Fāṭima al-Qabbāǧ: histoire d’une savante marocaine entre Islam, droits des femmes et construction de la nation

Fāṭima al-Qabbāǧ was among the first women to graduate from Al-Qarawīyyn University in Fez and the only woman member of the Committee for Iftāʿ within the Council of Higher Knowledge (al-Maǧlis al-ʿilmī al-ʿalā) composed by the most important ʿulamāʾ of Morocco. This article contextualises the biographical trajectory of this major figure of Moroccan Islam in the period at the turn of independence and in the late 20th century–early 21st century, linking it, on the one hand, to nationalist discourses favourable to female education as one of the main pillars of national modernisation and, on the other hand, to the most recent developments brought about by the 2004 reform that incorporated women into the official structures of the Moroccan religious sector. Writing the history of women in relation to Islam in Morocco is not an easy task, given the scarcity of bibliographical sources on the subject. Because of this reason, the article relies on original documentary sources, among which the Review of Women Scholars, Religious Guides and Preachers (ʿAṭāʾ-Maǧalla al-ʿālimāt wa-l-wāʿiẓāt wa-l-muršidāt), published in Arabic in 2011 by the Council of Higher Knowledge, and also on interviews conducted by the author of the article with Fāṭima al-Qabbāǧ and other Moroccan ʿālimāt. The career and thought of this major scholar bears witness to the fact that the transformation of women’s roles in the official structures for the production and reproduction of religious knowledge takes place in a reinvented historical continuity that aims to open up the religious field to women while respecting the framework of certain discursive perimeters functional to the political stability of the Kingdom. At the same time, the article aims also to demonstrate that, far from being a mere object of these dispositives, Fāṭima al-Qabbāǧ – along with other contemporary religious actresses – must be seen as a protagonist of historical change, aware of her social, political and religious role and agency.