco sparked several protests sympathetic to the
Iranian Revolution, and Khomeini used the Shah’s presence to mock Hassan II’s title as commander of
the faithful (Eickelman, 1987). The Iranian Revolution, at least in its beginning, served as an inspiration
for Islamists and ulama throughout the Middle East who desired a more Islamic government and a
definitive break with the governments subservient to the Cold War superpowers.
Articles Before the Revolution
In the months prior to the Islamic Revolution Dawa al-Haqq politicized Islam to discredit
Marxism, attack Zionism, and denounce the West and western culture. As in the other eras analyzed in
this chapter, Dawa al-Haqq continued to publish articles that portrayed Marxism as an ideology that was
incompatible with or actively hostile to Islam or Islamic societies. Authors wrote that Marxism, as a
philosophy of science, was not among the kinds of sciences that the prophet called on believers to
embrace (Dawa al-Haqq, 1978c). They wrote that Marxists distorted Islamic beliefs and promoted
doubts and divisions (al-Nasir, 1978). One author wrote an article about how Marxists maligned Salafists
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because of their ideological rigidity and their inability to understand how Muslims can connect with their
past (al-Nasir, 1979). Another wrote that Marxists exploited freedom of thought to offend Muslims and
promote dictatorship under the guise of rationalism (Dawa al-Haqq, 1978b). Some of the magazine’s
writers broadened their focus and wrote about the dangers posed by the West generally. They wrote
about the West as a neo-colonial power that promotes ethnic sectarianism and subjugates the Muslim
world (Dawa al-Haqq, 1978a) or that the West promotes destructive materialism and exploitative
economic systems-- whether in the form of communism in the Soviet Union or capitalism in Western
Europe (al-Idrisi, 1978b). Although there were fewer articles about Zionism in this period compared with
the previous one, Dawa al-Haqq did publish an article that claimed there was a Zionist/Jewish
conspiracy to promote gender equality in order to destroy Muslim families and societies (al-Jundi, 1978).
Dawa al-Haqq also continued to publish articles that attested to the monarchy’s Islamic
legitimacy. In an article about the history of the magazine, one author wrote that Dawa al-Haqq was
founded by Mohammed V to liberate Moroccan minds and call them to Islam, hence its name (Dawa al-
Haqq, 1978d). According to the article, Hassan II wrote in the magazine’s early issues about how the
relationship between the Moroccan government and its citizens is rooted in an Islamic framework, and
he had continued the magazine’s mission to liberate minds and reconcile religious authenticity with
modernity. Other articles focused on how the Alawi monarchy had always protected Morocco’s
territorial and cultural sovereignty and that as commanders of the faithful Morocco’s kings embodied
the political, religious, and geographical unity of Morocco (Dawa al-Haqq, 1979c).
The magazine had published articles about the legitimacy of the monarchy from its first issues,
but during this period it began to publish articles about Morocco’s war in the Western Sahara. Morocco
annexed the Western Sahara in 1975, but many of the indigenous Sahrawis rejected this annexation.
The opposition coalesced around the Polisario Front (abbreviation of Popular Front for the Liberation of
Saguia el-Hamra and Río de Oro). The Polisario believed that the Western Sahara should be independent
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of Morocco, declared the Western Sahara to be an independent republic in 1976, and waged an intense
insurgency campaign against the Moroccan occupation for sixteen years. The Moroccan government
spent upwards of a billion dollars a year fighting this war, and it continues to go to incredible lengths to
pressure foreign governments to rescind any recognition of Sahrawi independence (Huddelston, 2019).
Dawa al-Haqq contributed to the government’s campaign to legitimize its war against the
Polisario. It published a royal speech in which Hassan II discussed a treaty he had recently reached with
Mauritania to work with Morocco to contain the Polisario (Hassan II, 1978). The king also criticized Egypt
for not supporting Morocco in its fight with the Polisario and Algeria for interfering in Moroccan
affairs
23
. In the same issue the magazine published a short article that interpreted Moroccan history as
one long struggle against colonial powers for independence (al-Idrisi, 1978a). The reclamation of the
Western Sahara was the latest victory in this struggle. The author argued that this struggle would
continue with the blessing of God.
Articles Written After the Revolution
The articles published in the year and a half after the Islamic revolution centered on many of the
same subjects as in the months before. The magazine continued to use Islam to heap praise on the
monarchy(Dawa al-Haqq, 1979a; Dawa al-Haqq, 1979d, Hassan II, 1979b; Dawa al-Haqq, 1980a), to
legitimize Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara(Ramzi, 1979; Hassan II, 1979e; Hassan II, 1979c;
al-Idrisi, 1979; Hassan II, 1979d) and to attack Marxists and Zionists for being anti-Islamic (Dawa al-Haqq,
1979b; al-Zakari, 1979; al-Jundi, 1980; Hassan II, 1979f; Busta, 1979).
Dawa al-Haqq did not directly acknowledge the Iranian Revolution until its June 1979 double
issue. That issue published a speech by the General Secretary of the League of Moroccan Ulama in which

23
When speaking about Algerian interreference, Hassan II states that Morocco will do what it must to protect
itself, although he makes sure to say that he is in no way threatening any other country.
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he depicted the West as Islam’s competitor and the Islamic Revolution as an Islamic reaction to the
imitation of the West (Zeghal, 2008)
24
. The next article to mention the revolution was a fatwa
denouncing Ayatollah Khomeini in Dawa al-Haqq’s July 1980 issue. Although Dawa al-Haqq is an Islamic
magazine it rarely published fatwas - of the approximately 9,800 articles included in the metadata only
15 were either classified as fatwas or included the term fatwa in the title. This Khomeini fatwa was
issued by a group of Moroccan ulama from around the kingdom, and it was written in response to
comments Khomeini had made in Arabic newspapers and in his book Islamic Governance (Dawa al-Haqq,
1980d). The fatwa specifically denounced his religious doctrines and ideas. The ulama accused Khomeini
of being an infidel (kāfr bi-allah) because he believed that only the Mahdi – a messianic figure in Twelver
Shi’ism – could establish justice on Earth. They argued that this doctrine makes the Mahdi a partner to
God and places him above Mohammed and all the other prophets. They claimed that Khomeini
contradicted all the schools of Islamic thought and went beyond the beliefs of ordinary Shia. They
accused him of polytheism (shirk) and ruled that it was incumbent upon all Muslims to denounce
Khomeini and protect the Islamic community from Khomeini’s destructive ideas.
In the months after the revolution Dawa al-Haqq began focusing more on the dangers from
within the Islamic community. As this section and the previous three made clear, the magazine
published a plethora of articles about the dangers to Islam, the enemies of Islam, and the numerous
conspiracies against Islam, but these articles almost always focused on the threats posed by non-
Muslims. Colonial powers, neo-colonial powers, Marxists, atheists, hippies, secularists, existentialists,
and Zionists were all accused of undermining Islam. However, articles in Dawa al-Haqq began to focus
more of its attention on Muslims who threatened Islam. In a royal letter to the League of Moroccan

24
Curiously, this article was not available in the web archive of Dawa al-Haqq’s articles. The issue is part of the
archive, but this specific article was not part of that collection. However, the metadata has an entry for the article
and, more importantly, the article is present in the photocopied version of the July 1979 issue of Dawa al-Haqq.
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Ulama, Hassan II named two dangers to Moroccan Islam: the invasion of foreign ideas and divisions
within the Islamic community (Hassan II, 1979c). The king accused some Muslims of spreading ideas of
purity while promoting deviations of the faith. Hassan II reiterated that as the Commander of the
Faithful he protected the faith and that Moroccan Islam was both rational and based on the Maliki
school of jurisprudence. Adhering to Morocco’s traditions, the king claimed, he would secure the unity
of faith in Morocco against those who would harm the country and its people. Another article about the
evil campaign against Islam listed false dawas and deviant currents within Islam among the dangers to
the faith and the unity of Islamic countries
25
(al-Zakari, 1979). The author claimed that some Muslims
had become the instruments of the enemies of Islam. Another author writing on the plot against Islam
cautioned his readers that they needed to avoid doctrinal disputes and the deviant doctrines spread by
the enemies of the faith (Dawa al-Haqq, 1980b).
At this time Dawa al-Haqq also published articles on the trials and tribulations of Morocco’s
enemies and allies. In the December 1979 issue the magazine published an article expressing solidarity
with the Saudis after hundreds of militants captured the Grand Mosque in Mecca and took hostages in
an attempt to overthrow the Saudi royal family in November of that year. In this article the king, the
parliament, and the League of Moroccan Ulama condemned the attack and expressed their support for
the Saudi kingdom (Dawa al-Haqq, 1979f). The ulama called the attackers atheists and heretics for their
actions. Another article attacked Muammar Gaddafi for telling Muslims not to make the Hajj (Dawa al-
Haqq, 1980c) because, Gaddafi claimed, Mecca was being occupied by the Americans. In the article the
League of Moroccan Ulama, the Muslim World League, and the Supreme Council of Mosques (an
association linked to the Muslim World League) all denounced Gaddafi for his anti-Islamic activity. They

25
Others he listed: atheists, pagans, and idolaters.
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claimed that Gaddafi conspired against Islam with his insane claims, and the Moroccan ulama criticized
Gaddafi for supporting non-Muslim powers in the conflicts in Afghanistan and in the Western Sahara.
Looking at the articles published in the months before and after the Iranian Revolution, Dawa
al-Haqq politicized Islam in some consistent ways. Authors attacked Marxism and Zionism for conspiring
against Islam, they supported the religious legitimacy of the monarchy and Hassan II, and they claimed
that the occupation of the Western Sahara was an Islamic mission meant to unify the Moroccan people.
However, there was also a noticeable response to the Iranian Revolution. First, Dawa al-Haqq made the
rare decision to publish a fatwa denouncing the Ayatollah Khomeini and accusing him of polytheism.
Second, the magazine began publishing more articles on the dangers posed by intellectual currents and
movements within the Islamic community. The magazine also began reemphasizing the unity and
strength of Moroccan Islam in the face of all the dangers it confronts, including the machinations of
fellow Muslims.
Quantitative Analysis of Articles Before and After the Revolution
There were very few articles in my hand-coded dataset that focused on religious unity and the
threat posed by deviations from the Islamic creed, so I created a list of terms that were common across
the articles that did address these dangers. The words I used are included in Table 4.1.

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Table 4. 1: List of Words Used to Code for Religious Unity and Deviant Dawas
English Arabic
Destructive currents م اد ه ل ا ر ا يت
Doctrinal unity ةد يق عل ا ةد ح و
Religious unity ن ي دل ا ةد ح و
Doctrinal unity ب هذمل ا ةد ح و
Deviant dawas ةل ا ض ل ا ت ا و عدلا
Deviant dawas ةل ض مل ا ت ا و عدلا
Deviant currents ةف رحنملا ت ا ر ا يتلا
Deviant doctrines ةل ا ض ب هاذم
Deviant beliefs ةف ر حنم دئ ا ق ع
Corrupt creed ةد س ا ف ل ا ةد يق ع
Destructive principles هئدا بم ةماد ه ل ا

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Figure 4.8: Articles from Dawa al-Haqq on Deviant Dawas/Religious Unity

As Figure 4.8 demonstrates, throughout Dawa al-Haqq’s history, there were relatively few
articles written about religious unity and deviants dawas. Out of the 5,515 articles included in the text
dataset, only 108 were coded as mentioning religious unity and the danger to it. There appears to a be
an increase in these articles in the five years following the Iranian Revolution (1979-1983), and there is a
peak associated with a special issue devoted to the establishment of Supreme Council of the Ulama in
October 1984. However, the average number of articles about religious unity (.4 per issue) in the five
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years before the revolution (1973-1978) is not much lower than the average number of articles after the
Iranian Revolution (.54 per issue), and the difference is not statistically significant.
I also looked for any articles that mentioned the Ayatollah Khomeini and I found that Dawa al-
Haqq referenced him by name in two instances outside the fatwa. The first, written in 1983, praised Iraq
for taking back its land, and the author wrote that it was an Islamic crime to help the oppressor
Khomeini (Dawa al-Haqq, 1983). The author also accused Khomeini of attempting to destabilize regimes
and spread sedition throughout the Arab world. The second article quoted a magazine which said that
not everything Khomeini did or said was Islamic (Qashtiliu, 1983).
Conclusion
The content of Dawa al-Haqq’s articles did not change substantively in response to the Iranian
Revolution. The qualitative analysis found that the articles focused on Dawa’s most familiar topics
(Marxism, the West, Zionism) before and after February 1979. The magazine did take the unusual step
of publishing a fatwa denouncing Khomeini in July 1980, and it published a few more articles about the
importance of religious unity and the dangers of deviant versions of Islam – including a special issue on
establishment of the Supreme Council of the Ulama. However, the magazine’s focus on religious unity
did not differ substantively from the years prior to the revolution, or other periods in the magazine’s
history.
Dawa al-Haqq and the Domestic Opposition
The previous four sections examined how the content of Dawa al-Haqq changed in response to
different threats to the monarchy. The theory at the center of this dissertation makes predictions about
these threats, but it also makes broad predictions about the kinds of opposition that an authoritarian
government, like the Moroccan monarchy, will use religion to respond to. It argues that an authoritarian
government is less likely to instrumentalize religion to discredit opposition groups and movements that
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can be controlled through coercion or cooptation. The section on Abdesslam Yassine tested this portion
of the theory, but it is possible that Dawa al-Haqq could have published numerous articles that
denounced or discredited groups that had no foreign support or organization that were easily coerced
or coopted.
To better test this portion of the theory, I examined whether and how often articles in Dawa al-
Haqq referenced and/or denounced domestic opposition groups and leaders. The assumption behind
this analysis is that groups operating in Morocco would be more susceptible to coercion and cooptation
and thus we should expect to find very few articles about the domestic opposition in comparison to
ideological threats that had foreign support – such as Marxism/Communism. I created a list of the
names of opposition groups, including major opposition political parties such as UNFP (National Union of
Popular Forces), the USFP (Socialist Union of Popular Forces), the Istiqlal, and their leaders. I also
included leftist movements, Islamist groups, and Sahrawi groups for a total of 34 names, which can be
viewed in Table 4.2
26
. I then searched for any articles that mentioned any name on the list, and I found
that 63 articles included names of groups or leaders of the domestic opposition.

26
I included alternate spellings of names in cases where I found that Dawa al-Haqq used shortened names or
where I found that Dawa al-Haqq used different standards in their spelling. For example, Dawa al-Haqq would
often drop the hamza ( ء) from alifs ) ا( and therefore I included alternated spellings for those names that had
hamzas.
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Table 4.2: List of Moroccan Opposition Groups and Figures

Leftists
National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP) ة ي ب ع ش ل ا ت ا و ق ل ل ي
ن ط و ل ا د ا ح ت لا ا
Mehdi Ben Barka ةك رب ن ب ي د هم
Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) ت ش لا ا د ا ح ت لا ا ي
ك ا ة ي ب عشل ا ت ا و قلل / ك ا
ت ش لا ا د ا ح ت ا
Abderrahmane Youssoufi ي
ف س و ي ل ا ن م ح ر ل ا د ب ع
Abraham Serfaty ف سر م ا ه ا رب أ ي
ت ا / ي
ت ا ف سر م ا ه ا ر ب ا
Moroccan Communist Party ي ت ر غ م ل ا ي
ع و ي ش ل ا ب ز ح ل ا
Party of Liberation and Socialism ة ي ك ا
ت ش لا ا و ر ر ح ت ل ا ب ز ح
Ali Yata (Founder of Communist Party) ا ت ا ي ي
ل ع
March 23 Movement ة ك رح 23 س ر ا م
Mohammed Bensaid Ait Idder ر د ي إ تي أ د ي عس ن ب د محم
Party of Progress and Socialism ة ي ك ا
ت ش لا ا و م د ق ت ل ا ب ز ح
National Union of Moroccan Students ط و ل ا د ا حت ا ي
ن ب رغمل ا ةب ل طل
Omar Benjelloun ن و ل جن ب رمع
Abderrahim Bouabid (UNFP/USFP) د ي ب ع و ب م ي ح ر ل ا د ب ع
Mohammed Basri (UNFP) ي صر ب ل ا د محم
Abdellatif Zeroual ل ا و ر ز ف ي طل ل ا د ب ع
Saida Menebhi ي
ه ب ن م ل ا ة د ي ع س
Fiqh Basri (UNFP) ي صر ب ل ا ه ي قف ل ا
Nationalists
Istiqlal Party ل لا ق ت س لا ا ب ز ح / ل لا ق ت س لإ ا ب ز ح
Human Rights
Sion Assidon ن ود ي س ا ن و ي س / ن ود ي سأ ن و ي س Fatna El Bouih ه ي و ب ل ا ة ن ط ا ف Islamist
Shabiba Islamiya ةي م لاس لإ ا ة ب ي ب شل ا / ةي م لاس لا ا ة ب ي ب شل ا Abdelkrim Motii عي طمل ا م ي ر ك ل ا د ب ع Sahrawi
Aminatou Haidar و ت ا ن ي م أ ر د ي ح ي
ل ع د م ح أ / ر د ي ح ي
ل ع د م ح ا Polisario Front ب ه ذ ل ا ي د ا و و ء ا رم ح ل ا ة ي ق ا س ري ر حت ل ة ي ب ع شل ا ة هبجل ا / و ي ر ا سي ل و ب ل ا El-Ouali Mustapha Sayed د ي س ل ا ف ط ص م ي
ل ا و ل ا Ibrahim Ghali ي
ل ا غ م ي ه ا ر ب إ Mohammed Abel Aziz زي ز عل ا د ب ع د محم Mahfoud Ali Beiba Hammad Dueihi

د ا م ح ا ب ي ب ي
ل ع ظ و ف ح م Mohammed Daddach ش ا د د د محم Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic ةي ط ا رق مي د ل ا ة ي و ا رحص ل ا ة ي ب ر عل ا ةي ر و هم جل ا Ali Salem Tamek ك م ا ت ل ا م ل ا س ي
ل ع Bouchraya Hammoudi Bayoun ن و ي ب ي د و م ح ة ي ا
ر سر و ب Mohamed Lamine Ould Ahmed د م ح أ د ل و ي م لا د م ح م
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The monarchy coopted many of these groups and many of the names on the list are somewhat
common, so I read the articles to assess whether the articles were referencing the opposition, and if an
article did so, whether it denounced them. Of the 63 articles, only 39 referenced an opposition group or
leader, and of those, 28 either praised or were neutral towards the opposition group or leader. For
example, 25 articles mentioned the Istiqlal, but the vast majority of them praised it for working with
King Mohammed V during the fight for independence, or mentioned cooperation between the crown
and the Istiqlal after the Istiqlal resigned itself to cooperating with the palace (Ismail, 1977; al-Risuni,
1983; al-Alami, 1969). Dawa al-Haqq mentioned the USFP (leftist opposition party), Abdallah Ibrahim
(former Prime Minister, and a prominent member of the leftist UNFP opposition party), Abderrahmane
Youssofi (USFP member who later became the prime minister), in a similar light. One article referenced
a USFP newspaper that interviewed a government minister (al-Madghari, 1998). Another mourned the
death of a government official who had worked for Abdallah Ibrahim when he was the prime minister
(Dawa al-Haqq, 1989). The only article that named Abderrahmane Youssofi mentioned his attendance at
a meeting on women’s rights organized by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, after he was named prime
minister (Dawa al-Haqq, 1998).
The only domestic group or leader that was directly criticized within the pages of Dawa al-Haqq
was the Polisario Front. It was mentioned in 11 articles and criticized in every one of them. Hassan II
called it a threat in an interview that was reprinted in the magazine (Hassan II, 1975a), and he also
referenced the Polisario and the “so-called Sahrawis” as the among those who threatened Morocco’s
dominion over the Western Sahara (Hassan II, 1979a). In other articles authors called them saboteurs
(al-Marini, 1987) and mercenaries hired by foreign powers (Bin Yaish, 1994; Kishk, 1976). One article,
referenced in the section on the Iranian Revolution, accused Muammar Gaddafi of supporting the
Polisario and used this support as proof that he sided against Muslims in their conflicts around the world
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(Dawa al-Haqq, 1980c). In another article, the Minister of Islamic Affairs at that time, AbdelKebir
M’daghri, said that the Polisario violated the Islamic Sharia in the Western Sahara (Dawa al-Haqq, 1988).
In sum, Dawa al-Haqq almost never addressed or discredited the domestic opposition in
Morocco. Although the USFP, the Istiqlal, Abdallah Ibrahim, and Abderrahmane Youssofi were all at one
time opponents of the monarchy, the magazine talked about their activities only either before they
challenged the monarchy’s power or after they had all been coopted. The only exception was the
Polisario, but it is not easily classified as a domestic opposition group. The Polisario is an insurgent group
that operates in territory the monarchy controls, and it has launched attacks inside of Morocco as part
of its efforts to drive out the Moroccan occupation (Zunes and Mundy, 2010). The war in the Western
Sahara was internationalized the moment Morocco laid claim to the territory. Mauritania laid claim to
parts of the Western Sahara while Algeria opposed Morocco’s irredentist campaign and gave material
and moral support to the Polisario. Additionally, a vast majority of states did not, and still do not,
recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara. Thus, it would make sense for Dawa al-Haqq
to refrain from recognizing and discrediting any part of Morocco’s domestic opposition, while still
occasionally writing about the transgressions and immorality of the Polisario.
Counter Explanations for Dawa al-Haqq’s Content
My theory could not explain all of the patterns I observed in Dawa al-Haqq’s content. Most
problematic for my theory, there were instances when I predicted that Dawa al-Haqq would change its
content and it did not. In the interest of transparency, this section examines two alternative
explanations for Dawa al-Haqq’s publications. One could argue that Dawa al-Haqq did not respond to
major events or address opposition figures because its writers were focused on major political/religious
campaigns, like the Green March, and important holidays, like Throne Day and Youth Day. I call this the
campaign/holiday argument. According to this argument we cannot expect the magazine to cover much
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else besides these major campaigns and events. The campaign/holiday argument could explain why
Dawa al-Haqq did not mention the Sand War, Yassine, the domestic opposition, and why it hardly
mentioned the Iranian Revolution. It would also explain why Dawa al-Haqq focused on the Green
March rather than Yassine in 1974 and 1975. This argument is plausible. Dawa al-Haqq promoted
numerous campaigns and these campaigns required serious planning and preparation. For example, the
issues on the Green March and the anniversary of the Battle of Wadi al-Makhzan included dozens from
articles from different authors on the same subject. Additionally, Dawa al-Haqq addressed the
attempted coups and bolstered the monarchy’s legitimacy following the coups mostly through its special
issues on Throne Day, Youth Day, and the Islamic Renaissance campaign.
However, the campaign/holiday argument has serious flaws. First, although Dawa al-Haqq
devoted numerous articles to major holidays and carefully planned campaigns, the magazine was
capable of quickly shifting its focus in response to contemporary events. Mohammed V died suddenly in
February 1961 and Dawa al-Haqq published an issue commemorating his rule in that very same month.
The first attempted coup took place in July 1971 and the first article mentioning the coup was published
that same month (Dawa al-Haqq, 1971b). Additionally, the analysis from this chapter showed that the
monarchy was able to plan and launch new campaigns in response to current events. The Islamic Rebirth
Campaign was clearly inspired by the first attempted coups, and there is reason to believe that the
Islamic Socialism campaign was also spurred by the second. Thus, although the writing in Dawa al-Haqq
was clearly influenced by large campaigns and major holidays, the articles in the magazine clearly
responded to major events and the magazine was able to launch new campaigns fairly quickly in
response to cotemporary circumstances.
Additionally, my analysis of Dawa al-Haqq did not depend upon an immediate response to
current events. I read articles in the 18 months following the four major events. If the content of the
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articles shifted in that time period, I noted it in my analysis. Thus, there was plenty of opportunity for
Dawa al-Haqq to discuss the political opposition, the Iranian Revolution, and Yassine. The fact that much
of Dawa al-Haqq’s content focused major events or campaigns does not diminish the fact that were
major opposition groups and movements that the magazine clearly ignored.
One could also argue that the religious legitimacy of the monarchy is so well-established that it
did not need to respond to every threat to its power. I will call this explanation the legitimacy argument.
The legitimacy argument posits that the monarchy has a legitimizing narrative that it has relied upon for
centuries, and Dawa al-Haqq’s main function was to reinforce this legitimizing narrative. Dawa al-Haqq
would not attack the monarchy’s opponents because that task would be beyond its purview. This
legitimacy argument could explain some of the patterns in Dawa al-Haqq’s content. Specifically, it would
explain why the magazine did not attack the domestic opposition or Yassine. It would also explain why
there were no major changes following the Iranian Revolution. According to the legitimacy argument,
Dawa al-Haqq did not change its content in response to political events or actors because it focused on
doing its job, which was defending the monarchy’s authority.
This argument is compelling to the extent that it explains the large numbers of articles about the
monarchy’s legitimacy and thematic continuities in the magazine’s articles. In particular, it would help
explain the consistency of Dawa al-Haqq’s content following the two attempted coups. However, the
legitimacy argument cannot explain changes in Dawa al-Haqq’s legitimizing narratives or Dawa al-
Haqq’s numerous articles attacking the king’s opponents. The legitimacy of the monarchy was never
questioned within the pages of Dawa al-Haqq, but the religious reasoning used to support the monarchy
changed markedly depending on the current events. In the lead-up to the Green March Dawa al-Haqq
published numerous articles praising the monarchy’s efforts to fight the anti-Islamic machinations of
European colonial powers (Bin Abdallah, 1975; Dawa al-Haqq 1975c). At other times, writers in Dawa al-
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Haqq referenced the monarchy’s commitment to the liberation of Jerusalem and the Palestinian
resistance (Arafat, 1975; Anan, 1973). Thus, even if writers in Dawa al-Haqq were focused on
legitimizing the monarchy, the legitimizing narrative could shift to justify whatever writers wanted to
justify at that time. More problematic for the legitimacy argument is the fact that Dawa al-Haqq
published hundreds of articles attacking Marxists – one of the ideologies the monarchy found most
threatening. Like the previous argument, the legitimacy argument can explain some persistent patterns
in Dawa al-Haqq’s content, but it fails to explain important changes in Dawa al-Haqq’s articles.
It is likely that Dawa al-Haqq’s writers devoted a significant portion of their attention to writing
articles about major campaigns, important holidays, and the legitimacy of the monarchy. It is also likely
that these patterns in publication affected the results I observed in my qualitative and quantitative
analysis. However, Dawa al-Haqq can and has changed its content suddenly in response to major
political events. The writers for the magazine were also capable of using their traditional Youth Day and
Throne Day articles to promote new ideas or attack new enemies. Similarly, their focus on legitimizing
the monarchy did not stop them from writing on any number subjects or attacking a variety of political
actors and ideologies. Thus, although the counterarguments are compelling, they fail as better
explanations of the patterns observed in this chapter.
Conclusion
The quantitative and qualitative sections in this chapter have tried to answer two questions.
First, did Dawa al-Haqq recognize and specifically address the challenges faced by the monarchy?
Second, did the content of the articles appear to change, either explicitly or implicitly, in response to
these challenges? All of the cases examined in this analysis presented an ideological threat to the
monarchy. If enough of Morocco’s population believed that a Marxist revolution was both inevitable
and beneficial, then the king’s power would be in great danger. Similarly, if the population was
convinced the king was illegitimate and un-Islamic, as alleged by Abdessalam Yassine and the Ayatollah
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Khomeini and attested to by the coup plotters, then the monarchy’s grip on power would be
significantly weakened. The monarchy has long relied on its historical and religious legitimacy to secure
its power and Dawa al-Haqq is an extension of the monarchy’s will. It was created by royal directive, it is
run by a ministry controlled by the monarchy, and it publishes an annual Throne Day issue devoted to
celebrating the monarchy’s accomplishments and religious legitimacy. Thus, we would expect that the
monarchy would identify and seek to discredit threats to itself through Dawa al-Haqq.
The analysis found some support for the theory. Authors of articles in Dawa al-Haqq regularly
attacked Marxism. Although the magazine did not address the Sand War, the magazine published a little
more than two articles in every issue denouncing Marxism from 1962, the year Algeria began its
propaganda campaign, until the 1980s – whereas it had published little more than one per issue prior
that point. Additionally, the monarchy did not recognize or change the magazine’s content in response
to Abdelsalam Yassine’s letter even though Yassine directly and publicly challenged the religious
legitimacy of the monarchy, and then built a very popular social movement based on his ideas and
personality. Instead, Dawa al-Haqq ignored Yassine and his ideas in favor of other topics. When
examining Dawa al-Haqq’s engagement with all of Morocco’s opposition movements we find that
Yassine’s case is not exceptional. Dawa al-Haqq either ignored domestic opposition groups and their
leadership, or it chose to acknowledge them either before they opposed the monarchy or after they had
been coopted by it. The only exception was the Polisario, which, in addition to waging a
counterinsurgency campaign inside the Western Sahara and Morocco, received extensive support from
Morocco’s archrival Algeria. The magazine also acknowledged the coups and cast the coup plotters as
either un-Islamic or the puppets of anti-Islamic powers.
Although Dawa al-Haqq’s coverage of the Sand War/Marxism, Yassine, and the domestic
opposition lend support to the theory, the coverage of the Iranian Revolution and the coups do not. The
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magazine addressed the Iranian Revolution, and it took the unusual step of issuing a fatwa denouncing
the Ayatollah Khomeini and his ideas. A few years after the Iranian Revolution, Dawa al-Haqq published
an issue partly devoted to the establishment of the Supreme Council of the Ulama and its mission of
securing doctrinal unity in Morocco. However, it is clear that the content of Dawa al-Haqq’s articles did
not substantively change in response to the revolution. The magazine did not launch any new campaigns
and it published only three articles critical of Khomeini in the four years following revolution. The same
pattern took place with the magazine’s articles on the coups. Dawa al-Haqq published numerous articles
acknowledging the coups, attacking the coup’s participants, and defending the religious legitimacy of
the king and his Islamic Renaissance campaign, but these articles were not a reflection of a broader
trend. The magazine did not publish significantly more articles legitimizing the king after the coups, and
the articles on the coup plotters were few in number. To put it simply, it does not appear the monarchy
used Islam to discredit the ideational threat posed by the Iranian Revolution and the coups. At the very
least, it did not instrumentalize religion in the same way, or to the same extent it did in response to
other threats. This lack of instrumentalization presents a challenge to the theory.
Despite the muted response to the Iranian Revolution and the coups, the theory can explain a
large part of why Dawa al-Haqq instrumentalized religion when it did. There is very little evidence that
the magazine discredited or even acknowledged the monarchy’s domestic opponents. It ignored
Abdessalam Yassine despite his public attack on the religious legitimacy of the monarchy and the
popularity of his social movement. The only political ideology that Dawa al-Haqq regularly attacked was
the one propagated by Algeria. The only domestic opposition group that the magazine attacked was the
one that was funded in part by Algeria. Despite the fact that magazine addressed political issues and
used religion to attack political ideologies as well as political leaders, it ignored some ideological threats
and engaged with others. Dawa al-Haqq’s choices as to when to politicize religion can be explained in
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large part by whether these ideological threats could be coopted or coerced by the monarchy, as my
theory predicts.
The next chapter will test the generalizability of this theory by examining whether the kinds of
religious propaganda produced by Egyptian Dar al-Ifta between 2016 and 2020 can be explained by the
theory.

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Chapter 5: Dar al-Ifta and the Instrumentalization of Islam in the War Against Terrorism in Egypt

Abdel Fatah al-Sisi became Egypt’s president on June 8, 2014. Although the public had voted in
several competitive elections since Hosni Mubarak relinquished power in 2011, the 2014 presidential
election was very far from free and fair. After ousting Mohammed Morsi, who had been elected
president the previous year, the military, led by Sisi, began its campaign to crush the Muslim
Brotherhood and secure Sisi’s uncontested dominance of the political system. After outlawing and
persecuting his opponents, Sisi’s victory in 2014 was assured and his rule continues at the time of this
writing.
Sisi’s regime in Egypt offers an interesting comparison to the Alaouite monarchy of post-
independence Morocco. The Alaouite dynasty has ruled Morocco for centuries. The Moroccan king is
the Commander of the Faithful, and he uses this title to regulate and control religious activities. Egypt is
ruled by a military/personalist dictatorship that is less than a decade old, as of 2021. Not only does Sisi
have no claims to religious leadership, but his rule is defined by its opposition to the world’s most
famous Islamist political movement (Wickham, 2015). Despite differences in regime type, historical
legitimacy, and longevity, both regimes were more likely to use religion to discredit ideological threats
that they could not coerce or coopt, and less likely to instrumentalize religion against ideological threats
that they could coerce or coopt.
To study how Sisi’s government instrumentalizes religion, this chapter uses articles and
statements from the website of Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta. Dar al-Ifta is one of the governmental institutions
responsible for giving authoritative religious opinions (fatwas) on all matters related to religious ethics
or religious laws. It also acts in close conjunction with the presidency to disseminate and enforce state-
approved religious messages. As this chapter will demonstrate, Dar al-Ifta used its platform to denounce
and discredit Islamist groups that is has labelled as terrorist or extremist that pose an ideological threat
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to the government. In particular, this chapter will show that despite the threats posed by the Muslim
Brotherhood and the Islamist insurgency in the Sinai, Dar al-Ifta focused its attention on discrediting and
denouncing groups and threats that operate outside of Egypt.
To explain Dar al-Ifta’s instrumentalization of religion, this chapter will first outline how Abdel
Fatah al-Sisi came to power and show the centrality of the war against terrorism and extremism to Sisi’s
political legitimacy. Following those sections, the chapter will explain the history of Dar al-Ifta and its
political role in contemporary Egypt. The chapter will then offer an in-depth analysis of a random
sample of texts collected from the Dar’s website. To examine the entire sample, the chapter has
sections devoted to the quantitative analysis which use supervised learning and dictionary methods to
code and analyze the threats that Dar al-Ifta focuses upon and examine how it responds to terrorist
attacks within Egypt. It also has a section examining when Dar al-Ifta chose to publish articles explicitly
condemning terrorism as un-Islamic. The chapter concludes by examining the results of the qualitative
and quantitative analyses, and their bearing on the theory at the center of this dissertation.
The Arab Spring, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Endurance of Military Rule
Since the Free Officers Revolution in 1952, the political system in Egypt has been deeply
influenced by the power of the military. Between 1952 and 2011 Egypt was ruled by a succession of
leaders – Muhammad Naguib (1952-53), Gamal Abdel Nasser (1953-1970), Anwar al-Sadat (1970-1981),
and Hosni Mubarak (1981-2011) - drawn from the military. Nasser secured the presidency soon after the
Free Officers Revolution. Over time, he committed Egypt to the causes of socialism and Arab
nationalism, and he did not allow himself to be constrained by nominally democratic institutions, such
as the parliament, or oppositional movements within Egypt (Masoud, 2017). He jailed and executed
opponents and refused to hold competitive elections for elected offices. Sadat opted to move away
from Nasser’s political course in favor of alliances with major western powers. He also allowed for
multiparty elections for parliament, but these elections were not truly competitive, and the People’s
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Assembly (parliament) could not meaningfully constrain the presidency. Mubarak allowed for multiparty
elections for the presidency, but the outcomes were never in doubt. In sum, Egypt’s presidents prior to
2011 allowed for some superficial political competition but they, and their parties, could never be
dislodged from power through the electoral process.
The Muslim Brotherhood began in 1928 as a social movement that sought to make to make
Egyptian society more Islamic and combat Western influences (Wickham, 2015). The group became
more active in politics as its popularity grew, and its founder, Hassan al-Banna, ran for parliament in
1942. The Brotherhood quickly became a force to be reckoned with in Egyptian politics. It was initially
supportive of the Free Officers “revolution” in 1952, but Gamal Abdel Nasser viewed this independent
political organization as a threat to his power. He banned the Brotherhood in 1954 and began a
campaign of brutal repression against them (Al-Anani, 2016). Members of the Brotherhood were jailed,
several leaders were hanged, and their headquarters was destroyed. Nevertheless, the Brotherhood
survived Nasser’s attempt to destroy them, and they found ways to operate as an Islamist opposition
movement while avoiding the worst of the government’s repression (Brown, 2012). Although there
were periods of rapprochement between Egypt’s authoritarian leaders and the Brotherhood -
particularly the during the early years of Anwar al-Sadat’s presidency - the group acted as Egypt’s largest
and most enduring opposition group between 1954 and 2011.
At the beginning of 2011, inspired by the revolts in Tunisia and driven by the failures and
corruption of Hosni Mubarak’s government, Egyptians took to the streets demanding the downfall of
the regime (Jumet, 2018). The military, organized under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
(SCAF), turned against Mubarak after realizing the depth of his unpopularity. They forced Mubarak out
on February 11, 2011, and the SCAF then assembled experts to revise the constitution and prepare for
free elections to select a new parliament and a new president (Utvik, 2017).
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The pace and structure of the transition almost immediately sparked rancorous disagreement
among the political parties and movements competing for power in the post-Mubarak period. The
Muslim Brotherhood, due to its long history of political activism, its mobilizational capacity, and its
effectiveness in providing social services, was much more prepared than its opponents to mobilize its
supporters and win elections (Masoud, 2014; Brooke, 2019). More secular political groups feared that
the Muslim Brotherhood would sweep early elections and impose their conservative Islamic principles
on Egypt’s citizens. Those opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood wanted a slower transition so they could
mobilize their own supporters and avoid being dominated by the Brotherhood at the ballot box. The
Brotherhood, on the other hand, argued that elections should be held as soon as they were feasible
because elections were the only legitimate means by which the Egyptian people could determine the
course of the transition.
The elections for the upper and lower houses of the parliament were held from November 2011
to February 2012 (Utvik, 2017). The Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi parties – conservative Islamist
parties committed to the implementation of Sharia - won majorities in both elections. The upper and
lower houses were to then select the constitutional assembly that would draft a new constitution that
would then be voted on in a referendum. However, these efforts were stymied by secularists, who
opposed the domination of the Brotherhood in the constitutional assembly, and by a decision from the
Supreme Constitutional Court on June 14, 2012 that dissolved the lower house of the parliament for
purported irregularities during the 2011 elections. Egypt held the first round of the presidential elections
on 23 and 24 May 2012 and the second on 16 and 17 June. The Muslim Brotherhood candidate,
Mohamed Morsi, ultimately prevailed, and was sworn in on June 30.
Throughout the transition process, the SCAF worked to protect its economic and political
interests. Over the many years of military rule, the Egyptian military had come to control a large portion
of the national economy (Abul-Magd, 2017). After the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, it expanded these
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holdings, placing state-run companies under the control of ex-generals. After a number of military-
owned companies experienced to strikes due to poor working conditions, the SCAF banned all forms of
labor protests. On the political front, following the second round of presidential elections, but before
Morsi took office, the SCAF issued a set of constitutional amendments that “granted … the armed forces
full autonomy over military affairs, reserved many traditionally presidential authorities to SCAF, and
granted SCAF supreme power over the process of drafting a full new constitution” (Abul-Magd, 2017:
208).
Morsi was aware of the SCAF’s deliberate attempt to set the rules of the transition process and
protect the military’s political and economic autonomy. He also realized that although the Muslim
Brotherhood had performed well in the presidential and legislative elections, they were prevented from
passing laws or drafting a new constitution because of the judicial system, the power of the SCAF, and
the strident opposition of more secular political groups. Morsi tried to assert his power in August 2012
by reversing the SCAF’s constitutional amendments and assuming the right to assemble a new
constitutional assembly (Utvik, 2017). On November 22, 2012 he went further by issuing a constitutional
declaration which placed his decisions above constitutional review and prevented the judiciary from
dissolving parliament until a new constitution was ratified (Jumet, 2018). Morsi’s political opponents
called his second constitutional declaration a dictatorial power grab. Two days after its announcement
members of various opposition groups formed the National Salvation Front to pressure Morsi into
rescinding the declaration and beginning a dialogue with his opponents.
Although Morsi walked back some parts of his second constitutional declaration, he continued
to antagonize his critics and opponents. After the lower house of parliament was dissolved, the
Brotherhood-dominated upper house moved rapidly to put in place a constitutional assembly and draft
a new constitution. The Brotherhood’s opponents boycotted the assembly because they thought it
failed to represent their interests, and they opposed the new constitution when it was voted on in a
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referendum in December 2012 (King, 2020). Support for the new constitution secured 64 percent of the
vote, but turnout was significantly lower than in the previous elections. Morsi further antagonized his
opponents by associating himself with radical and violent Islamists. He invited Tareq al-Zomor, a man
convicted of participating in the assassination of Anwar al-Sadat, to a celebration of Egypt’s “victory” in
the 1973 war (Jumet, 2018) and appointed Adel al-Khayyat, a man involved in the 1997 terrorist attack
on the Temple of Hatshepsut near Luxor, to be the governor of the Luxor province (King, 2020). Morsi’s
critics also accused him of being actively hostile to criticism. When protesters began marching against
his November 22 constitutional declaration, Morsi called on the Brotherhood’s supporters to stage
counter-protests. Additionally, the security forces were accused of assaulting and even killing protesters
who opposed Morsi’s rule. According to Abdul-Magd (2017: 220) “On the second anniversary of the
uprisings on January 25, 2013, it was reported that forty protesters were killed” by Morsi’s security
forces.
The new president’s stubbornness, hostility to criticism, welcoming of extremists, and failure to
deliver basic services caused him to lose a significant portion of public support. The military noticed
Morsi’s flagging popularity and seized the opportunity to reassert control of the political system. They
conspired with an anti-Morsi protest movement – Tamarod – in order to galvanize discontent with
Morsi’s presidency (Jumet, 2018). Tamarod’s leadership took funds from an account administered by
the Ministry of Defense, and the military actively lobbied media outlets to inflate the number of people
who participated in Tamarod’s protests (Ketchley, 2017: 106,113). Police and security services allowed
protesters to burn Muslim Brotherhood headquarters, and many security personnel participated in anti-
Brotherhood protests themselves. As the anti-Morsi protests gained momentum, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
came to the forefront of this movement.
At the time, Sisi was Morsi’s Minister of Defense. Prior to that, he had been an infantry officer
and had served as the head of Military intelligence. Sisi became the face of the military’s effort to reign
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in Morsi. Of course, the military presented itself as a non-political guardian of the 2011 revolution and
the Egyptian nation as a whole. Protests against Morsi intensified in late June 2013, and Sisi ultimately
gave Morsi a 48-hour ultimatum to resolve the political crisis - that the military had helped foment - or
risk being removed from office. When Morsi refused to comply, the military ousted and arrested him on
July 3, 2013, a coup that the Sisi government celebrates as the “June 30 Revolution” named after the
day of the largest anti-Morsi protests (Dar al-Ifta, 2018f; Dar al-Ifta, 2020j). At that point, Egypt’s
transition to democracy effectively ceased. The SCAF appointed the Head of the Supreme Constitutional
Court, Adly Mansour, to act as president until new elections could be held. Mansour passed a law that
allowed the security services to cancel, postpone, or modify protests at will (Hamzawy, 2019).
Supporters of Morsi and the Brotherhood were repressed, jailed, and killed for protesting the military
coup. In this atmosphere, Sisi retired from the military and won the presidency, in a tightly controlled
election, in August 2014.
The new president has made Egypt’s government far more repressive and hostile to any form of
dissent than was the case with any of its predecessors. During Sisi’s tenure, tens of thousands have
been jailed or disappeared for their political views, and many of those who have been jailed have been
tortured or killed. Due to the repression by the Sisi government civil society has been decimated. During
his tenure, Sisi has created no new political organizations or parties. Instead, he has cultivated his image
as a pious man and a military leader who will save Egypt from those who seek to destroy it (Springborg,
2015). In particular, he claims to seek to save Egypt from the scourge of extremism and terrorism.
The War Against Terrorism and Extremism in Egypt
To understand how the Sisi government and Dar al-Ifta instrumentalize Islam, we must
understand how they interpret the threat of terrorism and extremism. Like many of the authoritarian
governments that have joined the War on Terror, the Egyptian government defines terrorism and
extremism opportunistically. The military began referring to the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorists
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almost as soon as it began organizing the coup that would strip Morsi of the presidency. After Sisi
delivered his 48-hour ultimatum to Morsi, Morsi gave a speech in which he reiterated the legitimacy of
his rule and denounced the military’s attempt to seize power. According to Jumet (2017:195 -196):
The Military’s response to the speech was to state that it is “more honorable for us to die than
for the Egyptian people to feel threatened or terrorized” and that the military would “sacrifice
our blood for Egypt and its people against every terrorist, extremist or ignorant person.” The
military’s statement was one of the first during the time period to label the Muslim Brotherhood
a terrorist organization.
In a July 23, 2013 speech Sisi asked the Egyptian people to give the military a mandate to fight terrorism
(Pratt and Rezk, 2019). The post-coup government then used this framing to justify its repression of the
Brotherhood – which was formally declared a terrorist organization in December 2013 (Stacher, 2020).
When security forces trapped and killed hundreds of pro-Morsi demonstrators at the al-Rabaa and al-
Nahda squares in Cairo, the government justified the massacres by saying that it was part of the war
against Islamic extremists (Jumet, 2017).
The government’s campaign against the Brotherhood decimated the group in Egypt, but they
survived in exile. Many Brotherhood leaders fled to Turkey and Qatar and continued their political work
from their new homes. With the tacit support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the
Brotherhood set up television stations in Turkey. These stations promote the group’s political vision and
offer a very critical perspective on Sisi’s government. Although television ratings and polling data are
scarce in Egypt, there is some evidence that these channels have an audience in Egypt (Dunne and
Hamzawy, 2019).
In addition to its repression of the Brotherhood, the Egyptian government claims its
counterinsurgency campaign in the Sinai Peninsula is part of its war against terrorism and extremism.
The insurgency began after Israeli forces ended their occupation in 1982, withdrawing in accord with the
1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. From that time onwards, Egyptian security and military forces have
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viewed the Sinai Peninsula as a source of instability and extremism (Ashour, 2016). As such, the
government has taken a militaristic approach extremism in the Sinai, rather than one that would address
the root causes of the problems: the decades of underinvestment by the central government in the
region’s development. After the end of Israeli occupation, groups in northeast Sinai embraced a more
violent version of Islam and supported Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Beginning in the 2000s
these groups began attacking Egyptian targets. In 2004 and 2005 terrorist groups bombed several cities
across the Sinai. In response, the Egyptian military engaged in mass repression. They arrested thousands
to find the suspects, and once they were found the suspects were brutally tortured (Ashour, 2019). This
military response to the bombings was typical of the regime’s approach to the provinces in the
peninsula. It has often employed harsh and indiscriminate repression in order to establish order and
root out possible extremist elements.
The counterinsurgency campaign continued after the ouster of Mubarak. Both the SCAF and
Mohamed Morsi ordered military operations to establish control in the region. However, the insurgency
changed after the 2013 coup. Whereas before the coup most insurgent groups focused their ire and
operations on Israeli targets, after the coup, and the Rabaa massacre, many of these groups began
focusing their fight on Egyptian security and military forces. The insurgents cast themselves as defenders
of Islam and the military as apostates (Ashour, 2016). In November 2014 Ansar al-Bayt al-Maqdis (in
English: Supporters of the Holy House/Jerusalem), one of the Sinai’s most active insurgent groups,
pledged allegiance to ISIS (Schmitt and Kirkpatrick, 2014). Since Sisi seized power, the fight in the Sinai
has intensified, and the army has more often resorted to indiscriminate, violent repression. Due to the
extremist beliefs and associations of the insurgents, the United States and Israel have offered the
Egyptian military support in its counterinsurgency campaign. In contrast, the Sinai insurgent groups have
no state sponsors and no regional allies – not even in the Gaza Strip (Ashour, 2019).
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As we will see in the following sections, Sisi and his supporters in the religious bureaucracy
justify their exercise of power based on their fight to protect Islam and Egypt from the extremist and
terrorist threats.
Dar al-Ifta, Its Subsidiaries, and Its Publications
The Egyptian government uses several institutions to regulate and instrumentalize Islam, the
three most prominent of which are: Al-Azhar University, the Ministry of Awqaf (Pious Endowments), and
Dar al-Ifta (Bano and Benadi, 2018). Al-Azhar is one of the oldest and most prestigious Islamic
universities in the world. Some of the most influential figures in the history of Islamic thought, and many
of the most influential scholars in the Islamic world today, received their education at al-Azhar.
Recognizing the prestige and power of the university, the Egyptian government nationalized it in 1961
(Zeghal, 1999). Since that time, the government has tried to direct and regulate the university’s
teachings while giving its officials enough autonomy to appear unaffected by politics (Bano and Bendi,
2018). The Ministry of Awqaf is a governmental body that controls religious endowments and regulates
mosques and the preaching therein (Cesari, 2014). Dar al-Ifta is tasked with giving Islamic legal opinions
(fatwas) on all manner of subjects, according to the understanding of its Grand Mufti (one who gives
fatwas) (Skovgaard-Petersen, 1997).
Of the three religious institutions, I chose to analyze Dar al-Ifta for two reasons. First, it has no
autonomy from the government, and since this study is concerned with the actions of authoritarian
governments, Dar al-Ifta, more so than al-Azhar, reflects the will the of the government. Second, Dar al-
Ifta is tasked with responding to all kinds of events (disasters, anniversaries, attacks, religious debates,
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etc.) and thus it has produced a wealth of text data that is ripe for analysis. Dar al-Ifta’s English language
website
27
states that (Dar al-Ifta, 2021):
Since it was first established, Dar al-Ifta…has been the premier institute to represent Islam and
the international flagship for Islamic legal research. It fulfills its historic and civil role by keeping
contemporary Muslim[sic] in touch with religious principles, clarifying the right way, removing
doubts concerning religious and worldly life, and revealing religious laws for new issues of
contemporary life… It plays a significant role in giving rulings to the masses and consultation for
the judiciary in Egypt.
Dar al-Ifta issues fatwas in response to questions from believers
28
, but its mission extends beyond this
task. According to the website, it is also responsible for: determining the beginning of Islam’s lunar
months, training foreign students, issuing religious statements, conducting research, answering
misconceptions, and providing online learning materials.
As part of its mission to shape popular Islamic thought in Egypt, Dar al-Ifta has spawned
numerous subsidiaries. There is the General Secretariat of Fatwa Authorities which is headed by the
Grand Mufti at Dar al-Ifta. The General Secretariat is an organization that works to coordinate actions
among fatwa authorities around the world to promote one unified message and fight extremism (Dar al-
Ifta, 2019i). Another subsidiary is the Observatory of Takfiri (takfir referring to Muslims who declare
other Muslims as apostates) Fatwas and Extremist Views, which simultaneously monitors and refutes
extremist and takfiri thinking from Islamic scholars and groups (Dar al-Ifta, 2016e). There is also the
Islamophobia Observatory, which reports on instances of Islamophobia across the globe (Dar al-Ifta,
2017d). Dar al-Ifta also has a specialized unit that produces short, animated videos about topics that
range from the dangers of terrorism to the blessings of youth (Dar al-Ifta, 2019c).

27
Dar al-Ifta’s website is available in Arabic, English, German, Indonesian, Russian, Urdu, Turkish, Swahili, and
Spanish. However, some of the content changes depending on the language. Not all of the fatwas, articles, and
statements on the Arabic website are available on the non-Arabic versions of the site.
28
The website allows users to submit questions via mail, email, fax, or telephone.
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Dar al-Ifta, and its many subsidiaries, produce a wealth of written material – all of which is
available on its website. To examine how Dar al-Ifta instrumentalizes religion, I scraped all of the articles
and statements published on its website between January 20, 2016 (the earliest date available) and
October 31, 2020 (the date they were scraped). In total 2,208 texts were scraped – 1483 statements and
723 articles.
Qualitative Analysis of Dar al-Ifta’s Publications
To analyze and model the content of the articles and statements for Dar al-Ifta, I randomly
selected and coded 222 texts - approximately 10% of the dataset. In general, the texts published on Dar
al-Ifta’s website were short, reactive, and highly politicized. Statements had an average length of 400
words, while the articles were only slightly longer at 406 words: in the randomly chosen sample, the
word count averages were 375 and 407 words, respectively. The texts themselves cover a wide range of
subjects, but they tended to respond to recent events. For example, during the beginning of the Covid-
19 pandemic, Dar al-Ifta told readers that the Sharia mandated Muslims to take measures to stop the
spread of the virus, such as bringing one’s own prayer rug to Friday prayer and maintaining physical
distancing during prayers (Dar al-Ifta, 2020a). The website also clarified that Friday prayer is not
mandated for the immunocompromised, physical distancing does not affect the validity of prayers, and
preventing the burial of those who died of Covid 19 violates the Sharia (Dar al-Ifta, 2020a; Dar al-Ifta,
2020c; Dar al-Ifta, 2020k). Dar al-Ifta also wrote articles and released statements to clarify issues of
religious practice, such as whether one can answer a phone during prayer (Dar al-Ifta, 2016b), draw
investment income from a particular product (Dar al-Ifta, 2018c), or perform a prayer of gratitude while
one is unclean (Dar al-Ifta, 2017q). In a similar vein, Dar al-Ifta produced short statements and articles
summarizing the Mufti’s comments from his appearances on Egyptian TV (Dar al-Ifta, 2017j). The
website also published items on the start of new Islamic months (Dar al-Ifta, 2016a) and to
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commemorate politically important events, like the June 30 Coup (Dar al-Ifta, 2018f) and the 1973 War
(Dar al-Ifta, 2017i).
However, a majority of the texts from the website are highly politicized and focus on the threat
of Islamic terrorism and extremism. Of the 222 texts in the sample, I coded 148 (80 percent of the
sample) as using religion to support a political position, actor, or ideology. 130 texts (64 percent) were
coded as attacking or criticizing religious terrorism or extremism. Dar al-Ifta found many ways to
denounce, highlight, and analyze terrorist threats. The website regularly published short articles and
statements following terrorist attacks both at home and abroad. These short items usually describe the
attack and then condemn the terrorists who perpetrated it. For example, on August 8, 2018, the website
published a short statement describing how the mufti condemned a suicide attack on one of
Afghanistan’s mosques that had killed 25 people (Dar al-Ifta, 2018e). The statement mentioned that the
Islamic Sharia rejects all forms of aggression, including killing and spreading terror, and that acts of
terrorism are the most severe of crimes and deserve the most severe of punishments in this life and the
next. The articles and statements published after attacks within Egypt tended to be strident in their
denunciation of terrorism as well, and often mentioned the bravery and purity of the soldiers and
security forces fighting terrorist groups. After a bombing at a church in Helwan, a city south of Cairo, Dar
al-Ifta released a statement condemning the terrorist attack (Dar al-Ifta, 2017m). The statement noted
that terrorism contradicts the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, and it called on the Egyptian
people to recognize that there is no difference between Christian and Muslim citizens. After an attack
on an armored vehicle in North Sinai, the Mufti released a statement calling for the state to use all
available force against the terrorists and those who support them (Dar al-Ifta, 2020i). In the statement
the Mufti called the soldiers who sacrifice themselves for their homeland heroes. To drive the point
home, the Mufti quoted a verse from the Quran, Surat al-Nisaa 93, which states: “And whoever kills a
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believer intentionally, their reward will be Hell, where they will stay indefinitely. Allah will be displeased
with them, condemn them, and will prepare for them a tremendous punishment.” (Quran.com, 2021).
Dar al-Ifta also published detailed reports on the activities of terrorist groups across the world.
One statement, issued by the Observatory of Takfiri Fatwas and Extremist Opinions, warned readers that
ISIS might attack the 2018 World Cup in Russia (Dar al-Ifta, 2018a). The statement noted that ISIS had
waged a media campaign against the World Cup and that it might target soccer stadiums or matches in
retaliation for Russia’s involvement in the Syrian war. The text even specified the kinds of attacks ISIS
might perpetrate – vehicle ramming attacks, knife attacks, or even a drone strike – and followers and
affiliates who might carry out these attacks - Russian fighters returning from Syria, ISIS sympathizers
posing as soccer fans, or members of ISIS’ Caucasus branch. Another such article, again issued by the
Observatory of Takfiri Fatwas and Extremist Opinions, examined how ISIS was creating new centers of
influence across the globe in order to offset its losses in Syria and Iraq (Dar al-Ifta, 2016d). A different
article warned about ISIS and other terrorist groups using Tik Tok to spread their extremist ideology (Dar
al-Ifta, n.d.b). Another warned readers that Boko Haram might carry out more attacks in Northern
Cameroon to spread its extremist ideology among those ignorant of Islam (Dar al-Ifta, 2020d). The
Observatory of Takfiri Fatwas and Extremist Opinions even published a weekly terrorism index, which
recorded how many terrorist attacks were committed that week, how many people were killed or
injured in the attacks, and which terrorist groups had carried out the attacks (Dar al-Ifta, 2018b). Its
articles also note the location of the attacks and the kinds of attacks carried out.
Dar al-Ifta also regularly published extremely detailed analyses of extremist fatwas through the
Global Fatwa Index (GFI). The GFI, under the direction of the General Secretariat of Fatwa authorities,
collected and analyzed extremist fatwas in order to examine and refute the religious reasoning of
extremist groups. One article about the GFI focused on fatwas from ISIS released after it suffered
numerous defeats in August 2019 (Dar al-Ifta, 2019a). The article found that ISIS used its fatwas during
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this period to deny rumors of defeat and reinforce solidarity. Another article focused on Mother’s Day
fatwas (Dar al-Ifta, 2019b). The authors examined how different groups assessed the permissibility of
celebrating Mother’s Day. Terrorist groups, and the Muslim Brotherhood, said that Muslims cannot
celebrate Mother’s Day, a holiday of non-Islamic origin, while the authors of the article argued that
there was no contradiction between celebrating Mother’s Day and the Islamic Sharia.
Complementing its extensive coverage of terrorist groups, Dar al-Ifta regularly highlighted its
own contributions to the fight against extremism and the spread of terrorist thought. Officials at Dar al-
Ifta made the argument that extremism and terrorism were the byproduct of erroneous religious
reasoning and deviant methods of analysis. Thus, Dar al-Ifta vigorously promoted its efforts to teach
correct methods, train ulama, and regulate fatwa issuance. The website publicized visits from religious
officials from abroad (Dar al-Ifta 2020h; Dar al-Ifta, 2019h; Dar al-Ifta, 2016h), instances of Dar al-Ifta
providing anti-extremism training to foreign students (Dar al-Ifta, 2017o), and anti-extremism
conferences hosted in Egypt (Dar al-Ifta, 2017a). Other articles publicized initiatives by Dar al-Ifta and
the General Secretariat of Fatwa Authorities to coordinate with fatwa-issuing bodies in other states in
order to stop the “chaos of fatwas” and regulate who is allowed to issue fatwas (Dar al-Ifta, 2017c; Dar
al-Ifta, 2016c; Dar al-Ifta, 2020g).
Dar al-Ifta has also published numerous articles about the relationship between Islamic
extremism and Islamophobia – particularly in the West. The articles and statements issued by the
Islamophobia observatory usually focused on instances of discrimination or violence against Muslims in
Europe or the United States: a mosque being burned down in Texas (Dar al-Ifta, 2017b); a Dutch
parliamentarian calling for a competition for caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (Dar al-Ifta, 2019f);
or outrage on Austrian social media that the first baby born in the new year was a Muslim girl (Dar al-
Ifta, 2017g). In these articles, Dar al-Ifta argued that instances of Islamophobia alienated Muslim citizens
in European countries, and these alienated Muslims turn to extremist and terrorist groups. At the same
153

time, acts of terrorism caused non-Muslims to become more prejudiced towards Islam and Muslim
immigrants in their community. Thus, Dar al-Ifta was battling terrorism by combatting Islamophobia. In
these articles Dar al-Ifta addressed Muslims abroad in a very paternalistic tone by asking them to fight
against Islamophobia by proving their loyalty and promoting a more moderate form of Islam (Dar al-Ifta,
2020f; Dar al-Ifta, 2019f).
Finally, Dar al-Ifta accused the Muslim Brotherhood of being a terrorist group. In fact,
statements and articles often referred the Muslim Brotherhood as the Terrorist Brotherhood (Dar al-Ifta,
2020e; Dar al-Ifta, 2019e). According to its narrative, the Muslim Brotherhood politicizes Islam to exploit
their followers (Dar al-Ifta, 2017f). The leaders of the Brotherhood are opportunists who use religion to
justify sedition and violence against the state
29
in the hopes of seizing power for themselves (Dar al-Ifta,
n.d.a; Dar al-Ifta, 2017f). They promote sectarianism and deviant religious ideas to manipulate their
followers into doing the Brotherhood’s will. The Brotherhood’s ideas and interpretations are emulated
by international terrorist groups like ISIS (Dar al-Ifta, 2017e). Dar al-Ifta also portrayed the Brotherhood
as implacable enemies of the army. In an article commemorating the sixth anniversary of the Rabaa
massacre (the article refers to it as a “terrorist dispersal”), officials from Dar al-Ifta wrote that those who
sat in Rabaa square were followers of the Terrorist Brotherhood who had been manipulated into
believing that violence against the army and the state was justified as a legitimate jihad (Dar al-Ifta,
2019d). In a statement entitled “The people, the army, and the police are united to eradicate terrorism,
whatever the cost” the Mufti listed the Brotherhood as one of the terrorist elements that the army and
the people would work tirelessly to eliminate from Egyptian society (Dar al-Ifta, 2017h). In articles
celebrating the anniversary of the June 30 coup, Dar al-Ifta has released statements saying that the June

29
It should be noted that the articles and statements do not talk about attacks against the government ( ةمو ك ح لا ) but
against the state ( ةل ودلا). The word choice is meant to signal that the Brotherhood does not disagree with the style
of governance or the policies of only the current government; rather they seek to spread chaos and destruction
against the social order itself in their lust for power.
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30 “Revolution” was the natural response of the will Egyptian people who refused subservience to
extremists and terrorists (Dar al-Ifta, 2020j; Dar al-Ifta, 2018f). The website also accused Turkey’s
President Erdoğan of aiding and abetting the Brotherhood’s seditious activities because both the
Brotherhood and Erdoğan politicize religion (Dar al-Ifta, 2017f; Dar al-Ifta, 2020b).
All of this is to say that Dar al-Ifta found many ways to condemn terrorism. However, these
articles and statement were largely focused on threats, groups, and attacks outside of Egypt. For
example, for the 222 texts coded only 23 (10 %) mentioned either the Muslim Brotherhood or the
conflict in the Sinai, whereas 50 articles (22%) denounced ISIS and 22 (10%) denounced al-Qaeda
30
. Of
course, it is possible that the articles that condemn ISIS could be talking about the groups or followers of
ISIS within Egypt. To account for this possibility, I coded all the articles and statements for whether they
mentioned a terrorist group or a terrorist threat inside or outside of Egypt. To be coded as an internal or
an external threat the text in question had to have mentioned a specific location. For example, a
statement from the Mufti condemning an attack in Jalabad, Afghanistan was coded as an external
threat, while a statement from the Mufti thanking the armed forces for eradicating the terrorists in
Egypt is coded as an internal threat. Texts that mentioned threats both inside and outside of Egypt were
coded as belonging to both categories. 35 texts (15%) focused on threats and groups within Egypt, 63
texts (28%) focused on threats and groups outside of Egypt.
In sum, although Dar al-Ifta devotes much of its output to condemning religious terrorism and
extremism, it uses much more time and space to warn its readers about terrorist threats outside of
Egypt. Despite the fact that Egypt has been engaged in a bloody counter-insurgency campaign in the
Sinai, only 8 articles mentioned the Sinai conflict and only one mentioned the largest insurgent group,
Ansar al-Bayt al-Maqdis, by name. Significantly more articles and statements mentioned the Muslim

30
13 mentioned Boko Haram and 10 mentioned al-Shabab.
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Brotherhood’s impact on Egypt, but these articles were dwarfed by the number of texts that focused on
the threat posed by groups like al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Haram outside of Egypt.
External and Internal Terrorism
For the quantitative analysis I used dictionary and supervised learning methods to code and
analyze all the articles and statements in the dataset. Dictionary methods use the presence of particular
words to categorize texts. Supervised learning uses a hand-coded sample to train a model that then
codes texts outside of the sample. Given Dar al-Ifta’s overwhelming focus on the threat of terrorism, this
section analyzes whether its articles and statements concentrate more on terrorist groups and threats
within or outside Egypt. More specifically, this analysis is meant to emulate, as much as possible, the
hand-coding process from the previous section.
Both methods have benefits and drawbacks. The supervised learning methods are more difficult
to manipulate. The models for supervised learning use the stemmed
31
words from texts to create the
most accurate classifier with little interference from the researcher. The drawback is that the hand-
coded sample can potentially limit the model that is produced. In my hand coding, any article that
analyzed terrorist activities or threats in foreign countries was categorized as dealing with external
terrorism; however, the model cannot learn that rule. It can only associate the words/countries
mentioned in the sample (Iraq, Chad, Syria) with external terrorism, but it would be unable to associate
countries outside the sample (Lebanon, China, Canada) with external terrorism. Another drawback is
that for categories with very few examples, such as the conflict in the Sinai, within-sample testing is very
difficult to do, and thus the accuracy of the model is hard to assess. The benefit of the dictionary
method is that it is very flexible. One could add or delete words to create rules that would make the
categories more accurate. Additionally, the dictionaries are relatively transparent. Supervised models

31
Words are stemmed when they have been reduced to their root. For example, the words medical, medicinal,
medic, and medicine would be reduced to the stem medic. Every word is an attribute for a text, thus treating all
medic words as different attributes would bias any text analysis.
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cannot determine the theoretical significance of some words over others, they simply weigh words to
make the model as accurate as possible. With dictionary methods, on the other hand, the inclusion or
deletion of words can be defended on theoretical and methodological grounds. The drawback to
dictionaries is that they can be manipulated to produce favorable results. In the interest of
transparency, I have included both methods in my analysis.
For the supervised learning, all the texts were stemmed, and all the punctuation was removed,
using ArabicStemR (Nielsen, 2017). I then trained a naive bayes classifier to code whether articles and
statements dealt with terrorism generally, terrorism within Egypt, terrorism outside of Egypt, and the
threat of the Muslim Brotherhood. All the models were trained using 80% of the texts from the sample
and then tested against their ability to categorize the texts in the remaining 20%. The precision, recall,
and accuracy
32
of these models are given in Table 5.1.
I also used dictionary methods to code for these categories as well as the conflict in Sinai
33
. To
classify whether an article dealt with terrorism, I used the base word for terror in Arabic – irhab (in
Arabic: ب ا ه ر إ ). Any text that that included the word terror ( ب ا ه ر إ ), terrorists ( ن و ي ب ا ه ر إ ), or terroristic ( ي ت ا ه ر إ)
would be categorized as denouncing terrorism. This simple method correctly categorized 98% of the 222
texts from the sample. Any article that contained the word brotherhood ( ن ا و خ لإ ا ) or the phrase “June 30
Revolution” were categorized as denouncing the Muslim Brotherhood. The articles on the anniversary of
the June 30 Revolution often did not mention the Brotherhood, but they denounced the “terrorists”
who ruled Egypt prior to Sisi’s assumption of power (Dar al-Ifta, 2020j; Dar al-Ifta, 2018f). To code
whether an article dealt with terrorist threats or operations outside Egypt, a text had to include the

32
Precision is equal to the number of true positives divided by the sum of the true positives and false positives.
Recall is equal to the number of true positives, divided by the sum of true positives and false negatives. Accuracy is
a measure of the true positives and true negatives divided by the entire sample.
33
I did not use a naive bayes model for the Sinai conflict because there were so few examples of texts (8) dealing
with the Sinai.
157

word terror as well as the name of a foreign country. Articles coded as dealing with terrorism within
Egypt, according to Dar al-Ifta’s definition of the term, had to meet one of the following conditions: 1)
include the word terrorism and the name of a city or governate within Egypt; 2) include the words for
the Muslim Brotherhood or June 30 Revolution; 3) contain the name of one of the terrorist groups
operating in the Sinai
34
. To be coded as dealing with the Sinai conflict specifically, an article had to
contain the name of a city or governate in the Sinai region, or the name of a terrorist group working in
the Sinai region
35
. The accuracy of the dictionary methods is also included in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1
36
: Accuracy of the Classifiers for Dar al-Ifta
Naïve Bayes Classifiers
Category Precision Recall Accuracy
Terrorism General .96 .978 .944
External Terrorism .968 .882 .892
Internal Terrorism .962 .944 .892
Muslim Brotherhood .96 .978 .944

Dictionaries
Category Precision Recall Accuracy
Terrorism General .984 .984 .982
External Terrorism .72 .95 .883
Internal Terrorism .8 .8 .937
Muslim Brotherhood 1 1 1
Sinai .7 .6364 .95

35
It should be noted that not all the articles coded as dealing with the Sinai conflict are included in the internal
terrorism category. Those articles that mention an area in the Sinai, but do not contain the word terror would fall
into the Sinai category but they would not be counted as dealing with internal terrorism. However, the two
categories overlapped on all but 16 texts.
36
For the naive bayes classifier, I took an average of the precision, recall, and accuracy from five samples. Each time
the time the classifier was tested 80% of the sample was randomly selected to train the model and 20% was
selected to test it. You can get different results depending on which observations are selected for the two
categories and so I opted to take an average of five.
158

Using either method, the results are largely the same. Dar al-Ifta wrote about terrorism in the
majority of its writings; according to the dictionary method 1,278 (57.9%) articles and statements were
devoted to denouncing terrorism, while according to the naive bayes classifier the number was 1,378
(62.4%). As for what kind of terrorism Dar al-Ifta wrote about, both methods had the same result – the
website had significantly more articles and statements about terrorism outside Egypt than about
terrorism within Egypt. The dictionary methods found that Dar al-Ifta wrote 832 (37.68%) articles and
statements about external terrorism and 471 (21.38%) on internal terrorism. According to the naive
Bayes Classifier the gap is not as large – 661 (29.9%) articles and statements on external terrorism
against 515 (23.3%) on internal terrorism – but a substantial gap remains. T-Tests of the dictionary and
the naive bayes classifiers found that the difference between the average number of articles written on
external and internal terrorism was statistically significant. The p-values for both T-Tests were
significantly less than .001.
Table 5.2: Articles and Statements about External and Internal Terrorism in Dar al-Ifta
Dictionary
External
Terrorism
Internal Terrorism T-Test
P-Value
832 (37.7%) 471 (21.4%) 3.443227e-33

Naïve Bayes
External
Terrorism
Internal Terrorism T-Test
P-Value
661 (29.9%) 515 (23.3%) 6.493961e-07

Additionally, the analysis found that a relatively small proportion of articles was devoted to the
Muslim Brotherhood or the conflict in the Sinai. The naive bayes classifiers found that 338 (15.3%) of
texts dealt with the Brotherhood, while the dictionary methods found that 151 texts (6.8%) mentioned
the Brotherhood in any form. The Sinai region, its cities and governates, and the terrorist groups
159

operating in the area were mentioned in 174 (7.9%) articles and statements, only 22 (.9%) of those
named any Islamist insurgent groups in the Sinai.

Table 5.3: Results of the Classification of Articles and Statements from Dar al-Ifta
Naive Bayes Classifiers
Classification Number of Articles and Statements
General Terrorism 1378
External Terrorism 661
Internal Terrorism 515
Muslim Brotherhood 338

Dictionaries
Classification Number of Articles and Statements
General Terrorism 1278
External Terrorism 832
Internal Terrorism 471
Muslim Brotherhood 151
Sinai 174
Islamist Groups Operating in Sinai 22

160

Figure 5.1: Results of the Results of the Classification of Articles and Statements from Dar al-Ifta

161

Responsiveness to Terrorist Attacks
Although it is clear Dar al-Ifta fixates upon the threat of foreign terrorist groups and operations,
it is possible that the fixation is the result of a lack of terrorist activity in Egypt. If one assumes Dar al-Ifta
pays equal attention to all terrorist activity and all terrorist attacks, then the absence of articles and
statements on terrorism within Egypt could be explained by the absence of domestic terrorist attacks.
Given the plethora of international attacks and threats we cannot easily measure the likelihood that Dar
al-Ifta will respond to terrorist attacks abroad, but we can measure how often Dar al-Ifta uses its
platform to condemn domestic terrorist attacks.
162

To test this counter-explanation I used the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) (Lafree and Dugan,
2007) to measure how many terrorist attacks occurred within Egypt between 2016 and 2019. We can
plausibly expect responses to these attacks because Dar al-Ifta regularly publishes short statements and
articles condemning terrorist attacks in Egypt (Dar al-Ifta, 2017n; Dar al-Ifta, 2017l; Dar al-Ifta, 2018d;
Dar al-Ifta, 2020i) and abroad (Dar al-Ifta, 2017k; Dar al-Ifta, 2018e; Dar al-Ifta, 2016f; Dar al-Ifta, 2019g).
The GTD defines a terrorist attack as “the threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-
state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation
(START, 2019:10). GTD’s expansive definition of “terrorist” includes nearly all attacks from the Islamist
insurgency in Sinai, and every observation includes the city and governate in which an attack occurred.
According to the dataset, there were 716 attacks in Egypt between 2016 and 2019. (The 2020
data were not available during the writing of this chapter.) 405 attacks had at least one fatality, and if
we group attacks that occurred on the same day in the same city, there were 374 attacks during this
four-year span. For an article or statement to be coded as responding to a domestic attack, the text had
to be published at least two weeks after an attack, include the word “terrorist,” and the text or title had
to include the city or the governate in which the attack occurred. This measurement was meant to be
expansive, as there is a possibility that articles and statements could be counted as reactions to different
attacks. For example, if there is an attack in the city of Rafah on October 10, 2018 and another attack on
October 12, an article that mentioned terrorism in Rafah published on October 14 would be counted as
a reaction to both attacks. According to this measurement, of the 374 attacks in the dataset, only 31.8%
(95) elicited a response published by Dar al-Ifta. Furthermore, Dar al-Ifta was less likely to publish
responses to attacks in the Sinai Peninsula in comparison to attacks in other regions. 317 attacks took
place in Sinai, and of those attacks only 29.9% (94) received a response on Dar al-Ifta’s website. 57
attacks took place outside of Sinai, and 42.1% (24) of those attacks elicited a response from Dar al-Ifta.
In sum, Dar al-Ifta did not publish responses condemning the majority of terrorist attacks within Egypt,
163

and of those attacks, it published fewer articles and statements in response to attacks from the Sinai
Peninsula, where the army was, and at the time of this writing, still is, fighting an Islamist insurgency.

Figure 5.2: Examples of Dar al-Ifta’s Condemnations of Terrorist Attacks
International Attack
Arabic:
ا ي ت ج ي ن ب ي ر و ج و د ي ا م ة ع م ا ج ل ع ة ي ب ا ه ر لإ ا ة ي ل م ع ل ا ن ي د ي ة ي ر و ه م ج ل ا ي
ن ف م
م لا ع ي
ق و ش ر و ت ك د ل ا ذ ا ت س لأ ا ة ل ي ض ف ن ا د أ - ة ي ر و ه م ج ل ا ي
ن ف م - ة ع م ا ج ت ف د ه ت س ا ة ف ر ط ت م ة ع ا م ج ا ه ب ت م ا ق ي
ن ل ا ة ي ب ا ه ر لإ ا ة ي ل م ع ل ا
ل ت ق م ن ع ر ف س أ ا م م ؛ ا ي ت ج ي ن ق
ر سر ل ا م ش ب ي ر و ج و د ي ا م 5 ة ب ا ص إ و ص ا خش أ 15 ر ج ن ي ر خ آ ، ة ع م ا ج ل ا د ج س م ي
ق ل و لأ ا ؛
ي ت ل ب ن ق ر ا ج ف ن ا ء ا
ا هلخ د مب ة ي ن ا ث ل ا و .

ة ي ر و ه م ج ل ا ي
ن ف م ف ا ض أ و - ه ل ن ا ي ب ي
ق - م ل ع ل ا ل ق ا ع م م د ه ل ة و ق ن م ا و ت و أ ا م ل ك ب ن و ع س ي و ، ء ا م ل ع ل ا و َ م ل ع ل ا َ ن
ْ و
َ ش خ ي ي ف ر ط ت م ل ا ء لا ؤ ه ن أ
ي
ق ع و ق و ل ا ن م ا ه ن ص ح ت و ب ا ب ش ل ا ة ص ا خ و س ا ن ل ا ل و ق ع ظ ف ح ت ي
ن ل ا م ي ل ع ت ل ا و ة ه ج ا و م ي
ق م ل ع ل ا ة ي م ه أ ل ع ل د ي ا م و ه و ، ف ر ط ت ل ا ن ث ا ر ب
ف رحن مل ا ركفل ا .

ا غ ي لا ً لً ج ا ع ً ء ا ف ش ي ب ا ص م ل ا ي
ف ش ي ن أ و ن ا و ل س ل ا و ت ص ل ا م ه ل ه أ م ه ل ي ن أ الله ا
ً ي ع ا د ا ي ا ح ض ل ا سر لأ ء ا ز ع ل ا ص ل ا خ ب ة ي ر و ه م ج ل ا ي
ن ف م ه ج و ت و ر د
ا
ً م ق س .
ة ي صر م ل ا ء ا ت ف لإ ا ر ا د ب ي
م لا ع لإ ا ز ك ر م ل ا ١٧ - ١ - ٢٠ ١٧ م

English:
The Mufti condemns a terrorist operation against Maiduguri University in Nigeria.
Dr. Shawki Allam, Mufti of the republic, condemns a terrorist attack, committed by an extremist group
against Maiduguri University in northeastern Nigeria. Five were killed and fifteen injured in two
explosions. The first exploded in the university mosque, and the second exploded at the university’s
entrance.
The Mufti added – in this statement-- that these extremists fear knowledge and scholars so they do all
they can to destroy sanctuaries of science and learning. These sanctuaries preserve the minds of people,
but especially young people, and they fortify their minds against extremism. This demonstrates the
importance of knowledge in confronting distorted thought.
The Mufti expressed his condolences for the families of the victims. He called on God to give solace to
the families and to quicken the recovery of the injured.
Media Center of the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta 1-17-2017
164

Domestic
Arabic:
ي ل م ع ل ا ن ي د ي ة ي ر و ه م ج ل ا ي
ن ف م ن ا و ل حب " ا ن ي م ر ا م " ةسي ن ك ل ع ة ي ب ا ه ر لإ ا ة

ة ي ر و ه م ج ل ا ي
ن ف م د ك أ و - ه ل ن ا ي ب ي
ق - : ل ا ق ي ذ ل ا م ل س و ه ل آ و ه ي ل ع الله ل ص ي
ن ن ل ل م ي ص خ و ه ا ه ي ف ي ن م لآ ا ع و ر ي و س ئ ا ن ك ل ا ل ع ي د ت ع ي ن م ن أ
ة م ا ي ق ل ا م و ي ه ت م ص خ ه م ص خ ت ن ك ن م و ، ه م ص خ ا ن أ ف ً ا ي م ذ ى ذ آ ن م "".
ب ت م ا ق ا م ن أ ل ع ي
ن ف م ل ا ة ل ي ض ف د د ش و ظ ف ح ل إ ت ع د ي
ن ل ا ة ع ي
ر ش ل ل ا ي ل ع ل ا د ص ا ق م ل ل ف ل ا خ م و ا
ً ع
ر سر م ا ر ح ب ا ه ر لإ ا و ف ر ط ت ل ا ت ا ع ا م ج ه
ة ف
ر ش م ل ا ة ب ع ك ل ا ة م ر ح ن م د ش أ ء ا م د ل ا ة م ر ح ت ل ع ج و ، س ف ن لأ ا.
ء ا م د ل ا ك ف س م ه ف د ه ل ك ل ب ،
ي
ح ي س م و م ل س م ي ب ق ر ف ي لا ي ذ ل ا ر د ا غ ل ا ب ا ه ر لإ ل ي د ص ت ل ا ل إ ا
ً ع ي م ج ي ي صر م ل ا ي
ن ف م ل ا ة ل ي ض ف ا ع د و
ا رطض ا و ة ل ي س و ل ا تن ا ك ا مه م و ة قي ر ط ي أ ب ، د لا ب ل ا ب ا رخ و ت ا ع مت ج مل ا ب .
س
ض ا و ت ا ب ا ب ل ل ء ا ز ع ل ا ص ل ا خ ب ي
ن ف م ل ا ة ل ي ض ف ه ج و ت و - ة ي ص ق رمل ا ة ز ا ركل ا ك ري ر طب و ة ي ر د ن كس لإ ا ا ب ا ب - ل ج ا ع ل ا ء ا ف ش ل ا ا
ً ي ن م ت م ، ا ي ا ح ض ل ا سر لأ و
ي ي صر م ل ا و صر م الله ظ ف ح ي ن أ و ،
ي ب ا ص م ل ل .

ل ا ء ا ت ف لإ ا ر ا د ب ي
م لا ع لإ ا ز ك ر م ل ا ةي صر م 29 - 12 - 2 0 1 7 م
English:
The Mufti condemns the terrorist operation against St. Mena church in Helwan
In a statement, the Mufti affirmed that those who attack churches or spread terror among civilians is an
opponent of the prophet Mohammed who said, “Whoever harms a dhimmi (Christian or Jew) is my
enemy, and he will be enemy until the day of judgement.”
The Mufti emphasized that terrorist and extremist groups are haram (forbidden). They violate the
highest goals of the Islamic Sharia which calls on people to preserve life. The Sharia makes blood holier
than the Ka’ba.
The Mufti called on all Egyptians to confront treacherous terrorism that does not distinguish between
Muslim and Christian. Rather, their goal is to spill blood, disturb societies, and ruin countries by any and
all means.
The Mufti expressed his condolences to Pope Tawadros, the Pope of Alexandria and the patriarch of the
See of St. Mark. He also gave his condolences to the families of the victims. He wished for a speedy
recovery for the injured and asked for God to preserve Egypt and Egyptians.
Media Center of the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta 12-29-2017

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Table 5.4: Number of Articles/Statements Responding to Domestic Terror Attacks in Dar al-Ifta
Number of Attacks
37
Responses by Dar al-Ifta
All of Egypt 374 119
Inside of Sinai 317 95
Outside of Sinai 54 24

Methods of Condemnation
As mentioned previously, the articles and statements from Dar al-Ifta used myriad methods to
denounce terrorism as un-Islamic or hostile to Islam. When responding to terrorist attacks, statements
always included the phrase “the mufti condemns” or the “mufti strongly condemns” in their title (Dar al-
Ifta, 2020i; Dar al-Ifta 2018d). However, some statements simply described the attacks in the body of
the text, while others included sections describing the reasons violence and terrorism were un-Islamic.
For example, some statements had a sentence about how the Islamic Sharia rejects all forms of violence
(Dar al-Ifta, 2018e). Other statements quoted the hadith literature or the Quran itself to explain why a
terrorist attack contradicted the Islamic tradition (Dar al-Ifta, 2020i). Outside of terrorist attacks, officials
from Dar al-Ifta wrote that extremism and violence were the result of non-expert religious
interpretations (Dar al-Ifta, 2017c). Other times, articles and statements argued that terrorism was
anathema to all religions or religious values (Dar al-Ifta, 2016e). Some texts called terrorists or their
plans demonic/diabolical. Additionally, the Global Fatwa Index wrote several articles that examined the
fatwas of terrorist groups and explained the flaws in their religious reasoning (Dar al-Ifta, 2019a, Dar al-
Ifta, 2019b).
To contextualize the findings from the previous section, this section examines variation in how
often Dar al-Ifta used Islam to explicitily condemn terrorism, and how often it explicitly condemned
external and internal terrorism. To be coded as condemning terrorism a text had to explicitly state that
terrorism in some way violates or contradicts the Islamic tradition. It should be noted that in my reading

37
All of these are attacks with at least one fatality.
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of 222 texts from Dar al-Ifta not a single article or statement was neutral towards terrorism. Every text
that mentioned terrorism in some form, condemned it by saying that either the Mufti or Dar al-Ifta itself
denounced terrorism. For this section, I used a stricter definition, whereby a text had to make a specific
argument that terrorism was un-Islamic. For example, if an article had a title stating that the mufti
condemns a terrorist attack, but the body of the article simply describes the attack, that article would
not be coded as condemning terrorism. However, if that same article included language that said that
terrorism or terrorist attacks violate the Islamic Sharia, then that article would be coded as condemning
terrorism.
In my hand-coded sample, I found 66 (29.7%) of the 222 texts condemned terrorism as anti-
Islamic. Those 66 account for a little over half of the 130 articles that mentioned terrorism in the hand-
coded sample. Of the 66, 30 focused on external terrorism and 22 focused on internal terrorism. There
were a greater number of articles and statements condemning external groups and threats, but there
were significantly more articles about external groups and threats than internal ones in the hand-coded
sample – 63 texts on external terrorism versus 35 on internal terrorism. Thus, only 47% of articles on
external terrorism included a religious condemnation, whereas 61% of articles about internal terrorism
had a religious condemnation.
To further analyze how Dar al-Ifta used Islam to denounce terrorism, I created a dictionary to
classify whether articles/statements included religious condemnations. To create the dictionary, I went
through every article/statement coded as condemning terrorism as anti-Islamic and I looked for words,
phrases, or structures that could be used to classify a text as condemning terrorism. The condemnation
167

dictionary was fairly accurate in capturing all the articles coded as using Islam to condemn terrorism. It
correctly identified 86% of the articles it classified, and it had a precision of 82% and a recall of 92%
38
.
Table 5.5: List of Words Used to Classify an Islamic Condemnation of Terrorism

I then used this dictionary to classify texts outside of the hand-coded sample. I searched all texts
that either mentioned the word terrorism or were classified as dealing with terrorism according to the
naive bayes classifier from the previous sections. Using either measure, I found that Dar al-Ifta published

38
I then applied the dictionary to the full dataset. I would have also applied a naive bayes classifier, but
unfortunately the models could never categorize the data with greater than 70% accuracy.
39
Dar al-Ifta only used the bracket when quoting the Quran. It would be theoretically possible to create a
dictionary with every sura, but some chapters have such generic names that false negatives would be a serious
problem. Examples: The women ( ء ا
َ س ِّ ن ل ٱ), the bee ( ل ْ ح َّ ن ل ٱ), the hajj ( ٱ ِّ ج
َ ح
ْ ل ), Mohammad( د َّ م
َ ح ُ م).
40

Dar al-Ifta almost always used the double angle quotation mark ( «) when quoting from the hadith literature.
However, there were a few instances in which the « was used as something akin to a normal quotation mark, so I
included some words that indicate the prophet Mohammed is the one being quoted.
Arabic Word/Phrase English Translation/Description
هي و شت Distortion
ر ي ت ت Justification
ةذ ا شل ا ى و ت فل ا Deviant fatwa
ف ي ر حت Distortion
ركن ت سي م لاس لإ ا Islam Denounces
ف ا رحن ا Deviations
م لاس لإ ا م س ا ب In the name of Islam
ف ل ا خ Violate/Infringe
ء ا د ت ع لا ا ل ا ك ش أ ل ك ل ف ي ن ح ل ا ي
م لا س لإ ا ن ي د ل ا م ي ر ح ت Islamic Religion Rejects Violence
ةه و شم Distorted
}
39
Marker for quotation of the Quran
40
« : م ل س Marker for quotation of the Hadith 1
« : ل ا ق Marker for quotation of the Hadith 2
« :
َ ل ا
َ ق Marker for quotation of the Hadith 3
41
مل س و ه ل آ و هي ل ع الله ل ص Peace Be Upon Him
ةي ن ي د ل ا م ي قل ا Religious Values
ن ا طي ش Satan
ى و ت ف ل ل ي
م ل ا ع ل ا ر سر ؤ م ل ا Global Fatwa Index
ة ي م لا س لإ ا ة ع ي
ر ش ل ا The Islamic Sharia
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more articles/statements using Islam to condemn external terrorism rather than internal terrorism.
However, the difference between the two categories was heavily dependent on which classification was
used. Using the dictionary method, 311 statements/articles condemned external terrorism - 38% of all
texts on external terrorism - as un-Islamic, compared to 96 articles condemning internal terrorism –
20.4% of all texts on internal terrorism. Using the naive bayes classifier, I found 223 articles condemning
external terrorism – 33.4% of texts on external terrorism and 171 condemning internal terrorism –
33.2.% of texts on internal terrorism.
Table 5.6: Number of Articles Containing an Explicit Condemnation of Terrorism in Dar al-Ifta
Dictionary Measure of Terrorism
External Internal
311 96

Naive Bayes Classifier Measure of Terrorism
External Internal
223 171

These results complicate but do not refute the results from the previous analyses. First, using
the hand-coded data and both measures from the full dataset, I found that Dar al-Ifta published more
articles/statements stating that external terrorist groups and acts are un-Islamic. Second, using the
hand-coded data and the naive bayes classification of terrorism in the full Dar al-Ifta dataset, I found
that when Dar al-Ifta did publish articles/statements on internal terrorism, it was either as likely or more
likely to condemn it as un-Islamic in comparison to articles/statements on external terrorism. These
results demonstrate that Dar al-Ifta does not just acknowledge and denounce terrorist threats and
groups outside of Egypt, it regularly publishes articles and statements arguing that these threats and
groups are explicitly un-Islamic. However, when Dar al-Ifta chooses to acknowledge internal threats and
groups it does not refrain from instrumentalizing Islam to categorize those threats and groups as
contradicting or acting in violation of the Islamic tradition.
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Discussion of Results
The Egyptian government and Dar al-Ifta are both clearly focused on the threat of terrorism and
the spread of extremist ideas. According to both qualitative and quantitative measures, the majority of
the texts published on Dar al-Ifta’s website denounced terrorism and terrorists. Furthermore, the
articles and statements explicitly addressed the danger that the “deviant”, “mistaken”, and “dangerous”
interpretations used by terrorists could spread in Egypt and bring about chaos and societal collapse. To
fortify the minds of Egyptians against extremist ideas, Dar al-Ifta, its mufti, its staff, and its many
subsidiaries devoted themselves to studying, condemning, and discrediting terrorism and extremism.
However, like the Moroccan Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Dar al-Ifta was selective about which
threats it focused upon. A close reading of the statements and articles published on Dar al-Ifta’s website
revealed that it was focused on simultaneously highlighting and discrediting the ideas of terrorist groups
outside of Egypt’s borders. Simply put, there were more statements and articles about Boko Haram in
West Africa, ISIS in Russia, and al-Shabab in Somalia than there were statements and articles about the
Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist insurgency in the Sinai. The quantitative analysis found the same
result. Whether using supervised learning or dictionary methods, the analysis found that the focus
remained on threats, attacks, and groups in foreign countries.
According to my theory, authoritarian governments are more likely to instrumentalize religion to
discredit ideological threats that they cannot coerce or coopt and less likely to instrumentalize religion
against threats they can control through coercion or cooptation. I argue that Egypt’s
instrumentalization of religion can be explained by this theory. Sisi’s government could, and did, arrest
members of the Muslim Brotherhood. It could, and did, burn down Brotherhood headquarters and kill
members of the Brotherhood. In the Sinai Peninsula, the army employed mass repression and torture to
uproot and eradicate the threat posed by the Islamist insurgency. However, the government cannot
arrest, repress, or threaten groups outside of Egypt. Sisi’s government can only employ ideological
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weapons to counter the appeal of ISIS in Syria or al Qaeda in West Africa. I argue that Egypt’s
instrumentalization of religion, in the form of articles and statements published by Dar al-Ifta, can be
explained by the fact that there are some threats it can successfully control through coercion (the
Brotherhood and Sinai insurgent groups) and some that it cannot (al-Qaeda and ISIS). Egypt’s selective
instrumentalization of religion, and even its relatively hands-off approach to al-Azhar, demonstrate that
the government recognizes that the instrumentalization of religion involves tradeoffs. Religious
authorities and institutions can be used to discredit political opponents, but by instrumentalizing
religion the government risks corrupting the integrity of the religious authorities and institutions it relies
upon. This central tradeoff helps explain why Egypt’s propaganda does not condemn every terrorist
attack within Egypt, and why it is less likely to condemn attacks in Sinai – where the military’s presence
is greatest and where indiscriminate repression is most often employed.
Counter Explanations
My theory cannot explain everything Dar al-Ifta has published or refrained from publishing. The
main finding from my analysis is that Dar al-Ifta published many more articles/statements on terrorism
outside of Egypt than terrorism inside Egypt, despite the existence of the Muslim Brotherhood and the
insurgency in the Sinai. However, there is one major competing explanation that could explain this
result. One could argue that Dar al-Ifta’s mission is to bolster Egypt’s international reputation as a
regional leader, a leader of the Islamic community, and leader in countering extremism. According to
this argument, Dar al-Ifta ignored the Sinai insurgency and the Muslim Brotherhood because addressing
these subjects would detract from Egypt’s international reputation. If Sisi and the Egyptian government
addressed either of these subjects, they would be tacitly admitting that they had failed to eliminate the
extremist threats in their own midst.
There is a significant amount of evidence that supports this theory. First, Dar al-Ifta presented
the Egyptian government as a leader in the international fight against extremism. The General
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Secretariat of Fatwa Authorities is an international organization meant to regulate fatwas across the
Islamic world. When writers wrote about the “Chaos of Fatwas” they described it as a global problem.
Dar al-Ifta also promoted its efforts to meet with foreign officials and train foreign students. The Weekly
Terror Index and the Global Fatwa index were both used to demonstrate the government’s ability to
monitor terrorist activity and extremist thought across the globe. Second, Dar al-Ifta took an
international perspective when addressing non-extremist issues. The Islamophobia Observatory wrote
about the dangers of anti-Islamic activity in the US, Austria, France, and the United Kingdom. The
Observatory also wrote about the Muslims in these countries as if they looked to Dar al-Ifta and Egypt
for guidance in stopping Islamophobia. Third, Egypt’s regional allies – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates – are dedicated to stopping the spread of so-called “extremist Islam.” The Egyptian military
received support from these countries as part of itheir fight to eradicate all manifestations of
Islamism/extremism, which they feard. Thus, Dar al-Ifta could have been used a forum to signal Egypt’s
commitment to the fight against extremism and terrorism.
On the other hand, there is substantial evidence that contradicts this theory. Dar al-Ifta limited
the reach of its messaging by publishing its articles and statements in Arabic. As mentioned earlier, Dar
al-Ifta has published material in multiple language, but the vast majority of the articles and statements
analyzed in this chapter exist only in Arabic. If Dar al-Ifta was trying to bolster the government’s
international reputation it would make little sense to focus on Arabic speaking audiences. The Arabic
speaking world, and Egypt’s regional allies, are perfectly aware on the government’s stance on Islamism
and extremism. The Egypt government decimated the Muslim Brotherhood and, as of this writing, is
fighting Islamist groups in the Sinai Peninsual. Publishing articles on Dar al-Ifta’s website would appear
to have little marginal value in signaling the government’s commitment eliminate extremism/Islamism.
Additionally, Dar al-Ifta published a significant amount of content that was aimed squarely at a domestic
audience. The articles about Egyptian investments (Dar al-Ifta, 2018c), the clarifications about the Grand
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Mufti’s statements (Dar al-Ifta, 2017j), the celebration of national anniversaries (Dar al-Ifta, 2017i), and
the messages about the coronavirus were only relevant to an Egyptian audience.
It is clear that Dar al-Ifta tried to present the Egyptian government as a leader in the fight
against extremism. However, it would be difficult to argue that Dar al-Ifta was aimed solely or primarily
at an international audience. The most plausible explanation is that the Egyptian government wanted to
gain domestic support by demonstrating its international leadership and illustrate its counter-extremist
credentials to an international audience at the same time. Dar al-Ifta’s international ambitions may help
explain some of its content, particularly why it published so many articles on the Grand Mufti’s efforts to
meet with foreign officials, but they cannot explain why it focused on a domestic audience for issues like
Covid-19 and ignored this audience when Egypt endured a terrorist attack. This counter explanation
certainly has some validity, but it cannot explain a significant portion of Dar al-Ifta’s content and
ultimately it cannot explain why Dar al-Ifta chose to give more attention to foreign terrorist groups and
attacks. I argue that a large part of this variation can be explained by how the government deals with
the ideological threats that it faces.
Conclusion
This chapter analyzed how religion is instrumentalized in Sisi’s Egypt. It looked at how Sisi’s
government politicized and used Islam through Dar al-Ifta, one of the governmental bodies in charge of
producing Islamic legal opinions and “correcting misperceptions” about Islam. (Dar al-Ifta, 2021) In
particular, this chapter examined the 2,208 articles and statements published on Dar al-Ifta’s website
between January 20, 2016 and October 31, 2020. Through a close reading of a random sample of articles
and statements, and quantitative analysis of the entire corpus using supervised learning and dictionary
methods, it was found that Dar al-Ifta dedicated most of its publications to denouncing terrorism and
discrediting terrorist ideas.
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However, Dar al-Ifta devoted more of its articles and statements to the threats, groups, and
attacks outside of Egypt. Although Sisi became president by ousting the Muslim Brotherhood, and the
army was, and as of late 2021 still is, engaged in a bloody counterinsurgency campaign against violent
Islamist groups, the focus remained on terrorist groups operating in countries such as Syria, Russia,
Nigeria, and Afghanistan. Additionally, by examining the number of terrorist attacks within Egypt during
this period, it was found that Dar al-Ifta published responses to less than a third of terrorist attacks
between 2016 and 2019. Dar al-Ifta was also less likely to publish responses to attacks that occurred
inside the Sinai Peninsula in comparison to other regions. The analysis also found that according to some
measures the government was as likely and possibly more likely to instrumentalize Islam to condemn
terrorist threats inside Egypt when it chose to write about them. However, by any measure Dar al-Ifta
published fewer articles/statements about internal terrorism and overall, it published fewer
articles/statements condemning internal terrorist threats in comparison to external threats.
I argue that Sisi’s instrumentalization of religion through Dar al-Ifta can be explained, in large
part, by whether or not the government can use force against its ideological enemies. All forms of
terrorism and all extremist ideas threaten the relative stability and peace maintained by the Egyptian
government. Dar al-Ifta explicitly and repeatedly recognized the threat posed by ideologies and religious
interpretations that promote violence, sectarianism, and sedition. The government has and continues to
use coercion against those groups that have operated in Egypt (the Muslim Brotherhood) and continue
to operate there (the Islamist insurgents in the Sinai). If an authoritarian government can jail, torture, or
kill its ideological opponents, then it has less of an incentive to discredit them by instrumentalizing
religion. I argue that is why Dar al-Ifta was less likely to publish responses to attacks inside of Egypt and
why it is less likely to publish responses to attacks within the Sinai Peninsula. Due to the fact that
terrorist groups continue to operate outside Egypt, but still try to attract followers inside Egypt, the
government has more of an incentive to instrumentalize religion to discredit foreign groups and
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denounce their operations. The government does not want the ideas of foreign groups to spread, but
they cannot use coercion to contain the ideological threat posed by these foreign groups.
The analysis of the Egyptian case presents an interesting comparison to the analysis of the
Moroccan monarchy from the previous two chapters. The Moroccan monarchy has a wealth of historical
and religious legitimacy that it has built and maintained over several centuries. Sisi’s regime is less than
a decade old, and it was established through a coup against the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite these
obvious differences, both regimes instrumentalized Islam in broadly similar ways. Both used Islamic
authorities, institutions, and symbols to discredit ideological opponents they could not coopt or coerce,
and both used religious institutions to denounce threats emanating from outside the country. In
Morocco the threat, according to regime discourse, was Marxism. In Egypt the threats were Islamist
terrorism and extremism. Of course, there are differences in the ways the two instrumentalized Islam –
Morocco entirely ignored some internal threats, whereas Egypt gives them less attention than external
ones, but the broad and consistent similarities in the instrumentalization of religion between them
suggest the theory at the center of this dissertation can be applied outside of the Moroccan context.

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Chapter 6: Conclusion

In this dissertation I tried to explain why authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion
when they do. To understand and analyze this subject I focused on two governments: the Kingdom of
Morocco and, to a lesser extent, the Arab Republic of Egypt. The Alaouite royal family has reigned in
Morocco for centuries. Morocco’s kings are Commanders of the Faithful who are duty-bound to protect
and lead the Islamic community in their kingdom. They claim descent from the Prophet Mohammed and
argue that a religious covenant exists between the king and the Moroccan people. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi,
the only president of Egypt whose rule I examined in this dissertation, became the president after
ousting the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group with branches or extensions around the world. Sisi
started his political career as a member of the military and, although he presents himself as a deeply
religious person, he makes no claims to religious authority. I found that despite the differences in their
histories and their leaders, the governments of Morocco and Egypt instrumentalized Islam in largely
similar ways.
First, the leaders of Morocco and Egypt did not use the religious institutions under their control
to promote every one of their interests or attack every one of their enemies. Moroccan institutions did
not engage in every political conflict that concerned the monarchy, and the propaganda produced by
the Ministry of Islamic Affairs ignored momentous political events like the Sand War in 1963 or the
protests leading to emergency rule in 1965. The Egyptian Dar al-Ifta, despite publishing an average of 1.2
articles and statements every day between 2016 and 2020, rarely mentioned the Islamist insurgency in
the Sinai or the Muslim Brotherhood. The actions and propaganda from both governments demonstrate
that there were times they chose to refrain from instrumentalizing Islam to their benefit.
Second, there were times both governments used religious institutions and rhetoric to legitimize
themselves and their policies, and to attack their opponents. The Moroccan Ministry of Islamic Affairs
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published an annual issue of Dawa al-Haqq devoted to celebrating Throne Day and the legitimacy of the
monarchy. It also published special issues and articles legitimizing the monarchy’s invasion of the
Western Sahara (the Green March) and its historical claims to the region. In addition, Morocco’s
religious institutions attacked the monarchy’s enemies – Marxists, Islamic revolutionaries, and Salafi
Jihadists. The Egyptian Dar al-Ifta published numerous articles praising Sisi, the military, the police, and
Egypt’s religious institutions and authorities. It also published articles and statements attacking foreign
terrorist groups, religious extremists, domestic terrorists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Egypt’s regional
rivals. If this dissertation has established one fact, it is that the Egyptian and Moroccan governments
instrumentalized religion selectively. They did not instrumentalize religion to attack all their enemies or
to constantly legitimize themselves, but they did instrumentalize religion to attack some enemies (and
some more than others) and to legitimize themselves at some points in time.
Evaluating the Theory
The question at the center of my analysis is: Did Morocco and Egypt instrumentalize religion in a
way that can be explained by my theory? I argue that the answer is yes, but my theory does not offer a
perfect explanation for the actions of both countries. To reiterate, I argue that authoritarian
governments are economical when instrumentalizing religion. Thus, they are less likely to
instrumentalize religion when they have other options for defending their legitimacy and attacking their
opponents, and more likely to instrumentalize religion when they lack these options. According to my
theory, authoritarian regimes are likely to instrumentalize religion to undergird their legitimacy
following a failed coup because an attempted coup demonstrates that the legitimacy of the
leader/government is not accepted by members of the government. Authoritarian leaders who survive
coups are likely to use religion demonstrate that their authority remains legitimate. Additionally,
authoritarian governments are likely to instrumentalize religion to attack or undermine ideological
movements and groups when these movements and groups receive support from foreign countries or
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operate within foreign countries. All else being equal, governments would prefer to control the
opposition through cooptation or repression, but groups that receive foreign support are less amenable
to coercion and cooptation, and thus governments instrumentalize religion to discredit them.
To test my theory, I analyzed changes in religious regulation and education in Morocco between
1956 and 2020 (Chapter 3), examined the religious propaganda produced by the Moroccan Ministry of
Islamic Affairs between 1956 and 2001 (Chapter 4), and examined the religious propaganda published
by the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta between 2016 and 2020 (Chapter 5). Chapter 3 assessed whether the
Moroccan monarchy changed its regulation of religious institutions, made changes to religious
education, or crafted entirely new religious institutions in response to various threats to the monarchy.
The analysis from that chapter found that the monarchy was able to subdue its domestic opponents
using cooptation and/or coercion. The monarchy successfully coopted the party which helped Morocco
win its independence (the Istiqlal Party), the country’s largest leftist parties (the UNFP and the USFP),
and most popular Islamist party (the PJD). It also used force to compel the country’s most popular
Islamist movement (Justice and Charity) to moderate its rhetoric and activities. In contrast, the
monarchy allied itself with conservative Islamists and changed religious education to be more explicitly
anti-communist in response to the threat posed Marxism/Arab nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s. It
created the Supreme Council of the Ulama (religious scholars), and incorporated the ulama into the
government, within two years of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The monarchy also expanded its control of
religious speech and religious institutions after the 2003 terrorist bombings in Casablanca. Additionally,
Hasan II changed religious education to emphasize the proper practice of Moroccan Islam and his role as
the Commander following the two failed coups in 1971 and 1972.
The historical case study of Morocco provided strong evidence for the theory. The monarchy
faced numerous opposition movements, and it successfully coopted or repressed every opposition
group and party that operated within the country. However, to counter those movements and
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organizations with foreign support or operating within foreign countries – the Marxists and nationalists
inspired by Algeria and Egypt, the Islamists and Islamic revolutionaries inspired by the Islamic Revolution
in Iran, and the Salafi Jihadis with ties to foreign terrorist groups – the government increased its
regulation of religion, changed religious education, or crafted new government controlled religious
institutions. The monarchy also changed the curriculum for religious education and increased the
number of hours devoted to Islamic studies in public schools following two failed coups, but the
monarchy’s motivations were less clear in comparison to the other changes.
Whereas Chapter 3 examined religious regulation generally, Chapter 4 focused on religious
rhetoric. It analyzed the contents of Dawa al-Haqq, the magazine published by the Moroccan Ministry of
Islamic Affairs. In that chapter I examined how articles in Dawa al-Haqq instrumentalized Islam in
response to four events in Moroccan history – the 1963 war with Algeria (the Sand War), the 1971 and
1972 coups, the 1974 publication and circulation of a letter attacking the monarchy’s religious
legitimacy, and the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. I found that the magazine did not address the Sand
War directly, but it devoted hundreds of articles to attacking Marxism as inherently hostile to Islam. The
number of articles attacking socialism/Marxism began to decline after the ideological threat posed by
Marxism waned in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dawa al-Haqq dedicated a few articles to the coups,
and it described the coup plotters as evil and irreligious men who sought to usurp the power of their
pious leader, but at the same time, the magazine did not meaningfully change its coverage of the
monarchy’s legitimacy. It published roughly the same number of articles speaking to the Islamic
legitimacy of the monarchy before the coups as it did after. The magazine did more to cover and
publicize the king’s “Islamic Renaissance” campaign after the coups, but it did not publish more articles
about the crown’s legitimacy in aggregate. As for the 1974 letter, the magazine never mentioned it. It
never once referenced the author of the letter, Abdessalam Yassine, the founder of the Islamist Justice
and Charity movement, and it never made mention of his family or the organization that he founded. In
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fact, in my reading of articles published around that time, I could not find even an indirect reference to
Yassine or his movement. After the 1979 revolution, Dawa al-Haqq published a fatwa calling the
Ayatollah Khomeini an infidel, as well as other articles criticizing Khomeini as an oppressor and one who
distorts Islam. However, the magazine published very few articles about Iran or the dangers of its
revolutionary ideas. Overall, I could not find meaningful differences in the content produced by Dawa al-
Haqq before and following the Iranian Revolution.
The analysis of Moroccan religious propaganda in Chapter 4 offered substantial but incomplete
support for the theory. The magazine instrumentalized religion selectively. It also focused its criticism
on transnational ideological threats (particularly Marxism) while completely ignoring the crown’s
domestic opposition (Yassine, the Istiqlal Party, USFP). On the other hand, Dawa al-Haqq published a
few articles on the dangers posed by the Islamic Revolution and failed coups, but it did not substantially
change its coverage following either event. In sum, Dawa al-Haqq’s propaganda followed the
expectations of the theory, in that it focused on foreign ideological movements while ignoring domestic
groups, but the magazine did not respond to all foreign ideological threats in the way the theory
predicted. Additionally, although the magazine did publish articles claiming the coup was an attack on
Morocco’s Islamic leaders, the magazine contradicted the expectations of my theory by not publishing
more articles supporting the religious legitimacy of the monarchy following the two coups.
Chapter 5 tested the external validity of the theory by assessing how well it explained the
religious propaganda produced by the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta between 2016 and 2020. The analysis from
this chapter found that Dar al-Ifta focused a large proportion of its articles on the dangers of terrorism
and religious extremism. This focus is not surprising given that that Abdel Fattah al-Sisi became
president after helping oust the Muslim Brotherhood and was, at the time, attempting to crush an
Islamist insurgency in the Sinai region. However, Dar al-Ifta published relatively few articles about either
of those threats. Instead, it focused on terrorists and extremists that operated outside of Egypt.
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Additionally, the analysis from that chapter found that Dar al-Ifta, despite publishing many articles
denouncing specific terrorist acts across the globe and a weekly index of terrorist attacks, did not
publish denunciations in response to the vast majority of attacks in Egypt, and it published even fewer
articles in response to attacks in the Sinai – the region in which the Egyptian military and security forces
were actively fighting Islamist insurgents. However, when I tested articles for whether they included an
explicit denunciation of terrorism
42
I found that according to some standards, Dar al-Ifta was just as
likely to publish an explicit condemnation of terrorism within Egypt as it was to publish condemnations
of terrorism outside of Egypt.
The analysis from Chapter 5 demonstrated that the theory has applicability outside of Morocco.
Dar al-Ifta focused more of its religious propaganda on the threat posed by groups operating outside of
Egypt- such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and al-Shabab - rather than by domestic groups- the Islamist
insurgency in the Sinai, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The analysis also showed that Dar al-Ifta ignored a
majority of terrorist attacks within Egypt and that it was more likely to ignore attacks inside Sinai, the
most heavily militarized region, in comparison to the rest of Egypt. However, not all the results validated
the theory. According to some standards, Dar al-Ifta was just as likely to publish explicit religious
condemnations of domestic terrorism as foreign terrorism. Additionally, due to the fact that there were
no coups within Egypt during the years in which data was available, the analysis neither supported nor
contradicted the idea that authoritarian governments are more likely to instrumentalize religion
following a failed coup.
In sum, the dissertation provided strong evidence that authoritarian governments are more
likely to instrumentalize religion against groups that they cannot coopt or coerce. The Moroccan

42
Every article about terrorism included some form of denunciation by Dar al-Ifta or its leader, the Grand Mufti,
but some articles explicitly stated that terrorism and extremism were anti-Islamic or based on deviant
interpretations of Islam.
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government coopted the majority of domestic opposition groups, and when that did not work, it used a
combination of coercion and cooptation to force opposition groups into respecting the monarchy’s red
lines. When domestic opposition movements received foreign support (such as the Marxists/socialists
who were supported and supplied by Algeria) the government was forced to use religion as a means to
discredit them and stop their ideas from spreading. The same process unfolded in Egypt. The
government faced opposition from the remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood and insurgents in the Sinai.
The government managed those threats through overwhelming force. The Egyptian government did not
have to worry about supporters of the Brotherhood or the Islamist insurgents spreading their ideas,
because most of those supporters were either jailed, exiled, or killed. However, the government could
not stop the spread of ideas by groups outside of Egypt, such as al-Qaeda, so it used religion as one
means of de-legitimizing them and demonstrating to Egyptian citizens that the ideas of these groups
were hostile to Islam. The evidence from the previous three chapters did not support all of my
hypotheses, but, in aggregate, it provided significant support for my theory.
It should be noted, my analysis found less evidence in support of the claim that authoritarian
regimes are likely to use religion to legitimize themselves following a failed coup. After the coups in
Morocco Hassan II changed the curriculum for religious education to support his claims to legitimacy, he
launched his Islamic Renaissance campaign, and Dawa al-Haqq published multiple articles portraying the
king as quintessentially Islamic and the coup plotters as enemies of Islam. However, the magazine did
not substantially change its coverage following the coups and it did not publish significantly more or
significantly different articles following the coups. Additionally, the monarchy’s regulation and actions
following the coups were less substantive and less obviously tied to the coups than its reactions to the
spread of Marxist/Arab nationalist ideas, the Islamic Revolution, and the terrorist attacks in 2003.
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External Validity and China’s Exceptionalism
A discerning reader might ask: Does the theory offered in this dissertation apply outside the
Middle East and North Africa (MENA)? This is a fair question because all the evidence used in the
previous three chapters was drawn from the MENA region, and one well-known country case outside
the region appears to directly contradict my theory – China. Since 2017 the Chinese government has
sent between 1 and 3 million Muslims to concentration camps with the intention of stopping the spread
of extremist religious ideas coming from other parts of the world (Greitens, Lee, Yacizi, 2019).
Additionally, the government has elected to suppress Buddhism in Tibet in order to snuff out support for
the exiled Dalai Lama, as well as the government in exile, and thereby crush any hopes for Tibetan
autonomy or independence. The actions of the Chinese government present a challenge to my theory
because it has responded to external ideological threats through mass repression instead of
instrumentalizing religion.
Although problematic for my theory, I argue that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) in Xinjiang and Tibet underscore the unique threat posed by external ideological threats. At its
core the CCP is an atheist organization, but it has not always forced atheism on the Chinese people. The
first constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) protected the freedom of religious belief (Yang,
2011:66). From 1949 to 1957 the government coopted Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and
Protestantism by forcing the compliant leaders of those faiths to join patriotic religious organizations
that did the CCP’s bidding. In 1957 the government became more hostile to religion and began closing
places of worship and discouraging religious activities, and in 1966 the Chairman of the CCP, Mao
Zedong, tried to eliminate religion in China as part of the Cultural Revolution – a revolution meant to
eliminate capitalist and bourgeois elements from Chinese society (Yang, 2011). The Red Guard, student
groups committed to the Cultural Revolution’s goals, tore down places of worship, burned religious
scriptures, and sent believers to prisons or reeducation camps (Yang, 2010).
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Despite the all-out assault on religion during the Cultural Revolution, religious life survived in
China. Mao died in 1976, and under new leadership the CCP became more tolerant of religion. In 1982
the party issued Document 19 which declared that the state would respect and protect religious belief,
as well as the right to disbelieve (Potter, 2003). Since then, the Chinese government has regulated every
aspect of religious life and, so long as religious institutions and authorities abide by the rules and
regulations of the CCP, the government has given believers a measure of autonomy (Reny, 2018). The
government’s conditional tolerance of religion was always less forgiving in Xinjiang and Tibet because it
feared that the religious identities of Tibet’s and Xinjiang’s citizens promoted distinct regional identities,
and thereby separatism. The majority inhabitants of Xinjiang and Tibet, prior to the founding of the PRC,
were ethnically distinct from Han Chinese, did not speak Mandarin, and were quite religious. The
majority of Xinjiang was Sunni Muslim, while Tibet was Buddhist and ruled over by their religious leader-
the Dalai Lama. In order to consolidate their control of both regions the Chinese government used a
heavy-handed approach to promote assimilation with Han Chinese culture, as defined by the CCP.
In Xinjiang, the government suppressed local religious institutions and encouraged Han Chinese
to migrate to the region (Abdelkader, 2020). After the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States the
Chinese government started using the War on Terror to justify its repression in Xinjiang. For example, in
2009 when ethnic tensions escalated into riots in the city of Urumqi, some Chinese state media called it
the “Chinese version of 9/11” (Topal, 2021:6). In 2014, after a suicide bombing in Urumqi and an attack
on a railway station by Xinjiang separatists, the CCP escalated its repression with the Strike Hard
Campaign to eliminate terrorism in Xinjiang (Abdelkader, 2020). The CCP considers terrorism,
extremism, and separatism as three intertwined evils, and the Strike Hard Campaign attempted to
eliminate these evils through arrests, restrictions on religious practice, and mass surveillance (Human
Rights Watch, 2019). The Strike Hard Campaign set the stage for the mass internment of Uyghurs and
beginning in 2017 the CCP employed “collective detention, intensive ideological reeducation, and the
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application of intensive coercion of the Uyghur diaspora” (Greitens, Lee, Yacizi, 2019:15). The CCP forced
Muslims in Xinjiang into these camps because it believed that Uyghurs would come into contact with
terrorist groups, like ISIS, in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and then spread extremist ideas within
China (Greitens, Lee, Yacizi, 2019:9). Leaked government documents included instructions for Chinese
authorities to explain internment by saying those who were interned were “infected by the ‘virus’ of
Islamic radicalism and must be quarantined and cured” (Ramzy and Buckley, 2019). To stop the spread
of these ideas, the Chinese government targeted Uyghurs who practiced Islam in a way the CCP found
suspicious – arrestable offenses included learning Arabic and having a Quran at home – and individuals
who had family abroad, or who went abroad themselves (Topal, 2021).
In Tibet, the government tried to take a softer approach with the pre-PRC government. Mao
Zedong allowed the Dalai Lama to keep his title and some his privileges, and he delayed political
reforms, in the hopes of securing the acquiescence of the Tibetan people to Chinese rule (Jian, 2006).
This détente ended in 1959 when thousands of Tibetans revolted against the CCP. The government
crushed the rebellion and the Dalai Lama, along with thousands of followers fled to India where he
established a government-in-exile. The CCP quickly consolidated its power by taking control of every
religious institution in Tibet and suppressing religious life generally. The government forced monasteries
to close, it shut down religious festivals, jailed or expelled religious authorities who were insufficiently
“patriotic,” and limited the number of monks and nuns who could receive training at monasteries
(Cabezon, 2014). However, unlike in Xinjiang, the government insisted on selecting Tibet’s highest
religious leaders. Most infamously, in 1995 the CCP selected its own Panchen Lama – the second highest
spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism after the Dalai Lama – and disappeared the Dalai Lama’s selection
along with his family (Goosaert and Palmer, 2011). Aside from its interference in the selection of the
Panchen Lama, the CCP has more often than not opted to crush religious life rather use it to legitimize
the CCP or attack the Dalai Lama. For example, in response to large-scale protests in 2008, the
185

government closed religious institutions, forced religious authorities into reeducation classes, and
expelled all religious leaders who were suspected of promoting separatism or sympathy for the Dalai
Lama (Powers, 2017). According to Powers (2017:48), the reeducation classes were not used to reorient
Tibetan Buddhism so much as “designed to undermine confidence in Buddhist doctrines and leading
religious figures.”
Looking at China’s actions in the context of this dissertation, the question we must ask is: Why
did China use mass repression instead of instrumentalizing religion? Morocco and Egypt both faced the
threat of so-called extremist ideas spreading in their population, and in response to this threat they
increased their regulation of religion and employed religious institutions and authorities to remind their
citizens that these ideas are un-Islamic. Why didn’t Morocco, Egypt, or any of the other numerous
autocracies battling separatism and the spread of dangerous ideas opt crush problematic religious
identities through repression? I argue that the Chinese government opted to use mass repression for
three reasons. First, it is better able than other authoritarian governments to employ mass coercion.
Second, coercion is less costly when it is used against a distinct minority group. Third, the PRC is better
able to withstand to the international backlash associated with egregious human rights violations.
I argue that the Chinese government is more capable than other governments, like those in
Egypt and Morocco, of monitoring, restricting, and coercing its citizens. We can make an informative
comparison between Xinjiang, the Western Sahara in Morocco, and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt to
understand the difference in the capabilities of these three governments. All three governments fear
separatism in these regions and have waged violent campaigns to keep these regions under their
control. Of course, there are obvious differences between the three conflicts. Morocco’s control of the
Western Sahara is still hotly disputed, and most states do not recognize Morocco’s claims to the region
(Huddleston, 2019). The separatists in the Sinai are not ethnically or linguistically distinct from the rest
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of the population, unlike in Xinjiang and the Western Sahara
43
. The Chinese government never fought an
organized insurgency in Xinjiang whereas Morocco and Egypt did in the Western Sahara and Sinai
Peninsula respectively. Despite these differences, we can still draw insights into the goals and
capabilities of these governments. All three governments claim separatism is illegitimate and driven by
alien ideologies and foreign influences. Yet only China used concentration camps to eliminate these
ideologies and influences. This choice cannot be explained by the leniency or discretion of the Moroccan
and Egyptian governments. Both have waged bloody counterinsurgency campaigns and employed
torture and indiscriminate violence to the maintain control of their disputed regions (Ashour, 2019;
Zunes and Mundy, 2010). However, neither government was capable of the level and sophistication of
coercion used by China in Xinjiang. According to Human Rights Watch (2019), as part of the Strike Hard
Campaign the Chinese government “collected biometrics, including DNA samples, fingerprints, iris scans,
and blood types of all residents in the region between the ages of 12 and 16.” The government also used
CCTVs, checkpoints, facial recognition software, and wi-fi sniffers to monitor the locations and activities
of residents in Xinjiang (Allen-Ebrahimian, 2019). The government used this information to send
suspicious persons away for political reeducation. The vast majority of authoritarian governments are
simply incapable of this kind of surveillance and repression. They lack the resources (human and
material) and technological sophistication to do what China has done.
Additionally, China is better able to use mass repression because Buddhists and Muslims
account for a very small proportion of China’s population. According to the US Office of International
Religious Freedom (2020), out of a population of 1.4 billion in China, there are 14.9 million Muslims in
Xinjiang and 3 million Buddhists in Tibet. Overall, approximately 2% of Chinese people are Muslim and
18.2 percent are Buddhist, but the vast majority of Chinese Buddhists are not affiliated with the Tibetan

43
The Sahrawi identity is contested and although Sahrawis and Moroccans (not mutually exclusive groups) both
speak Arabic, their dialects are distinct.
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Buddhist tradition. China can target these groups because they are relatively small and distinct from the
rest of the population. Repressing a small and distinct portion of the population is less costly than
repressing a larger group because smaller groups will, all else being equal, have fewer sympathizers.
Egypt and Morocco cannot as easily repress all Muslims or all Islamic activity because Muslims account
for an overwhelming majority of their populations. Countries with relatively large religious populations
must accommodate themselves with the fact that stamping out particular religious identities is
extremely costly, if not impossible.
Finally, China is better able than countries like Egypt and Morocco to stave off criticism related
to its repression. China has a seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and a massive domestic
market that foreign countries and companies want to access. China can use its seat on the security
council to block other members from criticizing human rights violations committed by the Chinese
government, and the Chinese government has revoked access to its domestic market to punish those
countries, companies, and persons who publicly disagree with the CCP’s narratives. For example, when
the general manager of an NBA team sent a tweet in support of the Hong Kong protesters in 2019 the
Chinese government stopped airing any games from that NBA team and threatened to cutoff relations
with the entire NBA. In response, the NBA apologized for the tweet and the general manager was forced
was to delete the offending message (Yglesias, 2019). Similarly, major film studios and actors have been
forced to censor themselves out of fear of offending the CCP (Langmann, 2021). The vast majority of
authoritarian governments, Morocco and Egypt included, do not have this kind of leverage.
To return to my main point, I argue that the Chinese government used mass repression against
external ideological threats in Xinjiang and Tibet because they were more capable of doing so,
repression was less costly, and they are better able to stifle international criticism of their actions. China
used mass repression to do the same things that Morocco and Egypt used religious institutions to do –
convince its citizens that politically dangerous ideas, as those government define them, are
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unacceptable. Egypt and Morocco opted to use religious authorities to persuade their citizens that
extremism contradicts the Islamic tradition and that extremists practice a deviant form of Islam. The CCP
opted to change the kind and number of Muslims and Buddhists that existed in China though coercion
and cultural destruction. All three governments believed their citizens were susceptible to radicalization,
as they defined it. Where they differed was in the tools they had at their disposal to change the minds of
their citizens. If the Moroccan and Egyptian governments had the capability to repress entire religious
traditions, a religious demography amenable to such repression, and the power to ignore or punish
criticism, they would likely would have done what China did. However, Morocco and Egypt, like most
authoritarian governments, lack the power and capability to engage in this kind of repression so they
use propaganda to discredit foreign ideologies, and they instrumentalize religion as one means to do so.
I argue that China is closer to the exception than the rule. We can expect that authoritarian rulers and
governments will take whatever actions they think will ensure their survival, and, so long as their
coercive capacities are limited and the threat of international condemnation looms, they are likely to
instrumentalize religion when it suits their needs.
Avenues for Future Research
This dissertation offered a new and substantial evidence to explain when authoritarian leaders
choose to instrumentalize religion, but there are many more ways future scholarship can contribute to
our understanding of the instrumentalization of religion. First, researchers can examine the
instrumentalization of religion outside of the Middle East and North Africa. It is possible that dictators in
other regions would choose to instrumentalize religion in different ways or in response to different
threats. Governments in other regions may be less fearful of some ideologies (like terrorism) or much
more fearful of others (like Marxism or liberalism). Cross-regional work will also help us understand the
role legitimizing narratives play in a government’s decision to instrumentalize religion. This dissertation
examined two distinct legitimizing narratives in Egypt and Morocco, but both regimes based at least part
189

of their legitimacy in the protection of the Islamic community. It is quite plausible that Muslim-majority
countries in a region like Central Asia, with its history of imposed secularism, might instrumentalize
Islam differently. Without more cross-regional work, we cannot understand how different histories,
different regional conflicts, and different religious demographics affect a government’s decision to
instrumentalize religion.
Second, researchers should continue to examine the instrumentalization of different religious
traditions. There has been valuable research on the instrumentalization of Shia Islam (Tabaar, 2018),
Catholicism (Luft, 2020), and, of course, Sunni Islam (Rubin, 2017; Platteau, 2017), but researchers
should examine the instrumentalization of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Confucianism in
authoritarian contexts. Researching specific religious traditions could possibly support essentializing
narratives, but any scholar of comparative religion would recognize that different religions have
different authority structures, institutions, and narratives. Those differences might affect, how, when,
and whether a religious tradition is instrumentalized. For example, Sunni Islam has no accepted
hierarchical structure. Sunni religious leaders can establish their authority in a multitude of ways.
Catholicism, on the other hand, has a clear a historically accepted authority structure that stems from
the Vatican. These different authority structures might affect how these religious traditions are
coopted, and how effectively religious institutions can disseminate political messages. Similarly, the
credibility cost of instrumentalization might be different depending on the religion being
instrumentalized. It is possible that some narratives are more amenable to politicization then others. I
would expect that different religions would be instrumentalized in similar ways, but that claim remains
speculative until more comparative work is done.
Third, scholars should examine how religion is instrumentalized through different religious
institutions and different religious media in response to the same threats. It is possible that educational
institutions would be instrumentalized in response to some threats and religious leaders in response to
190

others. There have been studies of specific sets of institutions (Feuer, 2017), and my research looked at
religious institutions under government control as a whole, but to understand the role played by specific
institutions we need to see how different institutions respond to the same threats. Religious institutions
may have different kinds of authority or different sources of legitimacy, so they may be instrumentalized
in different ways at different times. The same logic applies to religious propaganda. There are numerous
mediums in which religious messages are broadcast – sermons, religious radio programs, religious tv
shows, religious magazines, public speeches by politicians, press releases by religious institutions, etc.
Different mediums have different audiences, so it is possible that governments tailor their responses to
some audiences and not others, but more fine-grained work is necessary to understand if this is the
case.
Fourth, scholars should examine how different authoritarian governments instrumentalize
religion in response to the same threat. Different regimes and leaders might interpret the same threats
in different ways. For example, the Islamic Revolution in Iran might have been seen as more of a threat
in Saudi Arabia than in Morocco. Saudi Arabia is closer to Iran and its government controls Islam’s
holiest site, so it is plausible that Saudi Arabia would instrumentalize Islam in a different way than
Morocco even though both were threatened by the Islamic Revolution. This kind of cross-sectional
analysis can help us understand what kind of ideologies/movements are threatening, and what makes
one ideology/movement more threatening than another in specific countries. Rubin’s (2014) book, in
which he examined the Egyptian and Saudi governments’ responses to the Islamic Revolution and the
1989 coup in Sudan in which Islamists seized power, is a good example of this kind of work, but there
needs to be more of this kind of scholarship. There are many instances, particularly the War on Terror,
which are ripe for cross-sectional analysis.
Fifth, there is a need for more experimental work on the effectiveness of instrumentalizing
religion. Williamson et al. (2020) and Sheline (2019) have done admirable work in this area. Sheline used
191

a survey experiment to find that Morocco’s citizens were most likely to agree with religious statements
made by King Mohammed VI, but the figure with the second highest religious influence was the leader
of ISIS at that time – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. This finding suggests that the king’s instrumentalization of
religion is broadly effective, but that Moroccans are still influenced by religious authorities outside of
the state’s control. Williamson et al. (2020:1) found that “open political involvement undermines the
authority of religious leaders, even when individuals agree with their political stances” and “religious
leaders are perceived as more authoritative when they position themselves as apolitical experts.”
Experiments are necessary for this kind of work because, despite their flaws, they are the best method
to test the effectiveness of instrumentalization. No other method can do as good a job of capturing the
impact of instrumentalization on individuals. Understanding the relative effectiveness of
instrumentalization will help us understand when it is costly and how costly different forms of
instrumentalization might be. The two works I referenced are excellent examples of this kind of
scholarship, but scholars can make valuable contributions to this field by testing the effectiveness of
different religious messages, the effectiveness of repeating particular messages, and the authority of
religious messengers.
Religious traditions have been instrumentalized by authoritarian governments for as long as
authoritarian governments have existed. This dissertation has been the culmination of nearly a decade’s
worth of work to understand when and why those governments instrumentalize religion. My hope is
that this work will help scholars of authoritarian politics understand how religion becomes politicized,
and how religion can be used to serve the interests of political leaders who want to protect their power
at all costs.

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Dar al-Ifta. (2016f). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin hādith al-dahasa al-irhābiyya fī birlīn [Mufti condemns
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Dar al-Ifta. (2016g). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yustaqbil al-a’mīn al-a’ām al-‘islāmiyy li-baḥath taa’zīz al-
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Dar al-Ifta. (2016h). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yustaqbil wafdā ghinīyyā rafīa’ al-mustawā li-baḥath taa’zīz al-
ta’āwan al-dīniyy bayna al- dār wa al-‘iftā’ ghinīyyā [Mufti welcomes high level Guinean delegation
to strengthen religious cooperation between Dar al-ifta and Guinea]. Retrieved
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li-tadshīn mashrūa’ “tashrīḥ al-a’ql al-mutaṭaraf” [Dar al-ifta attracts talent in fighting extremism
and terrorism and to launch the "Anatomy of the Terrorist Mind" project]. Retrieved
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alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5254&%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%
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Dar al-Ifta. (2017b). ba’da ‘ia’lān al-suluṭāt al-amrīkiyya ‘an harīq tiksās muta’amad … marṣad al-
islamūfūbiyyā yaḥadhir min al-taṭawwur al-nawa’iyy li-‘aa’māl al-u’nf ḍid al-muslimīn [After the
announcement by American authorities that the Texas fire was premeditated...the Islamophobia
Observatory warns of developing violence against Muslims]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4781&%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF_%D8%A5%D8
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%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%AF_.._%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8
%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88%D9%81%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A7_%D9%8A%D8
%AD%D8%B0%D8%B1_%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B7%D9%88%D8%B1_%
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Dar al-Ifta. (2017c). Dār al-iftāʾ tanẓim mu’tamarhā al-a’ālamiyy al-thālith fī 17 uʾktūbir wa wufūd min
a’kthar min 50 dawla [Dar al-ifta organizes third global summit on October 18 and welcomes the
participation of delegations of more than 50 states]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5405&__%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D
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1%D9%A7_%D8%A3%D9%83%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%
82%D8%A8%D9%84_%D8%A8%D9%85%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%83%D8%A9_%D9%88%D9
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Dar al-Ifta. (2017d). fī a’hdath taqārīrhi bi munāsaba tanṣib dunāld trāmb marṣad islamūfūbiyyā:
Tawajhāt al-‘idāra al-amrīkiyya al-jadīda tastad’iya min al-muslmīin al-tūwāṣul bayn al-i`slam al-
ṣaḥiḥ wa naza’āt al-taṭaraf [In the latest report on the inauguration of Donald Trump, the
Islamophobia Observatory: The views of the new American administration compels Muslims to
communicate clearly the difference between true Islam and extremism]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4746&%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A3%D8%AD%D8
%AF%D8%AB_%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%87_%D8%A8%D9%85%D
9%86%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%B5%D9%8A%D8%A8_%D8%AF%
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%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88
%D9%81%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A7:_%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A
A_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%
85%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%
AF%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%8A_%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%A7%D
9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%88%D
8%A7%D8%B5%D9%84_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%AF_%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AA%
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%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D8%AD%D9%8A%D8%AD_%D9%88%D9%8
6%D8%B2%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B7%D8%B1%D9%81
Dar al-Ifta. (2017e). Marṣad al-‘iftā’: Al-ikhwān a’wal min haraḍu ḍid a’qbāṭ miṣr wa “dāi’sh” tasīr
a’lā khuṭā al-jamāa’a [Observatory: The Brotherhood were the first to incite against Egypt’s Copts,
and ISIS follows in their footsteps]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5611&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
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Dar al-Ifta. (2017f). Marṣad al-iftā’ : Al-ikhwān yahāwlūn istiftā turkiyyā’ i`lā ghazwa al-dīnya tadafa’
naḥwa al-ṣirāa’ al-dīniyy wa al-‘iydiyūlūjiyya [Observatory: Brotherhood is transforming the Turkish
referendum to a religious invasion that pushes Turkey towards religious and ideological conflict].
Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4948&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
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204

Dar al-Ifta. (2017g). Marṣad al-islamūfūbiyyā yuthaman ‘ishāda ra’īs al-namsā bi al-mawlūda al-muslima
“a’sīl” [Islamophobia Observatory expresses appreciation for Austrian president’s praise of Muslim
newborn Asil]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5620&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88%D9%81%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%
8A%D8%A7_%D9%8A%D8%AB%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%A5%D8%B4%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%A9_%D
8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%A7_%D8%A8%
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Dar al-Ifta. (2017h). Muftī al-jumhūriyya – al- sha’b wa al-jaysh wa al-shurṭa takātfu al-a’ qalb rajul
wāḥid li-l-qaḍā’ a’lā al-irhāb mahamā kalaf dhalik [Mufti: The people, the army, and the police are
one in eliminating terrorist at any cost]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5463&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9:__-
_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A8_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%B
4_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%B7%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D9%83%D8%A7%D8%
AA%D9%81%D9%88%D8%A7_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D9%82%D9%84%D8%A8_%D8%B1%D8
%AC%D9%84_%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%AF_%D9%84%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B6%D8%A7%D
8%A1_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8_
%D9%85%D9%87%D9%85%D8%A7_%D9%83%D9%84%D9%81_%D8%B0%D9%84%D9%83
Dar al-Ifta. (2017i). Muftī al-jumhūriyya fī al-dhikrā taḥrīr saynā’: Al-sha’b al-miṣriyy wa jayshhi al-bāsil
ḍarbā ‘arwa’ ‘amthila al-fidā’ wa al-istibsal fī taḥrīr saynā’ [Mufti on the anniversary of the
liberation of Sinai: The Egyptian people and its valiant army set an example of sacrifice and
determination in the liberation of Sinai]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4969&_%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
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%A1_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84_%D
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D8%A1
Dar al-Ifta. (2017j). Muftī al-jumhūriyya fī ḥiwārhi al-yūm bi birnāmaj “min māsbīrū” a’lā al-tilīfiziyyun al-
miṣriyy bi al-munāsaba al-isti’dād li-shahr ramaḍān [The mufti in conversation on "From Maspero"
on Egyptian television on preparing for the month of Ramadan]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5051&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D
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Dar al-Ifta. (2017k). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin al-a’maliyya al-‘irhābiyya a’lā jāmia’a māydūjūriyy bi
nījīriyya [The mufti condemns a terrorist operation against Maiduguri University in Nigeria].
Retrieved from https://www.dar-
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alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4737&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9
%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D
8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%AC%
D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A9_%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%AC%D9%88%
D8%B1%D9%8A_%D8%A8%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A
Dar al-Ifta. (2017l). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin al-a’maliyya al-‘irhābiyya a’lā kamīn al-naqab bi al-
wādī al-jadīd [Mufti condemns terrorist operation in Negev in New Valley]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4734&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9
%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D
8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D9%83%
D9%85%D9%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%82%D8%A8_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84
%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF
Dar al-Ifta. (2017m). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin al-a’maliyya al-‘irhābiyya a’lā kanīsa “mārmīna” bi
hilwān [Mufti condemns terrorist operation on St. Menas church in Helwan]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5608&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9
%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D
8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D9%83%
D9%86%D9%8A%D8%B3%D8%A9_
Dar al-Ifta. (2017n). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin bi shidda al-hajūm al-‘irhābiyy al-khasīs a’lā quwāt al-
shurṭa bi al-a’rīsh … wa yua’kid: Al-‘irhāb lan yazīdna ‘ilā quwwa wa ‘iṣrār a’lā ‘itjthāth jadhūrhi al-
shaytāniyya [Mufti strongly condemns the treacherous terrorist attack on police in Arish...he
affirmed: Terrorism will always makes us stronger and we determined to eradicate its demonic
roots]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5367&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9
%8A%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%B4%D8%AF%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%AC%D9%88%D
9%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%84%
D8%AE%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%B3_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D9%82%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA_
%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%B7%D8%A9_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1
%D9%8A%D8%B4_%E2%80%A6_%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%A4%D9%83%D8%AF:_%D8%A7%D9%84%
D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8_%D9%84%D9%86_%D9%8A%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%AF
%D9%86%D8%A7_%D8%A5%D9%84%D8%A7_%D9%82%D9%88%D8%A9_%D9%88%D8%A5%D8%
B5%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8B%D8%A7_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8
%AA%D8%AB%D8%A7%D8%AB_%D8%AC%D8%B0%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%87_%D8%A7%D9%84%D
8%B4%D9%8A%D8%B7%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9
Dar al-Ifta. (2017o). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yustahllu liqā’āthi fī tāylānd bi ‘ijtimāa’ mawsa’ ma’ majlis
shaykh al-‘islām fī tāylānd wa al-qā’mīn a’lā hay’a al-‘ifta’ hunāk [Mufti begins meetings in
Thailand with Council of Islamic Shaykhs in Thailand who are in charge of fatwa authority there].
Retrieved from https://www.dar-
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alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4905&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%B3%D8
%AA%D9%87%D9%84%D9%91%D9%8F_%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%A1%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9
%87_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AF_%D8%A8%
D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B9_%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%B9_%D9%85
%D8%B9_%D9%85%D8%AC%D9%84%D8%B3_%D8%B4%D9%8A%D8%AE_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%
A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%84%D8
%A7%D9%86%D8%AF_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%85%D9%8A%D9
%86_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%A6%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%
D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D9%87%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%83
Dar al-Ifta. (2017p). Muftī al-jumhūriyya: Fī birnāmaj “ma’ al- muftī” al-madhaāa’ a’lā al-qanāa al-nās: -
ba’ḍ u’lamā’ al-mālikiyya qālu ‘in al-niqāb makrūh [Mufti on his program "With the Mufti"
broadcast on al-Nas channel: Some Maliki ulama said that the niqab is makruh]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5537&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D
8%A8%D8%B1%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%AC_
Dar al-Ifta. (2017q). Tashrīa’ sajda al-shukr min min ā`jl wujūb shukr allah a’zza wa jall a’nd huduth
na’ma ā`w dafa’ baliyya [Legality of the prostration of thanks and expressing gratitude for the
blessing of God when a blessing occurs or a calamity is repelled]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=4974&%D8%AA%D8%B4%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%
B9_%D8%B3%D8%AC%D8%AF%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%83%D8%B1_%D9%85%D9
%86_%D8%A3%D8%AC%D9%84_%D9%88%D8%AC%D9%88%D8%A8_%D8%B4%D9%83%D8%B1_
%D9%86%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84%D9%87_%D8%B9%D8%B2_%D9%8
8%D8%AC%D9%84_%D8%B9%D9%86%D8%AF_%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%AB_%D9%86%D8
%B9%D9%85%D8%A9_%D8%A3%D9%88_%D8%AF%D9%81%D8%B9_%D8%A8%D9%84%D9%8A%
D8%A9
Dar al-Ifta. (2018a). Marṣad al-‘iftā’ ya’ṣdir taqrīrā ḥawla tahdīdāt dāi’sh li-mūndīāl rūsiyā 2018 [Fatwa
Observatory issues report on ISIS threats against the World Cup in Russia 2018]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5850&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D9%8A%D8%B5%D8%AF%D8%B1_%D
8%AA%D9%82%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%8B%D8%A7_%D8%AD%D9%88%D9%84_%D8%AA%
D9%87%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4_%D9%84
%D9%85%D9%88%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%84_%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D9%8A
%D8%A7_2018
Dar al-Ifta. (2018b). Marṣad al-‘iftā’: Mua’shir al-‘irhāb fī ‘usbūa’ … (21) a’maliyya -‘irhābiyya tastahadif
13 dawla wa ta’waqaa’ 72 qatīlān wa 182 jariḥan [Observatory: Weekly terror index ... 21 terrorist
operations targeting 13 states, killing 72 and injuring 182]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6045&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1:_%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%B4%D8%B1_%
D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A3%D8%B3
%D8%A8%D9%88%D8%B9_..(21)_%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A5%D8%B1%
D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%AF%D9%81_
207

13_%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%84%D8%A9_%D9%88%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%82%D8%B9_72_%D9%82
%D8%AA%D9%8A%D9%84%D9%8B%D8%A7_%D9%88182_%D8%AC%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AD%D
9%8B%D8%A7
Dar al-Ifta. (2018c). Muftī al-jumhūriyya a’n “shahāda ‘āmān al-miṣrīyyin” al-‘idakhāriyya al-t’āmīniyya:
Sharāwa’ha jā’iz wa ‘ārbāhha ḥalāl wa laysat ribā [Mufti on Egyptian savings certificate: It is
permissible to and profit from it, it is not interest]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5710&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%B9%D9%86_
Dar al-Ifta. (2018d). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin bi shidda al-i’tidā’ al-irhābiyya a’lā ḥāfila bi ṭarīq dīr
al-‘ānbā ṣamwa’īl bi al-minyā. wa yu’akkid: Al-dam al-miṣrī wāhid wa lā tafriqa bayna muslim wa
‘āhīhu al-masīḥiyy [Mufti strongly condemns terrorist attack bus in Minya. He affirmed: Egyptian
blood is one and there is no difference between Muslims and their brother Christians]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6124&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9
%8A%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%B4%D8%AF%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AA%D
8%AF%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A_%
D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%AD%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%84%D8%A9_%D8%A8%D8%B7%D8%B1
%D9%8A%D9%82_%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%A8%D8%A
7_%D8%B5%D9%85%D9%88%D8%A6%D9%8A%D9%84_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%
86%D9%8A%D8%A7._%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%A4%D9%83%D8%AF:_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9
%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1%D9%8A_%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%AF_%
D9%88%D9%84%D8%A7_%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%82%D8%A9_%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86_
%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%85_%D9%88%D8%A3%D8%AE%D9%8A%D9%87_%D8%A7%D9%8
4%D9%85%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%AD%D9%8A"
Dar al-Ifta. (2018e). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin bi shidda al-tafjīr al-intiḥāriyy bi ‘āḥad masājid
‘āfghānistān ‘āthnā’ ṣalāh al-juma’a [Mufti condemns the suicide bombing of a mosque in
Afghanistan during Friday prayer]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5953&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9
%8A%D9%86_%D8%A8%D8%B4%D8%AF%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%AC%D
9%8A%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A_%
D8%A8%D8%A3%D8%AD%D8%AF_%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%AF_%D8%A3%D9%81
%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A3%D8%AB%D9%86%D8%A7
%D8%A1_%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%A
9
Dar al-Ifta. (2018f). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yuhanni’u al-ra’īs al-sīsī wa al-sha’b al-miṣrī bi al-dhikrā al-
khāmisa li-“thawra 30 yūniyū”: Istijāba li-‘irāda al-waṭan fī muwājaha al-mutaṭarif wa al-irhāb
[Mufti congratulates president Sisi and the Egyptian people on the fifth anniversary of the June 30
Revolution: Responding to the will of the nation in the face of extremism and terrorism]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=5858&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D9%87%D9
%86%D8%A6_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D
208

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D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1%D9%8A_%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%89_
%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%A9_%D9%84%D9%80_
Dar al-Ifta. (2019a). ‘āmāna al-‘iftā’ al-a’ālamiyya taṣadar a’didha al-khāmis min nashra “jasur” fī dhikrā
al-hijra al-nabawiyya [General Secretariat publishes fifth edition of "Bridges” on the anniversary of
the Hijra]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6678&%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%
A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8
%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%AF%D8%B1_%D8%B9%D8%AF%D
8%AF%D9%87%D8%A7_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B3_%D9%85%D9%86_%
D9%86%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%A9_
Dar al-Ifta. (2019b). Al-mu’ashir al-a’ālamiyy li-l-fatwā – “fatwā a‘īd al-‘umm“ .. bayna al-kafir wa al-
taḥrīm wa al-ibāḥa [Global Fatwa Index: "Mother's Day fatwas' between kafir, prohibition, and
permissible]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6427&%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%
B4%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A_%D9%84%D9%84%D9
%81%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%89:__-_________
Dar al-Ifta. (2019c). Dār al-‘iftā’ tawajaha risāla ‘ilā al-shabāb a’bra al-mūshin jirāfīk: Shabābkum ni’ma
f-istithmarūhu fī al-khīr [Dar al-ifta sends a message to youth with an animation: Your youth is a
blessing, so invest in it]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6874&%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9
%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%AC%D9%87_%D8%B1%D
8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9_%D8%A5%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%A8%
D8%A7%D8%A8_%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B4%D9%86_
%D8%AC%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%81%D9%8A%D9%83:_%D8%B4%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8
3%D9%85_%D9%86%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%A9_%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%AB%D9%
85%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%87_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%8A%D8%B1
Dar al-Ifta. (2019d). fī al-dhikrā al-sādisa al-‘irhabiyya fī maydānī rāba’a wa al-nahḍa … marṣad al-‘iftā’ :
Al-sanawāt al-māḍiyya ‘athbatat li-l-a’ālam ṣidq al-rū’ya al-miṣriyya tijāha al-jamāa’a al-
irhabiyya [On the sixth anniversary of the dispersal of terrorists at the al-Rabaa and al-Nahda
squares ... The observatory: The past years have established to the world the sincerity of Egyptian
approach towards terrorist groups]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6643&%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8
%B0%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%AF%D8%B3%D8%A9_%D
9%84%D9%81%D8%B6_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D
8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%81%
D9%8A_%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%8A_%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B9
%D8%A9_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%86%D9%87%D8%B6%D8%A9_..._%D9%85%D8%B1%D8
%B5%D8%AF_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1:_%D8%A7%D9%84%
D8%B3%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B6%D9%8A%
D8%A9_%D8%A3%D8%AB%D8%A8%D8%AA%D8%AA_%D9%84%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84
%D9%85_%D8%B5%D8%AF%D9%82_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D8%A4%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%
A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%AA%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%87_%D8
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%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9
%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9
Dar al-Ifta. (2019e). Marṣad al-‘iftā’ yaṣdar dirāsa bi-a’nwān “maẓlūmiyya jamāa’a al-ikhwān al-
irhabiyya” .. al-dawāfa’ wa al-mālāt [Observatory issues report with the title "Injustice of the
Terrorist Brotherhood .. Motives and Outcomes']. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6372&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D9%8A%D8%B5%D8%AF%D8%B1_%D
8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9_%D8%A8%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86_
Dar al-Ifta. (2019f). Marṣad al-islamūfūbiyya yastankir bi shidda da’wa barlamāniyy hūlandiyy mutaṭarif
li-musābaqa rusum kārīkātūriyya li-l-nabiyy muhammad [Islamophobia Observatory strongly
denounces Dutch parliamentarian for calling for a contest to draw caricatures of the prophet
Mohammed]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6929&
Dar al-Ifta. (2019g). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yudayyin al-hujūm al-irhabiyy a’lā mala’b kura qadam “kirkūk”
bi-al-i’rāq … wa yu’akkid: Istihdāf al-‘aminayn wa al-‘abriyā’ ya’kis al-fakr al-ẓalāmiyy al-a’bithiyy li-
l-jamāa’āt al-irhābiyya [Mufti condemns terrorist attack on soccer stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq ... He
affirmed: Targeting civilians and the innocent reflect the dark and absurd ideology of terrorist
groups]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6670&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9
%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%AC%D9%88%D9%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D
8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D9%85%D9%84%D8%B9%
D8%A8_%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%A9_%D9%82%D8%AF%D9%85_%D8%A8%D9%80
Dar al-Ifta. (2019h). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yustaqbil ra’īs dīwān al-sunniyy fī al-i’rāq li-baḥath taa’zīz al-
ta’āwan al-dīniyy fī majāl makāfaḥa al-taṭarif [Mufti welcomes head of Sunni waqf office in Iraq to
strengthen religious cooperation in the field of combatting extremism]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6397&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%B3%D8
%AA%D9%82%D8%A8%D9%84_%D8%B1%D8%A6%D9%8A%D8%B3_%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%88%D
8%A7%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D9%82%D9%81_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%86%D
9%8A_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%82_%D9%84%D8%A8
%D8%AD%D8%AB_%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%B2_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%
B9%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%86_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D9%85%D8%AC%D8%A7%D9%84_%D9%85%D9
%83%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%AD%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B7%D8%B1%D9%81
Dar al-Ifta. (2019i). Taht miẓalla al-‘amāna al-a’āma wa hay’āt al-‘iftā’ fī al-a’ālam … takhrīj 17 min
‘a’imma ‘afrīqīyā baa’d tadrībhum a’lā al-‘iftā’ wa muwājaha al-taṭarif [Under the umbrella of the
General Secretariat of Fatwa Authorities: 17 African imams graduate after being trained on fatwas
and confronting extremism]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6476&%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%AA_%D9%85%D8
%B8%D9%84%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D
9%84%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A9_%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%B1_%D9%88%D9%87%D
9%8A%D8%A6%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%
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1%D9%8A%D8%AC_17_%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%A3%D8%A6%D9%85%D8%A9_%D8%A3%D9%81%
D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%82%D9%8A%D8%A7_%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF_%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%B1
%D9%8A%D8%A8%D9%87%D9%85_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%8
1%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D9%88%D9%85%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AC%D9%87%D8%A9_%D8%
A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B7%D8%B1%D9%81
Dar al-Ifta. (2020a). baa’d fataḥa al-masājid … dār al-‘iftā’ taqaddam majmūa’a min al-niṣa’iḥ al-
shara’iyya li-l-ta’āyash ma’ fīrūs kūrūnā [After the opening of mosques... Dar al-ifta provides legal
advice for coexisting with the coronavirus]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=7158&%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF_%D9%81%D8
%AA%D8%AD_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%AF_..._%D8%AF%D8%A7
%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D8%AA%D9%82%D8%A
F%D9%85_%D9%85%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%88%D8%B9%D8%A9_%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%
84%D9%86%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%AD_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B1%D8%B9%D9%
8A%D8%A9_%D9%84%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%8A%D8%B4_%D9%85%D8%B9_%D
9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3_%D9%83%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86%D8%A7\
Dar al-Ifta. (2020b). Dār al-‘iftā’ al-miṣriyya: Al-jamāa’āt al-‘irhābiyya wa qanawātha al-mashbūha
ta’ammadt taḥrīf taṣrīhāt muftī al-jumhūriyya bi-sh’an al-marākiz al-‘islāmiyya fī al-garb [Dar al-
ifta: Terrorist groups and their channels deliberately distorted comments from the mufti on Islamic
centers in the West]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=7263&%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9
%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D8%B1%D9
%8A%D8%A9:-
_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A
5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%88%D9%82%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A
7%D8%AA%D9%87%D8%A7_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B4%D8%A8%D9%88%D9%87%D8%A
9_%D8%AA%D8%B9%D9%85%D8%AF%D8%AA_%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%81_%D8
%AA%D8%B5%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%
D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D8%A8%D8%B4%
D8%A3%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%83%D8%B2_%D8%A7%D9%84
%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%A7%D9%8
4%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8
Dar al-Ifta. (2020c). Dār al-‘iftā’ ta’līqān a’lā al-tabāa’d bayna al-maṣlayn fī ṣalāh al-jumāa’: ‘amr maṭlūb
wa lā yu’athir ṣiḥa al- ṣalāh [Dar al-Ifta comments on distancing between worshippers for Friday
prayer: It is required and does not affect the validity of prayer]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=7157&%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D8%A7%D9
%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D8%AA%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%82%D9
%8B%D8%A7_%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B9%D
8%AF_%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%86_%
D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7
%D8%B9%D8%A9:_%D8%A3%D9%85%D8%B1_%D9%85%D8%B7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%A8_%D9%
88%D9%84%D8%A7_%D9%8A%D8%A4%D8%AB%D8%B1_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D8%B5%D8%AD%D
8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B5%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%A9
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Dar al-Ifta. (2020d). Marṣad al-‘iftā’ yahadhar min taṣāa’ud hajamāt al-‘irhābiyya shimāl al-kāmīrūn wa
yudayyin maqtal 7 ‘ashkhāṣ fī hajūm intiḥāriyy bi ‘iḥdā al-qurā [Observatory warns of more terrorist
attacks in northern Cameroon and condemns the killing of 7 people in a suicide attack in a village].
Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=7223&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1_%D9%8A%D8%AD%D8%B0%D8%B1_%D
9%85%D9%86_%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%AF_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%87%D8%AC%
D9%85%D8%A7%D8%AA_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%8A%
D8%A9_%D8%B4%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A
%D8%B1%D9%88%D9%86_%D9%88%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86_%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A
A%D9%84_7_%D8%A3%D8%B4%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B5_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D9%87%D8%AC%
D9%88%D9%85_%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A_%D8%A8%D8%A5
%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%89_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%B1%D9%89
Dar al-Ifta. (2020e). Marṣad al-‘iftā’: Fīrus “shā’i’āt wa ‘akādhīb” al-‘ikhwān wa al-jamāa’āt al-‘irhābiyya
yasa’ā ‘ilā tashwīh al-mū’asasāt al-waṭaniyya wa batha al-firqa bayna ‘ibnā’ al-waṭan
[Observatory: The virus of rumors and lies from the brotherhood and terrorist groups seek to
distort national institutions and spread fractionalism between sons of the nation]. Retrieved
from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=7233&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A1:_%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%B1%D9%88%D
8%B3_%22
Dar al-Ifta. (2020f). Marṣad al-islamūfūbiyyā yaraḥib bi-qirār tadrrīs al-diyāna al-‘islāmiyya fī ‘iqlīm
katālūnīā dākhil al-madāris al-a’āma [Islamophobia Observatory welcomes the decision to teach
the Islamic religion in public schools in Catalonia]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=7231&%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B5%D8%AF_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%88%D9%81%D9%88%D8%A8%D9%
8A%D8%A7_%D9%8A%D8%B1%D8%AD%D8%A8_%D8%A8%D9%82%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%B1_%D
8%AA%D8%AF%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B3_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%86%D
8%A9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%81%
D9%8A_%D8%A5%D9%82%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%85_%D9%83%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88
%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A7_%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%AE%D9%84_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A
F%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B3_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%A9
Dar al-Ifta. (2020g). Muftī al-jumhūriyya fī kalimathi bi mū’tamar al-‘azhar li-tajdīd al-fakr wa al-a’lūm
al-‘islāmiyya: Tajdīd al-khiṭābi al-dīniyy al-fakriyyi wa al-da’wiyy min al-maḥām al-a’ṣīla wa al-
‘asāsiyya li-mū’asasātna al-dīniyya al-a’rīqa [Mufti in speech at Azhari conference on renewing
religious thought and Islamic sciences: Renewing religious and intellectual discourse is one of the
most important missions of our ancient religious institutions]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6983&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%81%D9%8A_%D
9%83%D9%84%D9%85%D8%AA%D9%87_%D8%A8%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%B1_%
D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B2%D9%87%D8%B1_%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%
D8%AF_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%83%D8%B1_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%84%
D9%88%D9%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%A9:_
%D8%AA%D8%AC%D8%AF%D9%8A%D8%AF%D9%8F_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D8%B7%D8%A7
%D8%A8%D9%90_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%8A%D9%91%D9%90_%D9%8
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8%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D9%83%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%91%D9%90_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84
%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%88%D9%8A_%D9%85%D9%86_%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%87%D8%A7
%D9%85_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B5%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9_%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%8
4%D8%A3%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A4%D8%B3%D8%B
3%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%86%D8%A7_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A
9_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%82%D8%A9
Dar al-Ifta. (2020h). Muftī al-jumhūriyya yastabqbil muftī kūsūfū li-baḥath taa’zīz al-ta’āwan al-dīniyy
bayna al- dār wa kūsūfū [Mufti welcomes mufti of Kosovo to strengthen religious cooperation
between the Dar and Kosovo]. Retrieved from https://www.dar-
alifta.org/ar/Viewstatement.aspx?sec=media&ID=6986&%D9%85%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%8A_%D8
%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A9_%D9%8A%D8%B3%D8
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8
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Abstract (if available)

Abstract This dissertation attempts to explain why authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion selectively, and why authoritarian governments choose to instrumentalize religion when they do. I argue that instrumentalizing religion is costly. First, governments must either invest in the capacity to force religious institutions and authorities to do their bidding, or they must offer incentives to secure the cooperation of religious institutions and authorities. Second, when governments instrumentalize religion they risk diminishing the credibility of the religious authorities, institutions, and rhetoric being instrumentalized. I argue that the potential benefits of instrumentalization outweigh its potential costs when authoritarian governments lack other options for dealing with political threats. More specifically, I argue that governments will bear the costs of instrumentalization in the aftermath of an attempted coup, as they will likely use religion as one means of reestablishing their legitimacy. I also argue that governments are more likely to instrumentalize religion to discredit ideological groups that they cannot coopt or coerce, and less likely to instrumentalize religion against groups that they can coopt or coerce. This dissertation tests this theory in three ways. It examines when and why the Moroccan monarchy instrumentalized religion through the regulation of religious institutions, creation of new religious institutions, and alliances with religious groups. It analyzes how the monarchy instrumentalized religious rhetoric through Dawa al-Haqq ¬– a monthly magazine produced by the Moroccan Ministry of Islamic Affairs. It also evaluates how the Egyptian government instrumentalized religious rhetoric through Dar al-Ifta – a governmental body responsible for giving Islamic legal opinions.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Knafou, Brian Joseph (author)

Core Title Authoritarian religion: explaining when and why authoritarian governments instrumentalize religion

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Political Science and International Relations

Degree Conferral Date 2022-05

Publication Date 04/08/2022

Defense Date 01/31/2022

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag authoritarianism,comparative politics,Egyptian politics,Middle East politics,Moroccan politics,OAI-PMH Harvest,Political science,religion and politics,religious propaganda

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Brand, Laurie (committee chair), Seib, Philip (committee chair), Carter, Brett (committee member), Munck, Gerardo (committee member)

Creator Email knafou@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC110920249

Unique identifier UC110920249

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Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Knafou, Brian Joseph

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Source 20220411-usctheses-batch-921 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

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