Book Title: The Modern Structure of Iraq: The Intellectual and Political Influence 1869-1914

Author: El Hasan Laghraib

Place of publication: Rabat

Date of publication: 2015

Publisher: Maṭābiʿ ar-Rabāṭ Net

No. of pages: 376

Since ancient times there have always been minorities and subgroups in human societies, whether racial, religious, confessional, linguistic or cultural; the Maghreb is no exception to this rule. Thanks to its geographical location, open to various different worlds, it has remained a meeting-place for many different cultures and religions, above all the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The medieval period provided the melting pot in which these religions met in Morocco.

However, most historical studies of the medieval Maghreb have focused on the “Muslim majority”. The other constituent communities of Moroccan society especially religious minorities – were forgotten until only a few decades ago, when there began to be some interest in the Jewish minority The Christian minority, meanwhile, has not received its fair share of study, on the pretext that the material evidence is lacking, the sources are sparse, and studies on the subject are rare.

It is against this background that El Hasan Laghraib has produced his History of Minorities in Morocco:The Case of Christians During the Middle Ages, which considers Morocco over the course of eight centuries, including the first few centuries of Islam that historians typically skip over. He has been able to move beyond the well-trodden path followed by previous studies that have focused on specific issues in Moroccan-Christian medieval history where sources are comparatively rich.