“The horses of the Aounate, the riders of the Oulad Frej have arrived; the Ja’idane on their stallions and the Qwassem, masters of free birds and noble falcons…”
It is more or less in these terms that the legendary Fatna Bent Lhoucine, a native of Sidi Bennour in Doukkala, narrated in songs the stages of the pilgrimage to the Moussem of Moulay Abd-Allah, which takes place every summer in this same vast region.
The Moussem in question has just been placed at the heart of an official appeal to Unesco, issued by the organizing committee of the event, with a view to inscribing it on the representative list of the cultural heritage of humanity. .
What could be more normal for a grandiose event, considered the first of its kind in Morocco, celebrated for hundreds of years, attracting every summer in the social and generational mix nearly two million visitors, bringing together around 3600 riders and more than a hundred troops of tbourida, called “sorbas”!
Without forgetting the other related festivities, ranging from religious activities to artistic evenings, including the art of haqa and other precious traditions.
The opportunity to support a less elitist representation of culture and to give their letters of nobility to popular practices carrying inestimable wealth in terms of heritage, tourism or economics in the sense of a lever for regional development.
It is all the same incredible to realize that such a celebration has been able to continue for several centuries against winds and tides.
There, on the shores of the Atlantic, a tribute is thus paid from generation to generation, to the founding fathers who are the Aït Amghar, builders of one of the first brotherhoods of Morocco at the end of the 10th century.e century, engaged first in teaching and in the fight against heterodox sects.
Followers of Sunni Malikite orthodoxy, the Amghar were indeed radiant with their mysticism and their scholarship. In this sense, they provided successive generations of holy men and eminent doctors of religious sciences, to the point that ancient authors, such as Ibn Qunfudh, ranked them among the greatest families in Morocco whose members inherited virtue, such as d others would inherit the fortune.
This family epic begins with the ancestor, the ascetic Ismaïl, nicknamed Amghar (in Amazigh, the leader, whether he is political endowed with executive power, named in this by an assembly of elders or spiritual; if not the two at a time).
Ismaïl Amghar would therefore be the first to settle in the middle of a Sanhajienne tribe of Doukkala, on the edge of the ocean, in a place called Tît (Source).
Historical documents record his links to the Ifrenid prince Tamim ibn Ziri and their common fights against the “heretics” Berghouata of Chaouia and north of Doukkala.
Moreover, in his work “Bahjat an-nâdirîne”, Abd-al-‘Adime Zemmouri reports that the Almoravid Ali ben Tachfine would have sought advice from the sheikh of Tît, when building the ramparts of Marrakech and received from his private money accompanied by his blessing.
From the lineage of the Aït Amghar came precisely the great scholar and mystic Abou-Abd-Allah Amghar al-Kebir.
He is the founder in the XIIe century in Tît of a maritime ribat, a kind of fortified monastery, known today under the name of Moulay Abd-Allah, transformed into a provincial capital with a proven political and economic role and a religious center frequented from all sides through the centuries by renowned scholars.
Let us cite in this respect Moulay Bouchaïb, Sidi Bel-Abbès Sebti, Abou Mohamed Salih Majiri and, later, the famous Soulaymane Jazouli who had settled there for fourteen years to receive his Chadilite teaching with the scholar Abd- Allah Amghar Seghir, himself initiated into chadilism by Sidi Saïd Retnani Regragui, trained in turn by the imam and ascetic Abd-Rahmane Ou-Ilyas Retnani considered as the reintroducer of chadilism in Morocco during his stay of nearly twenty years in the East.
In this context of fierce Iberian offensive against the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, the Aït Amghar launched into the fight in the movement of the jazouliya, restorer of the chadiliya with the watchwords: the holy war against the Christian occupation.
But in 1508, the neighboring town of Azemmour fell under the control of the Portuguese, commanded by Duke Jaime of Braganza, nephew of Manuel the Fortunate, with the help of 500 caravels, 2,000 cavalry and 13,000 infantry, precipitating the capitulation of Tît five years later.
This vicissitude of history caused the destruction and deportation of its inhabitants in the region of Fez near Oued Nja by the ouattasside sultan Mohamed, nicknamed al-Bourtoughali (“the Portuguese”, for having stayed in Portuguese prisons).
The Amghar then only further extended their ramifications and their teachings to other regions, notably in Bzou among the Ntifa where the sanctuary of Moulay Saïd Amghar and that of his father Moulay Hssein are located.
In Tamesloht, near Marrakech, is also illustrated the zaouïa founded by Sidi Abd-Allah ben Hssein, “The man with 366 sciences”, disciple of al-Ghazouani and master himself of Sidi Mhammed ben Raïssoun illustrates as one of the heroes of the battle of Oued al-Makhazine.
Without forgetting the striking traces of the Amghar in Fez, Safi, Afoughal, Assoul or Kik, a village better known since under the name of Moulay Brahim by the name of Ibrahim ben Ahmed Mghari, nicknamed “Tayr Jbel” (“the Bird of the mountain”) after leaving his Tamesloht following a dispute with Sultan Moulay Zidane to settle a little further away with the Sektana where he founded his famous zaouïa.
To say, beyond the initial cradle of the Aït Amghar in Doukkala, the solid chain tied across the Kingdom forming an immense web bringing together by innumerable links, from the most obvious to the most imperceptible…