The New Order and Islamic Order - The Introduction of The Ni Āmī Army in The Western Maghrib and Its Legitimation, 1830-73

The "New Order" and Islamic Order: The Introduction of the Niẓāmī Army in the Western
Maghrib and Its Legitimation, 1830-73

Author(s): Amira K. Bennison
Source: International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Nov., 2004), pp. 591-
612
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3880007
Accessed: 03-05-2024 09:35 +00:00
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Int. J. Middle East Stud. 36 (2004), 591-612. Printed in the United States of America
DOI: 10.1017.S0020743804364044
Amira K. Bennison
THE "NEW ORDER" AND ISLAMIC ORDER: THE

INTRODUCTION OF THE NIZAMIARMY IN THE
WESTERN MAGHRIB AND ITS LEGITIMATION,
1830-73
In July 1830, a French expeditionary force landed west of Algiers and rapidly captured
the city using artillery bombardment. Although the eventual outcome of this event-
the French colonization of Algeria-was not immediately evident, the force's arrival
swiftly introduced a new dynamic to the political configurations and conflicts that
subsequently developed: the encounter with modern Europe. As in the Islamic East,
this manifested itself first in the military sphere, where reform appeared necessary to
consolidate unstable domestic political structures and provide a measure of protection
against European territorial expansion. Changing military practices then became part of
a larger context of reform, engagement with Europe, and resistance to colonialism. This
process first affected Algeria but rapidly spread into the neighboring 'Alawi sultanate of
Morocco, where it defined relations between the state and society until the imposition
of the French and Spanish protectorates in 1912.
Military reform entailed the adoption of the type of military organization characterized
in the Ottoman Empire as nizamT (regular, ordered), a term derived from the name of
the first corps of the type, the nizam-i cedid (new order), founded by Selim III in the
1790s,' and subsequently used to describe the new armies or corps of Muhammad 'Ali
Pasha,2 Mahmud II, and Ahmad Bey of Tunis.3 Similar reforms also took place in Iran
from the early Qajar period. These armies were modeled on contemporary European
forces, and their formation frequently relied on non-Muslim instructors. Despite such
evident reference to European prototypes, the formation of nizamT corps was rarely
a simple process of borrowing. It also involved competitive emulation, reform, and
creative adaptation of existing religio-political discourses for purposes of legitimation.4
This usually entailed assertions that military reform was essential for Muslim regimes to
wage jihad against European powers. However, nizidm corps were more frequently used
to preserve and extend the reach of central government than to wage warfare against
European adversaries, exposing them to accusations of being an un-Islamic innovation,
which their opponents were quick to make.
Amira K. Bennison is a University Lecturer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge

University, Cambridge CB3 9DA, United Kingdom; e-mail: knb21@cam.ac.uk.
? 2004 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/04 $12.00
592 Amira K. Bennison
The nizdmf army was perceived as being new in various ways. As its name sug-
gests, it introduced a new type of military organization that contrasted with what was
increasingly seen as the military "disorganization" that preceded it. In this context,
nizdm indicated a unified chain of command; a new balance among infantry, artillery,
and cavalry; and battlefield formations that privileged discipline over individual acts of
valor. Professionalism, the subjugation of the individual to the group, and hierarchy were
expressed through standardized, rank-specific uniforms. It also initiated the process by
which the previous military combination of elite corps of trained troops, often of slave
or foreign origin, and tribal irregulars was replaced by larger forces of indigenous
conscripted soldiers, which served as prototypes for national armies. This altered the
relationship between combatants (askeri) and non-combatants (reaya) and between gov-
ernment and society as the former steadily extended its control over the daily lives of its
subjects.
This article reviews the introduction and Islamization of the nizdmF military order in
the western Maghrib by looking at the corps established by 'Abd al-Qadir in Algeria
in the 1830s and the units established by the 'Alawi rulers of Morocco, Mawlay 'Abd
al-Rahman and his son, Sidi Muhammad, between 1845 and 1873, when the latter was
succeeded by his son, Mawlay al-Hasan. This creates a somewhat abitrary division
between Mawlay al-Hasan's military reforms and those which preceded them, but it is
possible to argue that the drive to enframe the nizdam army within an Islamic order
perceived as legitimate and familiar was much more characteristic of 'Abd al-Qadir
and Sidi Muhammad's reforms than of Mawlay al-Hasan's. This chronology also al-
lows a consideration of the writing of al-Nasiri, whose retrospective reflections on the
implications of Sidi Muhammad's military reforms represent the end of one era and
the start of another. Using textual representations and justifications of these nizamF
corps, I aim to explore how the new colonial context, "borrowing" from Europe, and
the indigenous religio-political milieu interacted, and how local interpretations of jihad,
renewal (tajdTd), and reform (islah) could be creatively applied to justify the adoption
of the European military "new order." In so doing, I hope to emphasize the dynamism
of the pre-colonial state rather than stasis and the ways in which indigenous frames of
reference provided continuity within a context of change, imposed in part from outside
but also motivated by internal processes of religious renewal and political evolution
under way before the colonial encounter.
Although 'Abd al-Qadir's state-building enterprise and Moroccan military reform
have been seen as "modern" national awakenings, the instigators of military reform
actually focused on integrating their nizidm corps into the existing religio-political
order and made no reference to the nation. The new corps remained dynastic rather than
national in character, and soldiers were asked to fight for their faith, not their country.
In an area where government was theocratic in tendency although limited in actual
scope, and a heritage of struggle against Christian powers in Iberia had engendered a
strong militarist tradition, religion played the primary role in legitimizing the existence
of the state and, by extension, military reform. Although the formation of nizdmf corps
frequently engendered a modernizing phase in government, in the West the adoption of
"infidel" military practices was as much the product of the state's pre-existing centripedal
tendencies as an agent producing them. Nevertheless, the "new order" did imply a
different relationship between the sultan and his subjects, and its introduction raised
The "New Order" and Islamic Order 593
questions of political and social identity. In answering those questions, new concepts of
state and society did coalesce.
These nizamf initiatives have, of course, been studied by scholars of the Maghrib.
Raphael Danziger discusses 'Abd al-Qadir's nizamT army, and Wilfrid Rollman and
Bahija Simou have both written detailed studies of military reform in Morocco between
1844 and 1912 and pointed to connections with similar projects in the rest of North
Africa and the Middle East.5 However their work has limited circulation among scholars
of the Middle East, among whom a perception persists that Morocco was a closed world
for much of the 19th century. Moreover, their main interest was not in the legitimization
of these corps. By placing the military reforms of 'Abd al-Qadir and the cAlawi sultans
together as products of a shared cultural and political environment it is possible to
clarify how the nizamr paradigm was articulated in the Maghribian milieu in a form
distinct from comparable projects in the Mashriq. The Islamic solutions chosen by these
regimes in their endeavor to make the new army palatable to restive tribal populations
bely easy dichotomies between tradition and modernity and show the flexibility of
Islamic discourses in managing change during the 19th century.
'ABD AL-QADIR'S NIZAMI CORPS
The immediate effect of the French conquest of Algiers was the rapid collapse of the
Ottoman ancien r6gime and the emergence of new political players on the Algerian
stage. In the west, the 'Alawi sultans of Morocco, perennially interested in eastward
expansion, grasped the opportunity offered to them to occupy Tlemsen. This proved
unsuccessful for various reasons, and the remnants of the Turkish politico-military elite,
tribal notables, and religious leaders began to jostle for power, seeking the backing
of the Moroccans, the French, or both. Within a couple of years the most prominent
contender for power was 'Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhyi al-Din. He owed his success to the
Idrisi sharifian ancestry that his lineage claimed and the prestige of his father, a reputable
marabout and shaykh of the west Algerian Qadiriyya. In Morocco, similar combinations
of sharifian and Sufi credentials had offered political opportunities for centuries, and in
the power vacuum created by the arrival of the French, the sharifian sultanate offered a
useful state-building model for 'Abd al-Qadir.6
He also drew ideological sustenance from the recent, widespread wave of religious
renewal (tajdid) manifested in activist movements seeking to (re)create a pristine Islamic
political and social order by means of jihad. In Arabia, the Wahhabi movement
challenged the status quo; on both sides of the Sahara, a new brand of activist Sufism
developed; and in Morocco, the 'Alawi sultans themselves attempted to reform religious
life.7 Many of these movements gave prominence to the model of Muhammad to le-
gitimize an active reformist approach to religious and political life and used analogies
from his life to add drama, symbolism, and legitimacy to change. This was evident
in the Wahhabis' militant attempt to create a reformed society in Arabia modeled on
the Prophet's community but also in reformist Sufi visions of the Prophet and belief
in the possibility of spiritual union with him, a stance often described as the tarTqa
muhammadiyya.8
These currents were present in the Maghrib, especially in Fes, the region's intellectual
capital. In addition to being the focus of the reformist activities of the 'Alawi sultans
themselves, Fes provided an educational venue for reformist Sufis such as Ahmad
ibn Idris, Muhammad al-Sanusi, and Ahmad al-Tijani, and an arena for discussion of
Wahhabi ideology that disseminated across the Maghrib between 1803 and 1811.9 The
ensuing critiques of popular Sufi practices galvanized the restructuring of rural Sufism
and its metamorphosis into the system of centralized brotherhoods with large regional
followings such as the Darqawa, the Wazzaniyya-Tayyibiyya, the Tijaniyya, and the
Sanusiyya.
The Qadiri marabouts stood on the edge of reformist Sufi circles. Muhyi al-Din's
father, Mustafa, reformed the Qadiriyya and extended its influence among the tribes of
western Algeria and the Moroccan Rif to compete with the Darqawa and Tayyibiyya.
Muhyi al-Din knew Muhammad al-Sanusi personally. The symbolic value of this con-
nection is illustrated by the legend that when he and 'Abd al-Qadir performed the hajj
in 1827-28, they visited al-Sanusi, who predicted that 'Abd al-Qadir was destined to
"become one of the defenders of the sacred principles of Islam" and a famous mujahid.'0
Furthermore, studies of 'Abd al-Qadir's Sufism show that his position was close to that
of Ahmad ibn Idris: doctrinally conservative and inclusive but also metaphysical, source-
oriented, and sensitive to the model of Muhammad."
The restructuring of rural Sufism was followed by Darqawa and Tijaniyya uprisings,
and in Oran the shaken Turkish authorities feared that the Qadiriyya led by Muhyi al-Din
would rise against them next, an event pre-empted by the French conquest of Algiers
in 1830.12 In its aftermath, Muhyi al-Din cultivated relations with the 'Alawi forces in
Tlemsen and urged Qadiri tribes to wage jihad against the French in Oran. By the time
they withdrew to Fes, he had become both a representative of the sharifian sultans and
a mujdhid, roles that greatly augmented his influence and encouraged the Qadiri tribes
to offer him their political allegiance in 1832. He declined but suggested that they take
his second son, 'Abd al-Qadir, who had distinguished himself in the jihad against Oran,
as leader in his stead.
'Abd al-Qadir's fortunes were thus closely tied to the status of his father as an Idrisi
sharif, an 'Alawi deputy, and a reformist Sufi shaykh, and these different paradigms of
power and authority provided him with the ideological means to legitimize his movement
and his introduction of the nizami army to Algeria. From the outset, he presented his
endeavor as a mission to replace the existing state of ignorance (jahiliyya) with a true
Islamic order, analogous to that instituted by the Prophet, in which social, political, and
economic life would be regulated according to the precepts of the shari'a.13 According
to this schema, the Muslims would be able to wage a successful jihad against the
French only after they had restored the domestic stability (nizdm) that the French had
destroyed.14 His jihad was therefore internal as well as external, religious as well as
military, the triumph of order over chaos rather than simply war against the French:
He strove (ijtahada) to the utmost for the reform (isld-h) of the Muhammadan community and spent
the most precious part of his life doing so without limit. He fought in the way of God ... and God
made him ruler of His lands from Wajda to Tunis and he spread the rulings of the Muhammadan
shari'a after they had been obliterated.'5
The implementation of this new order required the creation of a reliable military force,
but when 'Abd al-Qadir received the bay'a in November 1832, his "army" consisted
simply of the tribesmen who had accepted his authority. They fought as discrete groups
under their own tribal leaders, and their tactics were limited to the traditional "charge
and retreat" (al-karr wa' l-farr). He possessed no regular infantry or artillery, since these
had been the preserve of the old Turkish military elite, but badly needed to achieve
military superiority over his rivals, whose forces were qualitatively the same as his own.
His opportunity to create a new military force came in 1834 after he had negotiated
the Desmichels Treaty with the French in Oran, thereby securing their recognition of
his authority over the western Algerian tribes and the right to trade in munitions.16 It
is not clear what prompted him to adopt the nizdmi paradigm, but he had witnessed
Muhammad 'Ali Pasha's army while passing through Egypt with his father to perform
the hajj in 1827-28.17 His primary inspiration, however, was the French army, which he
had fought in several engagements and which provided the non-commissioned officers
to train his corps.'8
The main source of information about 'Abd al-Qadir's nizamT army is his biogra-
phy, Tuhfat al-Za'irfi Tarikh al-Jaza'ir wa'l-Amir 'Abd al-Qadir, written by his son,
Muhammad.19 The biography recounts the circumstances of the corps' creation and
incorporates its manual, titled Wushah al-Katib wa Zaynat al-Jaysh al-Muhammadi al-
Ghalib.20 Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Salam, a follower of 'Abd al-Qadir who retired to
Tangier, left another manuscript copy of the manual, which contains basically the same
information with additional commentary.21 Europeans such as Leon Roches and Colonel
Scott who joined 'Abd al-Qadir's entourage also described his regular army.22 To these
major sources can be added numerous incidental references in the British and French
consular records and the French military archives.23
The immediate context for the corps' formation was CAbd al-Qadir's failure to impose
his authority on the recalcitrant Dawa'ir and Zmala tribes. Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-
Qadir reports that, as a result of this setback, his father realized the difference in
performance between regular forces (al-junifd al-muntazima) and volunteers (al-hushiid
al-mutatawwi'a) and decided to create an army run on the principles of order (tanzim),
drilling (tamrin), and training (tadrTb).24 He called an assembly of tribal and religious
notables to secure communal approval and then issued the following announcement in
the markets:
The command of our master Nasir al-Din ['Abd al-Qadir] to enlist soldiers and organize an army
from all over the country has been issued. Anyone who wishes to serve under the Muhammadan
banner (al-liwd' al-muhammad-) and be enveloped by the glory of the [new] order (nizam) should
hurry to the capital of the emirate, Mascara, so that his name may be inscribed in the emir's rolls.25
According to the manual, 'Abd al-Qadir's nizamF army consisted of infantry (al-'askar
al-muhammadt), cavalry (al-khayala), and artillery (al-rumat al-tubjiyya). The infantry,
the key to the nizamT army, was organized in thousands divided into units of one hundred
and further subdivided into three "tents" (khibli') of thirty-three men and a commander;
the cavalry was organized in thousands divided into units of fifty men; and the artillery
was organized in teams of twelve men per cannon plus a commander. An instructor
(mu'allim) was assigned to each infantry unit to ensure that the troops knew how to fight
in nizamT formation and drilled regularly. All soldiers were to receive regular wages and
rations estimated according to their rank. If a soldier was injured or died in action, his
family would continue to receive his wages as a pension. The manual also prescribed
the establishment of camp hospitals offering free beds, food, and medical attention to
soldiers, an innovative plan that shifted responsibility for the injured from the private to
the public sphere.26
The army's uniform consisted of shirts and loose "Turkish" trousers in red or black,
giving it an indigenous feel that helped obviate the alienation Selim III's imposition of a
European uniform had triggered in his nizamf corps in the 1790s. Rank was indicated by
gold or silver bands and plates affixed to the uniforms, and 'Abd al-Qadir prescribed strict
penalties for those who failed to wear the correct uniform for their rank and section.27 He
equipped this force with European muskets, artillery, and gunpowder purchased from
Oran, the 'Alawi sultanate, and Gibraltar. He also tried to establish musket, powder, and
cannon factories in towns subject to his authority.
Roches's and Scott's accounts indicate that 'Abd al-Qadir's nizamt corps broadly
conformed to the manual's provisions. Roches, a French convert to Islam who served
'Abd al-Qadir in the period between the signing of the Tafna Treaty in May 1837 and
the outbreak of war in late 1839, estimated the size of the nizdmF army at 3,000 'askar
(infantry), 400 cavalrymen, and 60 tobjia (artillerymen). Traditional military elements-
makhzan tribes and irregular tribal auxiliaries-provided additional firepower.28 'Abd
al-Qadir also had a small bodyguard of thirty black slaves, a status symbol evoking
the Moroccan 'Abid al-Bukhari.29 Colonel Scott, a British officer who entered 'Abd
al-Qadir's service in 1841, gives a higher estimate than Roches. He records that after the
administrative reorganization that followed the Tafna Treaty in 1837, the deputy (khalifa)
of each of 'Abd al-Qadir's seven provinces had "a regiment of regular infantry," cavalry,
and "a company of renegades, deserters from the French service" probably used as
artillerymen. He gave the total size of the army as 12,000-13,000 infantry and 4,000-
5,000 cavalry,3" an estimate reduced to 9,000 infantry and 2,400 cavalry by French
military intelligence three years later.3'
Scott's description of the Tagdempt regiment gives the flavor of the Algerian nizdmf
army. He says that it consisted of 800 men recruited exclusively from the town who could
perform basic maneuvers. The foot soldiers wore "Turkish trousers" and a "loose blue
cloth jacket" fastened by a purse-belt that carried their ammunition. The officers wore red
uniforms with gold and silver stripes on their cuffs and silver plates indicating their rank.
The regiment's drummers were French, and the regiment thus marched to French tunes.32
Although neither the Wushah nor the Tuhfat al-Za'ir dwells on 'Abd al-Qadir's
reliance on the services of Europeans, Roches's and Scott's accounts show their im-
portance, especially in the artillery and running of military industries. Roches him-
self assisted with the artillery at the seige of 'Ayn Madi and mentions several other
Europeans. The majority had made sincere or tactical conversions to Islam, like Roches,
but others entered 'Abd al-Qadir's service as Christians during the periods of peace
that followed the Desmichels and Tafna treaties. They included a Polish artillery officer
recruited by CAbd al-Qadir's agents in Oran to "organize" his artillery,33 a Hungarian
from an Austrian engineering corps who had deserted from the Foreign Legion, and
French munitions workers recruited to work in Tagdempt on temporary contracts.34
Most important, the corps owed its very existence to French support:
C'est, en effet, le g6ndral Desmichels qui du jeune marabout Abd-el-Kader [sic] a fait un emir
redoutable en l'aidant a vaincre les douars et les smalas, ses plus terribles enemis, et en lui donnant
les moyens de organiser, d'equiper et de armer un corps de troupes r6gulibres.35
Scott, whose own contribution was presumably military, reports that 'Abd al-Qadir
possessed an artillery factory in Tlemsen run by a Don Jos6, assisted by European
prisoners of war, and had about eighty non-commissioned European officers working
for him in Tlemsen, Tagdempt, and Taza.36 In Tagdempt, there was a musket factory
founded by French workmen from Paris who taught the Arabs to manufacture their own
muskets before their contract ended in 1840.17 Three armorers, deserters from Cherchell,
subsequently arrived seeking employment in the factory.38 A French mineralogist called
De Casse established an iron foundry at Miliana.39
Despite the nizdmi corps innovative and European characteristics, 'Abd al-Qadir took
pains to integrate the corps into his reformist Islamic order and present it as an instrument
for jihad. In 1836, he wrote to Mawlay 'Abd al-Rahman asking for a fatwa from the Fasi
ulama to legitimize warfare against his Muslim opponents. In his letter he specifically
mentioned his military reforms (tanzim al-jaysh), depicting his nizamT army as the means
by which he would coerce his fellow tribesmen to reform their lives, unite, and wage
war against the French.40 Its true aim was reform (isldh), the sine qua non for survival in
the European-dominated world, a perspective elaborated in the fatwa that 'Ali al-Tasuli
issued for him in reply. In keeping with 'Alawi religio-political theory, the fatwa asserted
both the religious responsibility of an Islamic ruler (imam) to implement the shari'a and
his right to muster resources, organize, and lead jihad, which included chastisement of
Muslim "rebels."41
Within his own domains, 'Abd al-Qadir conveyed his message using a variety of tactics
involving language, ritual, and space. In the realm of language, the parallel between the
career of the Prophet and his mission was reinforced by regular use of the adjective
muhammadT, which implied that military reform was comparable to the innovative
practices of the early community and an integral part of broader societal reform. 'Abd al-
Qadir applied the adjective to the nizdmf infantry (al-'askar al-muhammadT), the Islamic
community (al-umma al-muhammadiyya), the army banner (al-liwi' al-muhammadf),
and even the shari'a. Furthermore, he called the main coin in his new currency used to
pay the nizdmt regulars the Muhammadiyya.
The routines of the nizamf corps placed a similar emphasis on religion. The practice
of Islam was a key part of army discipline. The life of the soldiers was regulated by the
five daily calls to prayer, and each tent of infantrymen had a scribe (katib) who gave
the men religious instruction and led them in their prayers. The abilities of the scribes
were monitored by the head scribe (bash kdtib) of the army.42 The insignia indicating
rank were embellished with Islamic slogans, and the corps' camp plan was infused with
religious symbolism. The infantry tents formed a circular stockade, with cAbd al-Qadir's
tent at the center. The artillery and hospital tents flanked the camp's entrance, which
faced east toward Mecca.43 In effect, the camp was a microcosm of the Islamic society
'Abd al-Qadir wished to create with himself, the Commander of the Faithful, at its center
defended by his nizdmT army.
Such tactics gave the nizdmF army a comprehensible place in 'Abd al-Qadir's mission
that helped to obviate opposition to its non-Islamic source. The fact that it did not
challenge the position of an existing politico-military elite undoubtedly facilitated its
integration. Many questioned the validity of 'Abd al-Qadir's mission, his right to assume
power, and his motivation, but they did not criticize his introduction of "infidel" military
organization or employment of Europeans, despite the deep hostility with which the
indigenous population viewed the latter. Furthermore, the fact that he did deploy his
nizadm troops against the French validated his claim to be a mujahid and his characteri-
zation of his army as an instrument for the jihad.
However, the corps faced the same difficulties in obtaining resources common to non-
European armies of its type.44 Without the demographic base and industrial infrastructure
enjoyed by European states, severe constraints were placed on the maintenance of a
nizamt army. Despite the number of Europeans with some expertise in his entourage,
'Abd al-Qadir found it impossible to retain the skilled personnel necessary to support
his nizamt corps. Most Europeans spent only a limited time with cAbd al-Qadir, either
because they returned to French-held territories or because they succumbed to disease.
For instance, the iron foundry floundered when De Casse died from fever in 1841. As
the war intensified and the death toll among 'Abd al-Qadir's supporters rose, it also
became harder for him to replace losses within the rank and file of the corps.
In addition to manpower shortages, arms manufacture depended on cAbd al-Qadir's
possession of towns-or, at least, permanent bases-where factories could be located.
Sustained French attacks on the towns he held from 1839 onward made the maintenance
of an industrial infrastructure impossible, and he became dependent on what supplies
he could purchase from Gibraltar and Morocco and smuggle through French lines. Even
when supplies were forthcoming, 'Abd al-Qadir found it ever harder to pay for them and
became reliant on pious donations from Morocco, a fickle source that dried up whenever
French protests to the cAlawi Makhzan became too insistent.45
When 'Abd al-Qadir transferred his base camp to the Moroccan Rif in 1843 to
evade the French, his nizamf corps was a shadow of its former self: a couple of hundred
infantrymen and a cavalry band supplemented by a motley assortment of tribal auxiliaries
from Algeria and the Moroccan Rif.46 Even though they continued to drill daily, by 1847
the troops were hungry, their uniforms were in tatters, and their weapons were of low-
quality Maghribian manufacture.47 When the 'Alawi Makhzan decided to take military
action against cAbd al-Qadir a few months later and drove him across the border into
Algeria, his surviving nizadm troops either surrendered to the French or melted into the
Algerian countryside.
THE INTRODUCTION OF NIZAM IN THE 'ALAWI SULTANATE
During the 1830s and 1840s, the unfolding colonial drama in Algeria had a growing
impact on the 'Alawi sultanate of Morocco to the west. After his abortive effort to
extend 'Alawi power to Tlemsen in 1830-31, the Moroccan sultan, Mawlay 'Abd
al-Rahman, offered 'Abd al-Qadir considerable material and moral support in what
turned out to be a misguided effort to keep the French away from his domains and
persuade his subjects that he was contributing to the defense of Muslim territory against
non-Muslim aggression. Instead, his policies led to repeated French protests that cul-
minated in the Battle of Isly in eastern Morocco in 1844, when a French force from
Algeria routed the 'Alawi army. This was its first major defeat by a non-Muslim
power since the battle of Wadi'l-Makhazin in 1578 and had tremendous pyschological
impact on the Makhzan and its subjects. As a result, the sultan's heir apparent, Sidi
Muhammad, set about reforming the army by creating his own nizdmf corps, which, like
that of 'Abd al-Qadir, he characterized as a necessary instrument for successful jihad.
Although relatively unsuccessful, this early Moroccan nizamT initiative produced a spate
of literature that connected the introduction of the nizaml army to long-established jihad
imperatives and reform in a way prefigured by 'Abd al-Qadir but explicated more fully in
Morocco.
In the early 19th century, the 'Alawi military establishment consisted of the 'Abid al-
Bukhari, a regular corps founded in the 17th century but much diminished by the 1830s;
several military "tribes," including the Udaya, Sharaga, Awlad Jami', and Shararda, who
performed permanent military service in return for land and tax exemptions; tribal levies
known as na'iba; and urban militias (rumah).48 The sultans also possessed artillery units
manned predominantly by European converts to Islam, known disparagingly as 'uluj
or renegades. The majority of these men were of Spanish origin, deserters and petty
criminals from Ceuta and Melilla. After 1830, they were joined by deserters from the
French armee de l'Afrique and prisoners of war who sought to ameliorate their conditions
by conversion to Islam.49 Scott was struck by the large number of such "renegades" in
Makhzan service, although his unconfirmed estimate of a corps of 6,000 men seems
wildly exaggerated.50
Before the war in Algeria spilled over into the sultanate, the Moroccans saw little
need for radical change, despite their awareness of European states' burgeoning mili-
tary power and expansionist tendencies. The first suggestion for military reform came
from the Ottoman sultan, Abdiilmecid, who sent an emissary, Yusuf Badr al-Din al-
Madani, to Morocco in 1842 to offer the sultan munitions, skilled workers, and military
instructors.51 Although the sultan had the contents of Abdiilmecid's missive publicized
in great mosques as a sign of a new Pan-Islamic alliance against the Europeans, nothing
concrete came of the initiative.52
When al-Madani returned in December 1844, the French defeat of the 'Alawi army at
Isly, their bombardment of Tangier and Essaouira, and the breakdown of domestic order
had convinced the sultan's son, Sidi Muhammad, that military reform was essential.
After a skirmish between French and 'Alawi forces prior to Isly, he had noted that the
Moroccans were defeated by poor leadership, undisciplined and unpaid soldiers, and a
lack of a battle plan or formation (saff).53 The battle of Isly shortly afterward confirmed
his observations, destroyed the domestic reputation of the 'Alawi army, and severely
undermined the dynasty's prestige. The formation of a nizdmT army seemed the only
way for Mawlay 'Abd al-Rahman and Sidi Muhammad to restore Makhzan control over
the country and defend it from fresh European attacks.
Details about the corps' foundation appear in Makhzan correspondence and French
and British consular sources.54 The Moroccan archives also contain nizamT manuals
imported from Egypt during this phase and indigenous tracts promoting and justifying
the nizdmF army, which are discussed later. The documentation includes a letter from
Mustafa al-Dukkali, a merchant and Makhzan adviser, to Muhammad ibn Idris, the sul-
tan's chief minister, describing how a nizdmf army should operate and be funded, dated
"London, April 1845."'5 These sources show that the early 'Alawi nizamt project relied
on a diverse range of models, which included 'Abd al-Qadir's nizdmT corps, the French
armde de l'Afrique, and the British army, as well as Ottoman nizamT armies. While the
nizamf manuals came from the Ottoman Empire, instructors from Algeria had gained
their experience either with 'Abd al-Qadir or in the French army. European converts
to Islam had a similar background, and Mustafa al-Dukkali drew on his experience in
London, where he observed "everything closely and record[ed] it in a file" for the
Makhzan.56
The first concrete steps toward military reform were taken in October 1844, when
Edward Villiers arrived in Tangier offering "to organize and discipline" the Moroccan
troops. He was carrying letters for the governors of Tangier and Tetuan from Moroccans
in London who had presumably discussed the matter with him. The British consul,
Drummond Hay, prevented him from proceeding, believing that the French would in-
terpret his offer as provocative."7 The Ottoman envoy, al-Madani, returned to Morocco
soon afterward, although what advice or aid he offered, if any, is unknown."8
The nizamtF project got under way shortly before the arrival of al-Dukkali's missive in
April 1845, which stated that the sultan had established a corps of 2,000 that he intended
to enlarge.59 The letter tackled two pressing issues: what a nizamf corps actually was
and how it should be financed. Al-Dukkali explained that participation in the corps
was a profession and that recruits should be young, unmarried men without other
commitments. Their entry into the corps should entail a break with wider society and
their integration into a new, self-sufficient military community that lived, ate, and trained
together. Strict discipline, uniforms, and regular salaries graded according to rank were
essential to promote identity in and loyalty to the new corps. Since the formation of such
a corps was an expensive undertaking that canonical taxes would not cover, al-Dukkali
recommended that the sultan raise revenue from foreign trade, a path already taken
by "the sultan of Tunis, the Ottoman sultan and the pasha of Egypt," by encouraging
imports from Europe and lowering export duties to encourage Europeans to export
commodities rather than specie. To ensure maximum state gain, he suggested a system
of state monopolies on staple goods in addition to war materiel, which he offered to
import from London on the Makhzan's behalf. He also offered to recruit instructors. 60
In the following months, European representatives in Tangier commented on the
corps' progress. Consul Hay informed London:
The Sultan is organising a body of troops with European tactics. Each individual is required to
take an oath before the Cadi to serve for a certain number of years, seven I believe, safely and
loyally the Sultan. The pay is fixed at about three pence sterling per day, in addition to clothing,
which I understand, is to be similar to the uniform of the troops of the Pasha of Egypt.6'
Roches, now attached to the French consulate in Tangier, and the consul, De Chasteau,
confirmed the existence of a corps l I'Euiopdenne of 2,000 men, garbed in Turk-
ish trousers and armed with English rifles, who could maneuver tolerably well.62 De
Chasteau added that the sultan had selected 500 more men to be trained as officers.
The first nizadm units appeared in Fes and Meknes. They were followed by units
in Tangier, Laraish, Tetuan, and possibly Marrakesh and Essaouira. In the words of
Muhammad ibn Idris, the sultan was "determined to install a nizadm unit in every town,
augment their number and.., .organize them most seriously."63 Recruits came from a
variety of sources. The governors, Bu Silham and Ash'ash, received instructions to
gather recruits in Tangier and Tetuan, respectively, probably from the poorer elements
of society, a tactic reminiscent of Selim III and Mahmud II's press-ganging of the poor
of Istanbul. In 1846, Sidi Muhammad made an unsuccessful attempt to recruit 1,500
Fasis of good family. Soon after, he enlisted 400 members of the Algerian Banu 'Amir
who had defected from 'Abd al-Qadir's Rif camp.64 In later years, peripatetic recruiters
traveled around the countryside. In 1848, for instance, 'Abd al-Salam Aqla'i received
instructions to enlist nizamf volunteers in the Gharb, Jbala, and Rif districts.65 The
caliber of such recruits was often low, and when Aqla'i tried to enter Tangier with them,
Bu Silham complained of his reckless disregard for public order.66
These references suggest that entry to the corps involved underprivileged sectors of the
population, a factor that undermined the prestige of the corps from the outset. According
to al-Nasiri, writing about 1880, more routinized attempts at conscription developed only
in the 1860s, when the Makhzan began to organize annual call-ups of young men and
the selection of a given number of recruits by ballot.67 Even then the ability of the rich
to pay for substitutes continued to undermine the caliber of recruits. It was equally
difficult for the Makhzan to find qualified instructors. Although Ottoman and Egyptian
military reform relied on European instructors, the intense hostility toward Christians
generated by events in Algeria and the Franco-Moroccan war of 1844 made such a choice
politically undesirable. Instead, the Makhzan used European converts and Muslims from
other parts of the Maghrib, often without verification of their credentials. For instance,
Isma'il Bu Darba, the first instructor of the corps, was the son of one of 'Abd al-Qadir's
commercial agents but had grown up in Marseille, had no military background, and had
left France to escape his creditors.68 Within a short time, the Makhzan was obliged to
demote him.69 Some instructors were found-the sources mention 'Ali al-Tunisi and
Hammuda al-Jaza'iri--but knowledgeable officers were few and far between, and many
units lacked qualified instructors.70 Sidi Muhammad later tried to remedy the lack of an
indigenous cadre by founding the Dar al-Makhzan school in Fes.71
As al-Dukkali had predicted, the nizdml venture was costly.72 The Makhzan had to
supply uniforms, weapons, and ammunition, mainly imported from Gibraltar, as well as
feed, house, and pay the new troops.73 The problem was exacerbated by the Makhzan's
inability to collect taxes in the anarchic post-Isly circumstances for which the sultan
compensated by instituting a new system of monopolies on staples and raising customs
duties in 1845.74 The British in particular resented the new commercial regime because
it made provisioning the Gibraltar garrison more complicated and expensive, and they
put ultimately successful pressure on the Makhzan to abandon it.75
At this time, 'Alawi attempts to legitimize their adoption of the nizamt paradigm were
minimal. Within Makhzan circles, military reform had the support of Sidi Muhammad,
the governor of Tetuan; 'Abd al-Qadir Ash'ash, an admirer of the European order and
special envoy to Paris in 1846; the chief minister, Muhammad ibn Idris; and Mustafa al-
Dukkali, who stated almost in passing that nizamf methods were essential for successful
warfare against European powers:
When the Muslims learn their [type of] warfare and tactics it surely upsets the Christians to
discover that the Muslims-praise be to God-are more prepared than they are and determined
to fight them.?6
In a similar vein, Muhammad ibn Idris commented, "My brother, if you had only seen
[the nizwmo army's] resolve and courage, you would realize that it is the very thing to tear
down the defenses of the infidel" to convince a skeptical Bu Silham in Tangier to recruit
and outfit 1,000 men.77 However, despite popular support for jihad as shown by tribal
assistance to CAbd al-Qadir and massive annual mobilizations in the years before Isly,
there was no broader consensus that the "new order" borrowed from the enemy was the
key to victory.78 The existing regular 'Abid corps, such as the janissaries, considered the
nizamF units rivals for their position, which fueled their already rebellious tendencies.79
More seriously, the Makhzan's poor performance against the French had raised the
whole matter of legitimacy. Although the ulama accepted the sultan's right to wage
jihad against "rebellion" (fasad) as God's representative on Earth, it was contingent
on his performance in jihad against the "infidel."80 The situation was exacerbated by
the fact that the sultan's prime target after Isly was 'Abd al-Qadir, whose "rebellion"
consisted in part of castigating the sultan for his lukewarm devotion to Islam and failure
to continue jihad against the French while attacking fellow Muslims. The Franco-
Moroccan treaties of Tangier (1844) and Lalla Maghnia (1845), which outlawed 'Abd
al-Qadir and French gifts of artillery pieces and offers of military instructors, did nothing
to assuage the impression that the nizami army was actually for the benefit of the
French."' Strenuous Makhzan efforts to discredit 'Abd al-Qadir only slowly bore fruit.
This political environment exacerbated the difficulties of low prestige and insufficient
funding already facing the corps, and desertion was common.82
When the Makhzan finally decide to take military action against 'Abd al-Qadir in
1847, the nizamT corps faced a critical test. Ironically, the Makhzan had its own doubts
about its loyalty, which were confirmed after Banu 'Amir and Hashem tribesmen at-
tempted to rejoin 'Abd al-Qadir in the Rif."3 In the aftermath, Banu 'Amir members of
the Fes nizamt corps deserted and joined fellow tribesmen in Tangier for repatriation
to French Algeria.84 Sidi Muhammad also discovered that five nizdmf captains had
secretly promised to give 'Abd al-Qadir rather than himself their allegiance if the sick
Mawlay 'Abd al-Rahman were to die before the conflict was resolved.85 During the
military offensive against 'Abd al-Qadir in winter 1847-48, the nizdmT corps played
little evident part, despite the dispatch of nizdmf troops to the northern front.86 After the
campaign, it sank into obscurity and did not take center stage until after the Tetuan war
with Spain (1859-60) had again revealed the weakness of the 'Alawi army against a
European foe. In the interim, the emphasis shifted from the technical to the ideological
arena, preparing the ground for Sidi Muhammad to re-embark on military reform in the
1860s.
THE "NEW ORDER" AND ISLAMIC ORDER
The appeal of 'Abd al-Qadir's call for jihad and the power of his accusation that the
'Alawi sultans had become allies of the "infidels" against their own people presented the
Makhzan with a serious challenge. Its response was to assert that it was for the imam, not
his subjects, to decide when and how jihad should be waged, and that actions against his
will such as 'Abd al-Qadir's constituted rebellion.87 This theme informed much of the
literature that attempted to locate the nizamf corps within 'Alawi political culture over the
next decades.8" These works included polemic calls for jihad such as the risala attributed
to Ibn 'Azzuz,89 technical manuals such as Muhammad al-Khuja al-Tunisi's Risala fi
Tanzim al-Jaysh (1851),90 and religio-political tracts such as Muhammad al-Kardudi al-
Fasi's Kashfal-Ghumma bi-Bayan inna Harb al-Nizam Haqq'ala al-Umma (1848)"R and
al-Ghali ibn Muhammad al-Laja'i's Maqma'al-Kufra bi'l-Sinan wa'l-Husam fi Bayan
lyjab al-lsti'dad wa-Harb al-Nizam (1864-65).92 These authors were relatively minor
figures, provincial ulama or Makhzan officials rather than members of the Fasi ulama
elite or the highest court circles, whose "peripherality" had actually brought them into
contact with Europeans in the ports and abroad.
Their narratives assumed that warfare against European powers was inevitable and
that to ensure that the contest went in their favor, Muslims had to adopt military nizam,
presented as a historical type rather than a European invention. By referring to the
Prophet's military practices, they confirmed that a legitimate Muslim nizam existed and
suggested that, by reforming their army, the sharifian sultans were actually preserving
the custom of their illustrious ancestor. The nizdmi army thus became representative
of order in a general sense, which these texts then equated with the 'Alawi religio-
political hierarchy. It provided the edifice of state with firm foundations, the physical
equivalent of the righteous umma to which all Muslims owed their allegiance, espe-
cially in a time of impending jihad. Acceptance of military nizdm and obedience to the
state became two sides of the same coin, both of which were required for a success-
ful jihad against the "infidel," a connection also implicitly made by 'Abd al-Qadir's
apologists.
The first of these works, Ibn 'Azzuz's call to Mawlay 'Abd al-Rahman to form a nizami
army to wage jihad in Algeria, written about 1848, was of the same genre as al-Dukkali's
letter in that it recommended the nizaml army as essential for jihad without further
qualification and then described how it should be recruited and supplied. Although
extremely unrealistic in its suggestion of a full mobilization of society, Rollman sees it
as potentially useful to the Makhzan because it legitimated extensive, and coercive, state
accumulation of resources for war and foreign trade.93 However, Ibn 'Azzuz's insistence
that the nizamf army's raison d'&tre was war in Algeria and his populist interpretation
of military responsibility contravened the Makhzan's preference for maintaining tight
control over the modalities of jihad.
Al-Kardudi's Kashf al-Ghumma (1848), a book-length justification of the adoption
of European military nizam dedicated to Mawlay CAbd al-Rahman, appeared around
the same time. Al-Kardudi's motive for writing was his zeal for Islam awakened by the
"infidel" conquest of Algeria and defeat of Morocco "using warfare of a specialized kind:
rows in a tightly packed block" about which the 'Alawi army "lacked knowledge."94
He presents the typologies of warfare, leadership, and preparation, and the desirable
characteristics of fighters in ten chapters peppered with quotations from the Qur'an and
hadith and from eminent scholars such as al-Tabari, al-Turtushi, and, above all, Ibn
Khaldun, whose Muqaddima is his main reference.
Paraphrasing Ibn Khaldun, al-Kardudi presents two primordial types of warfare: in-
fantry advances in formation (zahf), which characterize sedentary societies; and cavalry
charges, which are usual among nomads. Both types of warfare have non-Islamic and
Islamic precedents, but fighting in lines (sufiuf) has the virtue of organizing soldiers like
believers at prayer.95 In the contemporary era, however, the Europeans (riim) show most
dedication to it:
They place four or five rows in the vanguard, row after row interspersed by cannon. The wings
and rear guard are organized in the same way. The cavalry is behind the rows following the center
which is filled with men and materiel. The whole formation is a single entity, its reins in the hand
of one man in the center who communicates with a horn or the beat of a drum from which they
understand his wish .... The first row facing the enemy fire like a single man then fall to their
knees and those behind them do the same, and the firing continues without break and bullets fall
like pouring rain.96
This, al-Kardudi continues, is the type of fighting meant by nizam, which the Qur'an
itself advocates by comparing rows of fighters to a building with firm foundations, a
metaphor popular with advocates of the nizamT army.97 He strengthens his argument with
numerous hadiths and Khaldunian examples that set up a timeless infantry paradigm, ren-
dering contemporary nizam a variant of the sedentary style of infantry warfare practiced
by such illustrious dynasties as the Sasanians, Byzantines, Umayyads, and 'Abbasids.
Al-Kardudi thus deracinates the nizdmf army and gives it an Islamic pedigree. He
also quotes Ibn Khaldun on the Maghribian regimes' use of mercenaries from Frankish
"nations accustomed to standing firm" in battle lines (masaff) to complement indigenous
tribal fighters who use "charge and retreat" tactics.98 On the one hand, this highlighted a
long history of Muslims' using European techniques and even soldiers when expedient;
on the other, it implied that warfare had a cultural dimension, an issue of growing
significance in 19th-century Morocco.
After these introductory comments, detailed references to European warfare are con-
spicuous by their absence. A discussion of the legitimacy of gunpowder weaponry
adopted by the Ottomans occurs in chapter 6, but the bulk of the book consists of hadiths
related to the Prophet's battles, early Islamic warfare, and Islamic military heroes.99
Mentions of medieval Andalusian and Maghribian military practices and contemporary
European and Ottoman consultation (shuira, mashwara) also appear, but considered in
its entirety, the book has the flavor of a jihad chapter in a hadith collection.'"? This
format reflects al-Kardudi's scholarly background but equally reiterates that Muslims
need not fear nizam because it is not a modem European invention but a version of a
time-honored military tradition sanctioned by religion and practiced by several Islamic
empires.
However, al-Kardudi also introduces a note of ambiguity, saying that its efficacy
depends on good governance and that victory in the jihad requires reform (isliah) and the
achievement of the just social equilibrium promised by the shari'a, a view reminiscent
of 'Abd al-Qadir's project:
God guarantees victory to kings but imposes four conditions upon them. When their government
decays, when rebellions in the outlying districts of their kingdom shake them, when an enemy, a
rebel or a jealous [rival] rises against them, they must seek refuge with God by reforming (islah)
their relationship with Him by restoring the balance (mizan) which he has prescribed (shara'a) for
his servants; by following the path of justice and truth which the heavens and earth undertake; by
making manifest the rites of religion, succoring the oppressed, staying the hand of the oppressor,
keeping the strong from the weak, and caring for the poor and needy.' 0
Military reform can only benefit a regime that has put its house in order, a pointed
statement in 1840s Morocco where the Makhzan had been rocked by French invasion
and bombardment, the rise of 'Abd al-Qadir, and endless tribal uprisings. However,
since warfare and jihad are synonymous in the hadiths he cites, al-Kardudi also implies
that communal obedience and commitment to warfare are incumbent on true believers
and that rebellion is counter-productive. His concentration on the Prophet's example and
early Islamic battles during which faith compensated for numerical inferiority reiterated
the importance of Muslim unity under the sultan's leadership in view of Europe's superior
manpower and resources. The overall thrust of the Kashf al-Ghumma, therefore, is not
to explain how a modern professional army works but to assert the permanent existence
of a military type that transcends religio-cultural boundaries and can be placed at the
service of any community. This is why it is not simply a right but a duty (haqq) for
Muslims to accept the most advanced type of nizdm, to renew their faith, and to fight
under their sultan so that they can achieve victory against non-Muslim aggressors.
The second work, Risala fi Tanzim al-Jaysh, a small manuscript of forty pages,
summarizes what the author, Muhammad al-Khuja al-Tunisi, "witnessed in the lands
of the Turks and Europeans (riim)" and learned from Egyptian nizame manuals.1'02 His
stated purpose is to address the ignorance concerning nizamf regulations (qawamnn) that
he has found among those entrusted with training the Moroccan army. Although at first
glance it is pragmatic, his text shares the tendency to familiarize the nizdmf army as
Kashf al-Ghumma. Quoting the hadith "War is deceit," al-Tunisi asserts that military
success depends on adapting one's tactics to the terrain and the enemy. Since "most holy
war in this time of ours is [fought] with gunpowder, a chief instructor who knows the
rules for forming a regular army is essential."'03
Quotations from the Qur'an and hadith underline the religious vocation on which
his promotion of the nizamt army rests. He reinforces this by describing nizam using
the evocative term "sunna" (practice), which would have naturally called to mind the
sunna of the Prophet, thereby legitimizing nizam by association with the early Muslim
community. He then describes the spread of modern nizame vocabulary around the
Mediterranean:
The terminology according to which the soldiers fight contains many words.... The instructors
wished to translate them into Arabic but found no way and found no better languages to explain the
invention than the Turkish and European languages. So they chose Turkish rather than a European
language and mixed it with Persian because it is authentic (sahTha). This became the language of
war in the Ottoman cities and in Syria, Egypt, Tripoli, and Tunis. They then composed numerous
books explaining it in Arabic to benefit everyone enthusiastic about this glorious invention. 04
This emphasis on the linguistic dimension of nizam enables al-Tunisi to present the
nizamT army as the equivalent of an Islamic army in which each nizamf unit and rank has
a Muslim counterpart. Into this familiar framework al-Tunisi inserts the new concepts
of a set parade (and battle) formation; a unified chain of command linking, among
others, muqaddam (sergeant), qa'id (captain), and ra'Ts al-jaysh (colonel); respect for
rank; and strict discipline. He also alludes to the importance of rank-and-file soldiers
adhering to the shari'a and officers and army officials behaving with zeal and probity. 105
Interestingly, his brief description of niz-dm camping formation is very similar to 'Abd
al-Qadir's, with which he may have been familiar.
In this informal risala written to a colleague, nizam becomes the reform of the
existing army, which is marred by its disorganization, disunity, slack discipline, and
greedy officers. No reference is made to new recruiting practices, the establishment of
barracks, or regular salaries. Furthermore, the work presents nizam as a legitimate type
of (re)ordering because it has already been used throughout the Muslim Mediterranean
and, implicitly, transformed by its translation into Muslim languages. As in al-Kardudi's
work, what begins as the product of an alien order becomes subsumed within the Islamic
context, where it serves as a support for religion and state without further question.
Morocco's defeat in the Tetuan war in 1859-60 persuaded Sidi Muhammad to renew
the nizamf initiative with the support of the ulama, who produced five fatwas approving
the idea.106 However, as in 1844, military defeat severely compromised the sultan's
prestige and made resorting to European techniques highly suspect. In response, al-
Ghali ibn Muhammad al-Laja'i wrote Maqma'al-Kufra, a manuscript of nearly 500
pages divided into fifteen chapters. His intention was not to explain nizam, although
he describes its organization, efficacy, and necessity, but to insist that preparation for
the jihad meant adopting nizadm tactics. He then used the theme of preparedness for
the jihad to assert the religio-political rights of the sultan and counteract the collapse
of Sidi Muhammad's prestige. As a result, the manuscript is more militant, polemical,
and state-centric than the preceding texts and most evidently presents modern nizdm as
a pillar of the state and the Islamic order it represents.
Al-Laja'i proposes that "fighting the people of unbelief" is not simply one of a
Muslim's responsibilities but his primary one.107 From his perspective, Islam's civiliza-
tional success and military prowess are inextricable, and Islamic civilization flourished
until Muslims became complacent and allowed the enemy to gain strength over them. In
such circumstances, military reform is not merely religiously acceptable; it is as much a
duty as jihad itself, "so that protection and glory may be obtained for Islam and shame
and scorn cast upon reprehensible unbelief."' 0 Like other authors, al-Laja'i legitimizes
this viewpoint by depicting nizdm as a generic type of warfare with Islamic variants
dating from the heroic era of the Prophet and cites hadiths to prove it."'9 Having set the
stage, al-Laja'i then presents his state-centric vision by asserting that jihad leadership is
the exclusive prerogative of an Islamic ruler, whom he describes as "the imam." Since
nizam is necessary for successful jihad, it is his right and duty to force his subjects to
accept it. "' They should also accept higher taxation as a necessary evil in view of the
likelihood of jihad. However, al-Laja'i also accords the ruler the right to prohibit jihad
and make truces with European powers if, in his opinion (ijtihad), they are in the Muslim
public interest (maslaha)."'
For al-Laja'i, the implications of nizam thus extend from the military to the wider
political and social spheres, both of which he sees as religious as well as temporal
domains. If the imam's flock refuses to accept nizam or proves recalcitrant in other
ways, it is in fact denying the Islamic order he represents and therefore verges on
unbelief."2 By making this connection between resistance to the state and apostasy,
already employed several times by the Makhzan and in al-Tasuli's fatwa to'Abd al-Qadir,
al-Laja'i could make an unambiguous attack on independent, non-state jihad initiatives
and bring the chastising of rebels within the scope of the imam's jihad responsibilities.
Such an ideological sleight of hand was not new to Islamic political discourse, as Ibn
Taymiyya's discussion ofjihad shows, but its linkage with modern nizam as the opposite
of rebellion and disorder was.'
While clearly prompted by recent events-Sidi Muhammad's settlement with Spain,
which included a large indemnity to pay off, and a restive population keen to engage
in jihad-al-Laja'i argument is also the most evolved statement of the place of nizam
in the cAlawi religio-political order. Simultaneously, his use of terms such as "ijtihd,"
"shura," and "maslaha," also employed by Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi in Aqwam al-Masalik
li-Ma'rifat Ahwal al-Mamalik (1867), created a bridge between the religious reformism
that inspired 'Abd al-Qadir and the later Salafiyya movement in the East.'4 Although
thoroughly Islamic in origin, these terms, like nizdm itself, gradually came to be seen
as generic to all civilization, whatever their specific manifestations: shura was both a
practice of the Prophet and a representative assembly; maslaha was both an Islamic legal
concept and a more general public interest; and ijtihad denoted both an Islamic legal
technique and rational thought.
Although it is difficult to gauge the impact of these texts or to assess how widely
they circulated, their existence indicates a sustained effort to naturalize the nizamf army
through references to the Qur'an, the hadith, prophetic precedents, and contemporary
Muslim needs. With respect to the Makhzan, the argument was won: military restructur-
ing continued and became more intensive with every reign. However, the relatively muted
disquiet about borrowing from an alien culture evident in the 1840s became stronger,
and by the 1870s it was evident that the "new order" was not as easy to transform into
an aspect of the Islamic order as its earlier advocates had supposed it would be. The
dilemma was best expressed by Ahmad al-Nasiri in his retrospective comments about
Sidi Muhammad's renewal of the nizamt project in the 1860s:
Disaster has spread among the Muslim armies with the spread of foreign morals. They wish
to learn [European] warfare to defend the faith but they lose their faith through that process of
learning. For less than two or three years pass before the children of Muslims become foreign,
operating by their moral code, behaving according to their customs, so that they abandon the form
of greeting laid down in the Qur'an and substitute a salute.115
He therefore returns to the position of 'Abd al-Qadir that soldiers must be inculcated not
only with military but also with religious knowledge and insists that rural recruits should
be given six to ten months of education in Islam's basic precepts, moral instruction, and
daily readings of edifying texts prior to their military training:
It is essential to organize a daily session in which [the recruits] listen to the sTra of the Messenger
of God-Peace be upon him-his battle exploits, the exploits of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and
the early Muslims (salaf al-umma), stories of Arab leaders, men of wisdom and poets and their
merits and characteristics.116
Al-Nasiri's worries reflect the sensibilities of a generation for whom exposure to

European culture, commercial penetration, and diplomacy was threatening, disruptive,
and all too familiar. However, the education he envisaged was no longer simply religious
but also cultural, as his reference to leaders, men of wisdom, and poets indicates. Like
Khayr al-Din, al-Nasiri's very understanding of Islamic civilization and awareness of
the importance of literature and history to communal identity implied engagement with
the European concept of civilization. To this he added a nascent sense of territorial
nationality:
The best of characteristics with God and His servants is zeal for religion and country (watan), love
of the sultan, and advice to him. It might be said to him, for example: if the unbelieving non-Arab
(al-'ajamt al-zindTq) defends his worthless religion and country, how can the Arab believer not
care for his religion, his state, and his country?117
This awareness of a new global order marks al-Nasiri as different from his prede-
cessors. While the writings of al-Kardudi and other midcentury scholars and officials
have been characterized as indicative of the "awakening of the modern Maghrib," it is
debatable whether awareness of an external threat can truly be construed an awakening

or a "crise de conscience.""11 Certainly, shocked Moroccan recognition of European mil-
itary and technological superiority after the Battle of Isly in 1844 was a critical moment.
However, the first wave of jihadist literature sought to merge what seemed merely to be a
technology into the existing Islamic order without questioning the relationship between
the two. It was al-Nasiri's generation and those who followed who truly awakened to
the implications of the new European order while also inadvertently engaging with the
new concepts it promulgated.
CONCLUSION
The early western Maghribi nizami initiatives are two examples of military reform to
be set alongside the projects taking place in Istanbul, Cairo, Tunis, and other Middle
Eastern centers at the same time. Although they were small in scale and of relatively short
duration and impact, the mere fact of their existence indicated the region's participation
in the processes of change that were altering state-society relations across the Muslim
Mediterranean as it entered a new economic and political relationship with Europe.
Like their Ottoman counterparts, 'Abd al-Qadir and the 'Alawi sultans justified the
adoption of European military tactics as the only way to wage effective jihad against
the Europeans but also used their new corps against their subjects. What distinguished the
western Maghribian experiments was direct and early European imperialism in the form
of the French conquest of Algeria and chastisement of Morocco, which put popular
pressure on rulers actually to wage jihad and made the need for an efficient Muslim
military apparent but rendered borrowing from Europe unpopular and even treacherous.
To compensate for this double bind, 'Abd al-Qadir and the 'Alawi Makhzan adapted the
religio-political symbols available to them in innovative ways.
The linguistic and visual tactics used by 'Abd al-Qadir to legitimize his nizamF corps
and the polemical and justificatory literature produced in the 'Alawi sultanate from the
late 1840s show the means by which they did this. They took up the themes of jihad
and Islamic reform that 'Alawi state ideology and Sufi reformism were in the process
of modifying to link successful resistance to European imperialism to the adoption of
nizam, interpreted not simply as military order but also as a pillar of a state-centred
Islamic order. As a result, the "new order" became a means to achieve reform (islkh)
that both required and facilitated a multi-dimensional jihad.
Their dynamic assertions of an Islamic political and social hierarchy headed by
God and His representative were derived from local political and religious thought and
initially owed little to the revolutionary, secular, and national concepts underlying the
European "new order." However, the religious vocabulary employed by Maghribian
writers untouched by Tanzimat secularism should not obscure the changing content of
that vocabulary or the interwoven threads in Muslim Mediterranean discourse. Just as
the language used by 'Abd al-Qadir and the 'Alawi Makhzan evoked earlier Sufi and
Wahhabi discourses, it also prefigured the vocabulary adopted by Khayr al-Din al-Tunisi
and the Salafiyya and showed a similar fluidity of content.
Over the 19th century, a cluster of terms-"nizdam," 'jihad," "islah," "maslaha,"
"shura," and "ijtihad"-were invested with a range of meanings to legitimize military
reform and ongoing processes of state formation and centralization. By al-Nasiri's
time, such self-strengthening appeared in a rather different light from that of its earlier
manifestations. While the literature of the 1840s sought to legitimize the "new order,"
al-Nasiri realized that it was as likely to overthrow the house of Islam as to strengthen it.
As a result, his jihad for Muslim welfare took the form of begging his fellow Muslims
to recognize that nizdm was foreign and that strenuous efforts were needed to maintain
Islamic values while using it. However, his vision of the sultanate and its place in
the international political order was in many ways "modern" and certainly different
from that of 'Abd al-Qadir or the 'Alawi sultans who had initiated reform forty years
before.
NOTES
Author's note: I thank the Leverhulme Trust and the University of Manchester for granting me a post-
doctoral fellowship (1996-97) during which I completed part of the research for this article. I also thank the
article's readers for their constructive comments.
1 Stanford J. Shaw, Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire under Selim III, 1789-1807 (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971).
2Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha's Men (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
3 Carl L. Brown, The Tunisia ofAhmad Bey, 1837-1855 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Unversity Press, 1974),
261-312.
4I am grateful to Keith Watenpaugh for bringing the 19th-century European concept of "emulation"-an
active engagement with new ideas rather than their passive receipt-to my attention.
5Raphael Danziger, Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians (London: Holmes and Meier, 1987); Bahija Simou,
Les reformes militaires au Maroc de 1844 d912 (Rabat: Publications de la Faculte des Lettres et des Sciences
Humaines, 1995); Wilfrid Rollman, "The New Order in a Pre-Colonial Muslim Society: Military Reform in
Morocco, 1844-1904" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1983).
6See Amira K. Bennison, "Abd al-Qadir, Morocco and the Sharifian Model," Journal of Algerian Studies
4 and 5 (1999 and 2000): 1-20. Abdellah Hammoudi explores the significance of the Sufi master-disciple
relationship in Moroccan power relations in Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan
Authoritarianism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
7See Fatima Harrak, "State and Religion in Eighteenth Century Morocco: The Religious Policy of Sidi
Muhammad Ibn Abdallah" (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1989); and Mohamed El Mansour,
Morocco in the Reign ofMawlay Sulayman (Outwell, Wisbech, U.K.: Middle East and North African Studies
Press, 1990).
8The definition of Sufism during this era is much debated, and scholars of the Bergen group
have questioned what "tarTqa muhammadiyya" actually meant: see Rex S. O'Fahey and Bernd Radtke,
"Neo-Sufism Reconsidered," Der Islam 19 (1993): 52-87; and Knut Vikor, Sufi and Scholar on the Desert
Edge (London: Hurst, 1995), 232-35.
9E1 Mansour, Mawlay Sulayman, 138-43; idem, "Al-Haraka al-wahhabiyya wa'l-radd fa'l al-maghribi fi
bidayat al-qarn al-tasi' 'ashar," in al-Islah wa'l-Mujtama' al-Maghribi (Rabat: Universit6 Mohamed V, 1986),
175-89.
o1Rex O'Fahey, Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad Ibn Idris and the Idrisi Tradition (London: Hurst, 1990), 136-37.
11See M. Chodkiewicz, The Spiritual Writings of Amir 'Abd al-Qadir (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1995), 6-10.
12Three major revolts took place: a Darqawa revolt against the beys of Oran (1805-13); a Darqawa revolt
against the Alawi sultans (1818-22); and a Tijani uprising against the beys of Oran (1826): Muhammad
ibn 'Abd al-Qadir, Tuhfat al-Za'ir fi Tarikh al-Jaza'ir wa'l-Amir 'Abd al-Qadir (Beirut: Dar al-Yaqza al-
'Arabiyya, 1964), 115, 125; Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri, Kitab al-Istiqsa l'Akhbar Duwal al-Maghrib al-Aqsa
(Casablanca: Dar al-Kitab, 1954), 9:6.
13cAbd al-Qadir, Tuhfat al-Za'ir, 169.
14Ibid., 157.
15Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Salam, Wushah al-Mukatib wa Zaynat al-Jaysh al-Muhammadi al-Ghalib, ms.
D1542, Bibliotheque Generale, Rabat, 6-7.
16The secret convention signed by Desmichels and 'Abd al-Qadir in March 1834 promised the free
movement of the materials of war between French-held territory and 'Abd al-Qadir's zone: Danziger, Abd
al-Qadir, 246.
17'Abd al-Qadir, Tuhfat al-Za'ir, 930-32.
18Charles Henry Churchill, Life of Abdel Kadel, Ex-Sultan of the Arabs of Algeria (London: Chapman and
Hall, 1867), 62.
19Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Qadir, Tuhfat al-Za'ir fi Tarikh al-Jaza'ir wa'l-Amir 'Abd al-Qadir (Beirut: Dar
al-Yaqza al-'Arabiyya, 1964).
20Ibid., 191-208.
21Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Salam, Wushah al-Mukatib wa Zaynat al-Jaysh al-Muhammnadi al-Ghalib, ms.
D1542, Biblioteque Generale, Rabat, 6-7. In Tuhfat al-Za'ir, the manual is given the slightly different name,
Wushah al-Katib wa Zaynat al-Jaysh al-Muhammadi al-Ghalib.
22Leon Roches, Trente-deux ans a' travers l'Islam (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1884); Colonel Scott, A Journal of
a Residence in the Esmailla of Abd El Kader (London: Whittaker, 1842).
23Foreign office (FO) files, Public Record Office, London; Correspondance Politique: Maroc (hereafter,
CPM); Archives des Affaires Etrangbres, Quai d'Orsay, Paris; and Archives Historiques de la Guerre (hereafter,
AHG), Chateau de Vincennes.
24cAbd al-Qadir, Tuhfat al-Za'ir, 191.
25Ibid.
26Ibid., 205.
27Ibid., 193-94.
28Roches, 'lIslam, 177.
29Ibid., 171.
30Scott, Residence, 132.
31Rapport de monsieur le marechal Bugeaud sur les moyens d'affermir et d'utiliser la conquete de l'Alg6rie,
15 January 1844, AHG/H229.
32Scott, Residence, 170-71.
33Roches, I'Islam, 243.
34Ibid., 308, 370.
35Ibid., 129.
36Scott, Residence, 71-74.
37Ibid., 100-101.
38Ibid., 110-11.
39Ibid., 97-98.
40'Abd al-Qadir, Tuhfat al-Za'ir, 316.
41Ibid., 323-28.
42Ibid., 200.
43Roches, l'Islam, 168-69; 'Abd al-Qadir, Tuhfat al-Za'ir, 211.
44Jeremy Black, War and the World. Military Power and the Fate of Continents, 1450-2000 (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998), 168-69.
45Hay to Aberdeen, 19 July 1842, F099/9; De Nion to Guizot, 22 July 1842, CPM8.
46Rapport de monsieur le marechal Bugeaud sur les moyens d'affermir et d'utiliser la conquete de l'Alg6rie,
15 January 1844, AHG/H229; Rapport de Daumas, 25 November 1845, and Mauboussin to Guizot, 5 March
1845, CPM 13; Hay to Aberdeen, 6 March 1845, F099/25; De Chasteau to Guizot, 21 August 1846, CPM17;
Lieutenant G6n6ral Bedeau to ministre de la guerre, 2 September 1847, and Colonel MacMahon to G6n6ral
Renault, 19 September 1847, AHG/H 122.
47De Chasteau to Guizot, 10 June 1847.
48Rollman, "Military Reform," 380-99.
49Ibid., 562-65; Simou, Reformes, 120-23.
5oScott, Residence, 34. Simou suggests that the number fluctuated between 200 and 2,500: Simou, Re-
fJrmes, 123.
'51Abdallah Laroui, Les origines sociales et culturelles du nationalisme marocaine (Paris: Maspero, 1977),
207; Mohamed al-Mannouni, Mazahir Yaqzat al-Maghrib al-Hadith (Rabat, 1966), 57.
52Sultan to Muhammad Ash'ash, 7 July 1842/29 Jumada II 1258, al-Tartib al-'Amm files, Direction des
Archives Royales (hereafter, DAR/TA), Rabat.
53Sidi Muhammad to the Sultan, 21 June 1844/4 Jumada II 1260, DAR/TA.
54DAR/TA and subject files; FO files, PRO; CPM. Additional material is in the Makhzan registers
(kunnash) and Spanish sources, which, unfortunately, were not consulted for this paper.
55Mustafa al-Dukkali to Muhammad ibn Idris, 9 April 1845/1 Rabi' II 1261, DAR/TA.
56Ibid.
57Hay to Aberdeen, 16 October 1844, FO99/18; Aberdeen to Hay, 16 November 1844, FO99/13.
58Hay to Aberdeen, 17 December 1844, FO99/18.
59Al-Dukkali to Ibn Idris, 9 April 1845/1 Rabi' II 1261, DAR/TA.
60Ibid.
61Hay to Aberdeen, 13 May 1845, FO99/26.
62Hay to Aberdeen, 12 June 1845, FO099/26; De Chasteau to Guizot, 16 July 1845, CPM14.
63Muhammad ibn Idris to Muhammad al-Razini, 3 June 1845/27 Jumada I 1261, DAR/TA.
64De Chasteau to Guizot, 26 March 1847, CPM18.
65Sultan to Bu Silham, 22 May 1848/18 Jumada II 1264, DAR, Tanger II file.
66Idem, 31 October 1848/3 Dhu'l-Hijja 1264, DAR, Tetuan II file.
67Al-Nasiri, Kitab al-Istiqsa, 9:104.
68Hay to Aberdeen, 13 May 1845, FO99/26; De la Rue to Guizot, 7 August 1845, CPM14.
69De Chasteau to Guizot, 26 September 1845, CPM14.
70Bu Silham to the Sultan, 21 January 1846/23 Muharram 1262, DAR/TA; idem, 28 August 1849/9
Shawwal 1265, DAR, al-Jaza'ir file.
71Rollman, "Military Reform," 575.
72Sultan to 'Abd al-Qadir Ash'ash, 27 April 1845/19 Rabi' II 1261, DAR/TA.
73Bu Silham to the Sultan, 24 April 1845/16 Rabi' II 1261, DAR, Tanger I file; Sultan to 'Abd al-Qadir
Ash'ash, 1 June 1845/25 Jumada I 1261, DAR, 'Abd al-Qadir Ash'ash I file.
74Sultan to Muhammad al-Razini, 27 April 1845/19 Rabi' II 1261 and 17 May 1845/10 Jumada I 1261,
DAR/TA; Sultan to 'Abd al-Qadir Ash'ash, 17 May 1845/10 Jumada I 1261.
75Hay to Aberdeen, 31 July 1845, FO99/26; Aberdeen to Hay, 26 September 1845, FO99/24.
76Al-Dukkali to Ibn Idris, 9 April 1845/1 Rabi' II 1261, DAR/TA.
77Muhammad ibn Idris to Bu Silham, 19 July 1845/14 Rajab 1261, DAR, Tanger I file; Muhammad ibn
Idris to Bu Silham, 26 July 1845/21 Rajab 1261, DAR/TA.
78Amira K. Bennison, Jihad and Its Interpretations in Precolonial Morocco (London: RoutledgeCurzon,
2002), 101-102.
79Hay to Aberdeen, 11 October 1845, F099/26; Rollman, "Military Reform," 553.
80Bennison, Jihad, 36-37.
81Hay to Addington, 2 October 1846, FO99/31.
82In 1846, Sidi Muhammad retrieved rifles from eighty-four deserters, and the Fes corps was re-
ported to have been reduced from nearly 3,000 to 400 men: De Chasteau to Guizot, 20 August 1846,
CPM17.
83See Amira K. Bennison, "The 1847 Revolt of 'Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians Against Mawlay 'Abd
al-Rahman, Sultan of Morocco," Maghreb Review 22 (1997): 109-23.
84Sultan to Bu Silham, 10 January 1848/3 Safar 1264, DAR, Tanger II file; Bu Silham to Sultan,
21 January 1848/14 Safar 1264,.
85De Chasteau to Guizot, 25 November 1847, CPM19; Hay to Palmerston, 26 November 1847, FO99/35.
86De Chasteau to Guizot, 24 May 1847, CPM18; Sultan to Sidi Muhammad, 6 October 1847/25 Shawwal
1263, DAR, Wajda file.
87Bennison, Jihad, 142-46.
88These works are discussed in al-Mannouni, Yaqzat al-Maghrib; Laroui, Origines, 274-78; Simou,
Reformes, 92-109; and Rollman, "Military Reform," 588-96.
89Risalat 'Abd al-Da'if illa al-Sultan al-A'zam al-Sharif, ms. D1623, Bibliotheque Generale, Rabat.
90Muhammad al-Khuja al-Tunisi, "Risalafi Tanzim al-Jaysh," ms. K2733, Bibliotheque Generale, Rabat.
91Muhammad al-Kardudi al-Fasi, Kashf al-Ghumma bi-Bayan inna Harb al-Nizam Haqq 'ala al-Umma,
ms. D1281, Bibliotheque Generale, Rabat. Although a lithograph version was published in Fes in 1885, all
references are to the manuscript version.
92Al-Ghali ibn Muhammad al-Laja'i, Maqma'al-Kufra bi'l-Sinan wa'l-Husamfi Bayan lyjab al-Isti'dad
wa-Harb al-Nizam, ms. 965, Bibliotheque Generale, Rabat.
94Al-Fasi, Kashf al-Ghumma, 2.
95Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, tras. Franz Rosenthal (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1969), 223-24; Al-Fasi, Kashf al-Ghumma, 5.
96Al-Fasi, Kashf al-Ghumma, 5.
97"God loves those who fight in his path in rows as if they were a firmly founded building": Qur'an 61:4.
98Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, 227; Al-Fasi, Kashf al-Ghumma, 9.
99Al-Fasi, Kashf al-Ghumma, 40-41.
loo0bid., 36-37.
101 Ibid., 10.
102Al-Tunisi, Tanzim al-Jaysh, 2.
103Ibid., 3.
104Ibid., 5-6.
105Ibid., 29, 35-36.
107Al-Laja'i, Maqma' al-Kufria, 2.
'osIbid., 7.
109Ibid., 59-60, 65-66.
11"lbid., 22.
"' Ibid., 304.
112Ibid., 38.
113Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton, N.J.: Marcus Wiener, 1996), 43-54.
114Carl L. Brown, The Surest Path: The Political Treatise of a Nineteenth Century Statesman (Cambridge
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 8.
115Al-Nasiri, Kitab al-Istiqsa, 9:106-107.
I16Ibid., 9:106.
117 Ibid.
11 8Al-Mannouni, Yaqzat al-Maghrib; Laroui, Origines, 19.

The New Order and Islamic Order - The Introduction of The Ni Āmī Army in The Western Maghrib and Its Legitimation, 1830-73

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The "New Order" and Islamic Order: The Introduction of the Niẓāmī Army in the Western

Maghrib and Its Legitimation, 1830-73

THE "NEW ORDER" AND ISLAMIC ORDER: THE

Amira K. Bennison is a University Lecturer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge

? 2004 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/04 $12.00

'ABD AL-QADIR'S NIZAMI CORPS

THE INTRODUCTION OF NIZAM IN THE 'ALAWI SULTANATE

THE "NEW ORDER" AND ISLAMIC ORDER

Al-Nasiri's worries reflect the sensibilities of a generation for whom exposure to

debatable whether awareness of an external threat can truly be construed an awakening

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