The celebration of the creation of a movement is traditionally associated, by its leaders and its thinkers, with a moment of glorification of the course of the movement and its feats of arms, as well as “its efficient strategy which held in check the maneuvers of Power against it”. However, this story does not present any scientific interest and provides no political lessons, except to nourish self-satisfaction among the followers to persuade them of the interest of their joining the movement.
For the researcher, the course of the Jamaâte Al-adl wa Al-ihsane passed three stages which shaped his action and sealed his fate. The stage of genesis, articulated around the centrality of Sheikh Abdeslam Yassine, that of influence during which the jamaâ took advantage of the tension of its relations with the Authority to drape itself in a victim posture which favored its extension and spread, and the stage of a two-decade crisis in which the movement entered a phase of isolation, marked by its inability to influence society and the course of political life.
The tutelary centrality of the Sheikh
The founder of Al Adl Wal Ihsane, Cheikh Abdeslam Yassine, his resignation from the zaouïa Boutchichia which was lacking, from his point of view of jihadist spirit had set himself up as the hegemonic figure of the Movement. Each crossroads along his journey will be marked by a book, an epistle or a thundering initiative. “Islam, Between Preaching and the State” (1972), focused on the imperative compromise between the spiritual guide (the Sufi sheik) and the secular leadership (the Prince) to achieve change. The open letter “Islam or the Flood” (1974) to embarrass the King by claiming to dictate repentance to prove his seriousness in initiating reforms according to the precepts of Islam in the image of Omar Ibn Abdelaziz. The initiative to bring together the factions of the Islamist movement under its rule (1978). The creation of the magazine “Al Jamâa” (1979) and the creation of the first nucleus of its Movement “the family of Jamâa” (1981). A long journey marked by the unchanging will of Cheikh Yassine to impose his vision, on the zaouia as on the King, on the Islamist factions as on the elites.
Very early on, the man had matured his intellectual and militant project. He went beyond a roadmap intended to show the way disciples to predestine him to the same role as the famous Muslim theologian and mystic Abu Hamid Al Ghazali (1058/1111), author among others, of “The revivification of religious studies”. So that on arrival, Cheikh Yassine failed neither to submit the zaouia Boutchichia to his vision, nor to convince the factions of the Islamist nebula to join him under his spiritual guidance, nor to avoid the wrath of power. Its only achievement will be limited, with the indulgence of the authorities, to the creation of “the family of the Jamâa”, the hard core of Al Adl Wal Ihsane, relying on faithful elements, of modest formation, who have rallied to its cause since the genesis of the Movement.
The turn towards the social question or the golden age
Cheikh Yassine spent more than a decade (1972/1983) refining his project. But this work, which focused on questions of doctrine, organization, activism and communication, did not reinvigorate his Movement, which remained less attractive than the movement of Chabiba Islamiya (Islamic Youth) of Abdelkrim Moutiî. And despite his placement in a mental asylum, following his letter to the King, Islam or the flood, then his transfer to a hospital for chest diseases, and despite his arrest because of his criticism of “the message of the century addressed at the dawn of the 15th century of the Hegira by Hassan II to the Nation, the Jamâa of Yassine could not capitalize on this persecution to increase its attractiveness accordingly. The Islamists, despite being undermined by the organizational tensions experienced by the Chabiba Islamiya leadership between 1978 and 1983, remained generally insensitive to it.
However, 1987 will be the year in which the fruits of this activism will be reaped and will mark the beginning of a decade of influence and expansion for the Movement. Four highlights will mark this period.
The first is the change in the identity of Jamâa renamed Al Adl wal Ihsane, with the key to a remarkable shift from the field of pedagogy and preaching towards the social front.
The second consists of a change in the relationship with the Authority by virtue of which the confrontation now no longer concerned only the person of Yassine, but the whole of the management of the Movement, in this case its Orientation Council leading to the beginning of a discreet negotiation with the power even the Movement will persist in denying it.
The third fact concerns the contribution of the new writings of Cheikh Yassin to provide the Movement with the necessary arguments and quibbles in its rhetoric against its adversaries and its competitors among the Marxists, the pan-Arabists and the laity, and even the others. Islamists. His book Insights into Fiqh and History is an attempt to equip his followers with the religious arguments that crystallize his typical view of change calling for disobedience to the King.
Finally, the fourth fact stems from the previous one: the house arrest of Cheikh Yassin and the optimal political and media exploitation of this penalty, in parallel with the emergence of new, much more vigorous and influential leaders within Al Adl Wal. Ihsane (Mohamed Bachiri).
Other objective factors contributed to the expansion of the Movement. The political and economic sclerosis that Morocco experienced to the point of causing the late Hassan to say that the country was at risk of a heart attack, the laborious preparation of the political alternation as well as the refusal of the other Islamist components to take part in the political process, went allow the Jamaâ to present itself as an influential actor capable of occupying the void and mobilizing the street.
Al Adl Wal Ihasane wandering
This period covers two decades. It begins with the schism within the leadership between Cheikh Yassine and his long-time companion Mohamed Bachiri, landed in 1996 under the pretext of divergence on the Jamaa line.
This schism constituted a deep intellectual and moral shock for the followers of the Movement who, for the first time, witnessed the shaking of the image of a united leadership around their Sheikh. It leads to the questioning of the Sufi frame of reference and its representations: the Salafist meaning (Bachiri’s thesis) against an intuitive meaning (Cheikh Yassine). To plug the breaches thus caused, one proceeds to the creation of ”divine councils” (Sufi circles) which is in itself a regression in relation to the line centered on social justice, auguring an inversion of priorities leading to concentration on being and the individual as a substitute for questions linked to society and the State.
The reaction of Al Adl Wal Ihsane to the accession of King Mohammed VI to the Throne in 1999 will precipitate the Movement into isolation. Without consideration for the significant royal gesture – the lifting of the house arrest in 2000 – Cheikh Yassine continued on the same line of his letter “Islam or the deluge”, by addressing to the new Sovereign his “Memorandum to whom of right’, a pamphlet that some considered an unjustified escalation. Instead of sending signs of appeasement to the Authority, the Jamaa leaned towards maintaining tensions, at the risk of severely suffering the backfire effect. The memorandum, far from creating the event, did not fascinate the crowd and even less the intelligentsia, the Authority royally ignored it and within the various elites it aroused only aversion.
The participation of the Islamists of the PJD and the MUR in the political process in 2002 and the important results they obtained further deepened the isolation of the Movement, which found itself prey to agonizing questioning. Doubt was instilled in the Jamaa, which began to wonder about the relevance of maintaining a conflictual position with power, especially since its reasons disappeared with the death of Hassan II.
The encystment of Al Ald Wal Ihasane in the labyrinth of bad decisions will continue with the call in 2006 to Kawama (revolt and civil disobedience) which exposed the lack of listening enjoyed by the sheikh within the population, then the risky engagement in the Movement of February 20, 2011 and finally the vagueness of the post-Yassine period.
The Jamâa’s enthusiastic reaction to Cheikh Yassine’s call for “Kawma” was matched only by the confusion that resulted from its failure. To get out of the embarrassment once the failure of the kawama recorded, the direction of the Jamaâ drew on the Sufi literature invoking the possibility of the non-realization of this utopia (Ibn Ata Allah Al-Iskandari, 1260/1309) , to then purely and simply deny his adoption of this Vision inspired to the sheikh in his dream.
In this mess, one thing is certain: the isolation of the Jamaâ following the failure of the kawma, and the fiasco of another appeal by Sheikh Yassin to the democratic elites for a common Charter against despotism that remained unanswered. The Movement did try to emerge from its solitude by launching the “Open Doors” policy, which it intensified in 2006 without result, just as its attempt to relaunch it in 2007, with the “Together for Salvation” initiative, was unsuccessful. !”.
However, the impenitence of Al Adl Wal Ihsane will still lead him to an erroneous assessment of the Hirak of February 20. Indexing the Moroccan situation to the Tunisian and Egyptian contexts, it finds itself once again or too much at odds with the realities of the country which it has the immeasurable fault of submitting to its disproportionate appetite for the seizure of power and his untimely adventurism. The electoral success in the wake of the Islamists who chose to participate in the political process greatly contributed to the erosion of his popularity, especially after his withdrawal from the Hirak of February 20 as well because of the flagrant contradictions between Al Adl Wal Ihsane and the Basists (Marxist tendency) only because in the test of fire he was able to see the limits of the Hirak.
This withdrawal was experienced internally as a hard blow which revealed, to the most daring of the disciples, the image of a powerless Jamâa unable to seize the historic opportunity and of an ill-advised direction for not having anticipated the ability of Power to maneuver.
Practically simultaneously, the Jamaâ had to manage after Yassine died in 2012. Once this process of decline had been recorded, the Jamaâ preferred to wall itself in doctrinal and intellectual silence, refusing to publicly express its vision of the country’s evolution. and the Movement, leaving the question of succession unresolved. To the resolution of the doctrinaire problem posed by the eclipse of the “Sheikh al-mashoub” (timeless guide who is perpetuated in his successors), thus considered Yassine, the Jamaâ preferred the path of power sharing between the traditional leaders of the movement on the pretext of maintaining the cohesion of the apparatus and its immunization, prioritizing the educational aspect and moving away, while waiting for better days, from any political act likely to stir up tensions with the authorities.
The wanderings of Al Adl Wal Ihsane out of fuel, 40 years after its creation -By Bilal TALDI