"Gentlemen: in an age of new productive forms, of ever-spreading collectivities, of mobs and masses, they tell us the noble Nation of the eighteenth century is dying. Once France and Portugal made war among the olive groves of Sicily. Now Rome commands all three. No longer are there Turks and Arabs, but the Ottoman Caliph's followers; nor Fulbe and Hosawa, but servants of the one in Gao. None doubt that it was petroleum, collective manufacture, and wire communication that brought about the rebirth of religion and of religious empires. Some say it could not have been, it cannot be, otherwise. They may be right, but then they may be wrong. For here and there the old communities of speech persist, devoted not to common answers, but to common questions: to the genii of their peculiar literatures, not a solitary Book in an unspoken tongue; to their great lands which in this age seem so small; to the meeting, not the conversion, of minds. Gentlemen, we of these islands are one such people. Another is our ancient ally, the Rock of the South, Almagrab."
- Lord Wotton, speech to Parliament, 1924
"O, sunderers of Islam! O, you who eat what is forbidden at the table of the Christian, and drink wine with the Jew! O, who spat and still spit on the Holy Book, who speak false Arabic! O, who enslaved my father's fathers, but brought them the Truth you did not yourselves believe! All Africa quivers, twitches, shakes with the wrath of the righteous!"
- Caliph Husman, Crystal Islam broadcast, 1920
"The sympathy of this government is not with the Maghrebi Kingdom. They speak of the bonds of a common language. We remember the chains of the debtors' colony. We will not send our young men across the Atlantic to die. We will not send our wheat. We will not send our cattle. They have taken enough.... We congratulate the revolutionary army."
- Consul Aixa Dacosta, press release, 1908
"The nuns, yes, they wanted to teach us proper Moorish--Magrabi, we called it. It was sort of how my uncle used to talk when he was in his cups. I thought that was funny, then--he wasn't a very proper man, so it was funny hearing the nuns talk that way. I thought we all talked pretty high-class in my family. We didn't sound like desert people, or like street people. But this Magrabi was as different from ours as ours was from the street people's. My great-grandparents had come from Marrakesh, so that helped. Some of the other students, they couldn't understand it at all. But it was supposed to be the same thing. The same language, I mean. They just wanted to correct us a little bit, is what they said. Oh, well, then the Turks--they were always called Turks, but I only ever met Egyptians--crossed the border, and the nuns left the city before it fell. And then we had to leave, too. So I didn't finish learning. When I go back to Africa, I can only speak how we did back in Barca. It's not Moorish, it's not Arab. I don't know what they call it. But I gesture a bit, and most often people understand me. Well, yes, would you like to hear some now?"
- Mrs. Caterina Ana Afellai Whittier, recording for the Libyan Dialects Project, 1966
*****
OK, the dialect-with-an-army angle isn't exactly clear from the map, but naturally the language in question is Maghrebi Arabic, particularly the Moroccan variety. The POD is a Portuguese victory at the Battle of Alcacer Quibir in 1578, resulting in Moroccan sultans friendly to, and then increasingly dominated by, Lisbon. King Sebastian I, the victor of Alcacer Quibir, lives a long life and constantly exerts himself towards the conversion of the country to Catholicism. Attempting it by force would almost certainly be a disaster--the most likely result would be a new sultan in Marrakesh, this one under Ottoman influence--so he uses subtler means. Portuguese lords acquire Moroccan titles and land, and even bring some Portuguese peasants with them. The Sultan makes a show of interest in European culture. In 1632 a Marrakesh West India Company is founded, with membership de facto limited to Catholics. It acquires some small Caribbean islands and, in a war with Spain (as an ally of Portugal and England), a chunk of territory south of Rio de la Plata. The Company also takes an interest in West Africa--a separate Southern Company is spun off and becomes extraordinarily wealthy on the back of enslaved labor. For economic reasons, to please local landowners, or eventually as a fad, large numbers convert over the next few generations. The majority remain Muslim, especially the poor. But the culture begins to shift.
By the late 17th century, people in and around Morocco's cities don't think of their country as Muslim so much as "civilized"--that is, part of a group including Spain, Portugal, France, and Britain, and defined by New World holdings, a certain suite of technologies, and mutual literary and scholarly contact. The last is especially notable for the topic of this map contest: the Europe-connected intelligentsia take to writing Moroccan Arabic in the Latin alphabet with a Portuguese-derived orthography, rather than the classical Arabic (which Christian Moroccans generally have little contact with) in Arabic script (which their European contacts cannot easily read). This becomes the "Arabic" up-to-date Europeans learn, reinforcing its importance, and it is increasingly acceptable even to urban Moroccan Muslims outside of religious contexts.
But it is not acceptable to most of the more rural Moroccans, especially the Berber tribes that have so many times replaced unpopular dynasties. They have watched the piety of their countrymen eroded, their Sultan toadying to foreign kings, and their trans-Saharan trade superseded by the Southern Company's ships. Then, in 1683, the first Quran in Moroccan dialect and Latin script is printed in Marrakesh. It was never intended for liturgical use, merely as an accessible version for the educated and curious in Europe. But this nuance is beyond the conception of the tribes, isolated as they are--not that it would seem much more tolerable if they understood it. Imagining that the Sultan has rewritten the word of God to suit his unbelieving patrons (though in fact Portuguese influence is already waning), several tribes revolt. Many poor Muslims rise up with them, attacking their wealthier Christian neighbors. The situation degenerates rapidly. Instead of a royal army opposing a host of Berber rebels, the war becomes a matter of internecine fighting within city walls all along the coast, with the Berbers, the sultan, or the Portuguese navy showing up occasionally to tilt the balance. (Another wing of rebels crosses the Sahara in an attempt to free the Southern Company's slaves and start their own Sultanate. They manage to burn two Company vessels and raid a gold mine, but most of them get lost along the way and nothing much comes of their adventure. Nonetheless, they will be remembered as heroes by the subjects of the Moroccan empire in West Africa. It will be partially due to their memory that fundamentalist Islam becomes the religion of anti-colonial resistance in that part of the world.)
Eventually, order is restored. The rebels are crushed. The Berbers are brutally treated, some tribes broken up entirely. The scattered minority of Christian Berbers are gathered into their own new-minted tribe and given special powers over the rest. But in the cities, the victors are surprisingly gentle. The emphasis is on reconciliation, not vengeance. The Sultan, Abu Faris Al-Malik, considers himself a civilized man and has studied the religious conflicts in Europe earlier in the century. In the aftermath of the rebellion, he virtually re-founds the Moroccan state on secular ground. He eschews references to his descent from Mohammed--once the basis of royal legitimacy--and puts most religious influence into the hands of local aristocrats. He begins what may be the first great nationalist project of the Western world. A standardized form of Moroccan Arabic is promoted as a separate tongue across the realm, under the name Maghrebi. The colonial companies are nationalized, renamed, and opened people of any faith, while at the same time the empire is glorified as an achievement of the Moroccan people. Secular universities are established and secular laws written--though at first the latter exist only as an alternative to the traditional system, used when the disputing parties do not both agree to be judged by the same religious court. In 1705, when the country has had time to recover, he prepares an invasion of the Ottoman Empire as a national war, with the goal of incorporating speakers of other western Arabic dialects as fellow Maghrebis and bringing Moroccan civilization east potentially as far as Mesopotamia. He doesn't live to carry out his plan, and his son botches it badly, dying somewhat west of Algiers. But his second son assembles a new army and conquers as far as Tunis in 1711. On his return journey, he stops at Tangier, a Portuguese possession. The gates are opened for him. His army dispatches the Portuguese stationed there and takes the city. Other forces capture the remaining Portuguese holdings on the coast, and all friendly ties to Lisbon are cut.
The trends set in motion at the turn of the 18th century dominate the next 200 years of Morocco's history. The government increasingly promotes identity as Maghrebis on the basis of shared language and history, and tries to standardize the speech of its people to match. Similar nationalist movements appear in Europe. Morocco continues to grow rich on its colonial empire (though slavery ends there in 1820), completely dominating West Africa except for a few ports owned by European powers. It's South American colony breaks away in 1802, forming a republic heavily inspired by ancient Rome. The loss is made up for by the conquest of Egypt, which becomes a vassal state--the people are too considered different to be incorporated into the nation. Suez is annexed and a canal eventually built, though too late to establish a serious presence in the Indian Ocean. The other powers of the Islamic world began Westernizing much earlier than OTL thanks to Morocco's intellectual and military connection with Europe, and while still behind technologically they are rapidly catching up. Eastward expansion into Asia proves impossible. Southward expansion along the Nile or down the East African coast is blocked by the young Empire of Aden, which dominates the Red Sea. Aden is defeated in 1847 with British aid, but Morocco annexes no territory except a naval base in OTL Djibouti. Nevertheless, the middle decades of the 19th century are prosperous and culturally productive. The economic center of the nation shifts east as the early petroleum industry enriches Tripoli, Tunis, and especially Cyrenaica. Innovation abounds, outpacing our own history, and soon the oil towns are home to a fledgling auto industry. People begin moving around the country, breaking up old loyalties, and the Maghreb is more of a single nation than ever before. The official version of the language is emended to better suit easterners as part of a general modernization in 1886.
Even as Morocco surpasses Portugal and much of the rest of Europe in wealth, the tides of history begin to turn. Most Europeans are disenchanted with nationalism. As the world becomes more interconnected, the idea of economic units larger than the nation-state becomes increasingly appealing. Instead of more expansionist nationalism or racialism, this impulse is expressed in a the resurgence of religious identity--mostly in intolerant and totalitarian forms. In Europe, confessional unification is accomplished by diplomacy, with France leading a sort of EU for Catholics. In Asia, the much-diminished Ottoman Empire rebounds on a wave of pan-Islamic revolutions. In 1899, the it intervenes in a local conflict in Egypt, beginning a decade of war between themselves and Morocco. A rebellion starts in 1904 on the lower Niger. Its leaders declare loyalty to the Ottoman Caliph and receive his support. Soon they control most of West Africa's petroleum resources and a large part of its farmland, which is the breadbasket of the empire. By the time the Libyan oil fields fall in 1908, the outcome of the war is clear. A ceasefire is followed by a treaty establishing Ottoman control of Cyrenaica and Egypt--the Caliph had hoped for West Africa as well, but the victorious rebels refuse and declare a Caliphate of their own. Morocco becomes a safe haven for the increasingly persecuted non-Muslims of both countries, especially Jews and West African pagans. An uneasy peace follows. Morocco finds itself isolated in the region: neither Caliphate will trade with them, and the Federation of Catholics is hostile as well. The economy slumps. There are riots, many pro-Ottoman or pan-Catholic. There is even the threat of famine.
The map is from that period, specifically 1924. It is a poster published in England by an arm of the Moroccan government, in support of the British National Whigs' friendly foreign policy. I think it is self-explanatory, except that the key is a little deceptive. Each symbol does represent a million people, more or less, but the symbols themselves are intentionally misleading. The non-Muslim symbols show areas of important pagan, Christian, or Jewish settlement, but a cross could represent 5 million Christians and 5 million Muslims. The Jewish population, for example, is no more than 3 million, and the Christian one closer to 9 million. And of course symbols in sparsely populated areas are meant to indicate the population of the whole region, not that one point.
***
It's good to be back to the MotF! I might have to take another long hiatus now, but working on this idea was lots of fun. As often happens, it drew me in more and more the more I thought about it. I'd like to re-use/elaborate this timeline in the future.
I definitely worked backwards this time: first I decided to do Moroccan Arabic, and then I tried to figure out how it could come to recognized as a distinct language. A nationalist program is always good for that sort of thing, but I also thought it would be necessary to lessen the prestige of Islam, which is so closely connected to Arabic as a language. I decided the best way to do this would be to make the country more religiously diverse, and only then did I search for a reasonable POD.
The map itself was rather slapdash, but I'm pleased with it, especially the crossed flags emblem in the upper right. I try to accomplish something new with every map, and in this case it was getting a (simple, geometric) shape to look right on a waving flag. A small achievement, but worthwhile!
