Morocco, the Land of the Extreme West 121 



The authority of the Sultan may be 

 described as somewhat tempered by the 

 Ulema. These Ulema are the "learned in 

 the law." The name comes from the 

 verb "elm" or "ulm," which means "to 

 learn." They, together with the Chereefs 

 and the Marabouts, are really the only 

 authentic representatives of popular opin- 

 ion in a country where there is no press. 

 One of the greatest mistakes that this 

 young Sultan committed after the death 

 of that great negro regent was that he 

 paid no attention to the opinion of these 

 Ulema. He has had occasion since to 

 greatly repent of this error. 



THE LAWYER IS ALSO A CLERGYMAN 



There is no distinction between pro- 

 fessors of law and theology in any Mo- 

 hammedan country, for the reason that 

 the whole code is extracted from the 

 Koran itself ; it is based upon Koranic 

 precepts or on the various Hadiths. The 

 Hadiths are the traditions, the sayings, 

 attributed to Mohammed or to his imme- 

 diate successors. From this work we get 

 the whole body of the law ; so that any 

 one who is a member of this class of the 

 Ulema or who, in other words, has taken 

 his degree at the university or at the 

 great mosque of Idris may be either a 

 cleric (or divine) and go into the 

 mosques and preach, or he may enter the 

 mosques to devote himself to education 

 as a professor. It all depends upon his 

 power to attract classes. He does not 

 have to ask permission from any au- 

 thority, but can take up his quarters 

 and hold forth, as lawyers and clergy all 

 pass through exactly the same education 

 and can occupy at pleasure one post or 

 the other. Indeed, my family solicitor at 

 Tangier was an incumbent of -the prin- 

 cipal mosque there and read the service 

 regularly every Friday. He was a capa- 

 ble gentleman and, so far as my ex- 

 perience with him went, a very honorable 

 and straightforward character, with a 

 good deal of capacity. 



Now, unfortunately these traditions do 



not come to the people directly. They 

 have gone through the hands of a series 

 of commentators, from whom are derived 

 the different religious sects, of which there 

 are four very prominent ones. They are 

 called the Hanifi, the Chaafi, the Hanbali, 

 and the Malaki. This last is the prev- 

 alent sect in Morocco. The only Mo- 

 hammedan countries I know which are 

 followers of this particular rite, which is 

 the most narrow of all the sects of Mo- 

 hammedanism, are Morocco and Af- 

 ghanistan in Asia. 



To come back to the situation in Mo- 

 rocco, I should tell you a little about the 

 peculiarity of the government. The gov- 

 ernment functionaries, from the Sultan 

 down to the lowest grades, form what is 

 called the Mekhazen, which is derived 

 from a verb "hzn," meaning "to bind." 



I believe the word was first applied to 

 that portion of the land or of the crops 

 which, according to tradition, was set 

 aside for the government and over which 

 administrators were appointed. As the 

 Sultan of Morocco and his cabinet min- 

 isters were the chief administrators of 

 this treasury or magazine, they are the 

 beneficiaries of the term and they are 

 called the Mekhazen. The government 

 of Morocco is always spoken of as El 

 Mekhazen and the officials, from the Sul- 

 tan down to the guards and minor em- 

 ployees, are termed Mekhaznia. Curi- 

 ously enough, from this word Mekhazen, 

 meaning "a warehouse," we probably get 

 our expression "magazine." 



The Sultan resides half the year at 

 Fez, founded in 807 by the same Idris, 

 and the other six months at Marakche, 

 founded in 1130, during the reign of Abd 

 El Mumin, the monarch who built a great 

 tower at Rabat and who also played a 

 great role in Spain. Some of the prin- 

 cipal Saracenic buildings there were 

 erected under the influence of his reign. 



THE DIPLOMATIC CAPITAL 



Tangier became the diplomatic capital 

 on account of the extreme inconvenience 



