ROUTLEDGE REVIVALS n=. ae a _Samih K: FarsounFire published in 1985 by Croom Helm Led ‘This edition first published in 2015 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milron Pars, Abingdon, Oxon, OX Li ARN Simultaneously published in che USA and Canada by Routledge TL Thisd Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is a imprint of she Taylor & Francts Grovp, ane informa busines © 1985 Samih K. Fassoun Al tights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form ot by any clectronic, mechanical, or other means, now nown or hereafter invented, incliding photocopying and recording, of in any inform, publishers, ion storage or retrieval system, withour permission in writing. ftom the Publisher’s Note The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of points out that some imperfections in che original copies may be apparent nis reprint bue Disclaimer The publisher has made every effort to. trace copyright holders and welcomes corespondence from those they have been unable to contact, LC control number: 85019446 A Library of Congress record exises un ISBN 13: 978-0-415-82916-8 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-203-5 1734-5 (ebk)‘© 1985 Sami K, Farsoun Croom Helm Ltd, Provident House, Burrell Row, Beckenham, Kent BR3 1AT Croom Helin Australia Pty Lid, First Floor, 139 King Street, Sydney, NSW 2001, Australia British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Arab society : continuity and change 1. Arabcountries 2. Near East I, Farsoun, Sami K. 956 DS44 ISBN 0-7099-1082-7 Croom Helm, 51 Washington Street, Dover, New Hampshire 03820, USA Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title Arab Society. Includes index. 1. Near East—Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Africa, North—Addresses, essays, lectures. 1. Farsoun, Samih F DS42.4.475 1985 909".097492785-19446 ISBN 0-7099-1082-7 Phototypeset by Sunrise Setting, Torquay Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and EastbourneCONTENTS Contributors Acknowledgements 1, Introduction Samih K. Farsoun 2. The Arab Oil Economy: Present Structure and Future Prospects Roger Owen 3. Political Power and Social Structure in Iraq Hanna Batatu ria and 4. A Typology of Arab Political Systems Bassam Tibi 5. Islamic Revival in the Middle East: A Comparison of Iran and Egypt Nikki R. Keddie 6. The Dialectics of Patriarchy in Arab Society Hisham Sharabi 7. Orientalism Reconsidered Edward W. 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By comparison Ahmad ‘Ajit al-Yawer, the Paramount Chief of Shammar, owned 259,509 diinums in 1958 and Muhammad al-Habib alAmir, the Paramount Chief of Rabi’ah 206,473 danums, One danum equals 0.618 acre. See Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 48. 8. Fi'ad Matar (a Lebanese journalist), Saddam Husayn, ar-Rajul wa-l- Qadiyyak wa-t-Mustagbal (Saddam Husayn, the Man. the Cause, and the Future) (Beirut, 1980), p. 246. 9. Conversation with an ex-member of the Ba'th Party Mid-Buphrates Branch ‘Command. 10. Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 1123 and Republic of Iraq, Ministry of Planning, Annual Abstract of Statistics, 1978, p. 270. 11, The Socialist Arab Ba'th Party, Iragi Region, A Tagrir-ul-Markazi-lil- Mu’tamar-il-Qutri-t-Tési’ Sune 1982, p. 145 12. The contractor in question is Taha *Abd-ul-Majid Thawrah (Baghdad), 22 August 1983. 13. The percentages are based on the figures provided in Table 3.1 14. The Socialist Arab Ba'th Party, Iraqi Region, At Tagrir-ul-Markazi, June 1982, p. 95 15S. Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed (Pathfinder Press, New York, 1970), pp. 57-8. 16. Republic of Iraq. Annual Absiract of Statistics, 1969. p. 380 17. Republic of Iraq, Annual Absiract of Statistics, 1982, p. 164 18. The Socialist Arab Ba‘th Party, Iragi Region, Ai-Tagrir-ul-Markazi, June 1982, p. 95. 19, Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes, p. 1010. 20. Fuad Matar, Saddam Husayn, p.217 21, John F. Devlin, Syria. Modern State in an Ancient Land (Westview Press, Boulder, Col., London, 1982), p. 57. 22. Consult Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes, pp. 4S and 765 Hadithi, see Ath4 A TYPOLOGY OF ARAB POLITICAL SYSTEMS (With Special Reference to Islam and Government as Exemplified in Arab Monarchies Legitimised by Islam: Morocco and Saudi Arabia) Bassam Tibi The merit of typologies lies in their ability to assist in the clas i ion of data for research. However, typologies can either be too general and hence non-specific, or too specialised and accordingly not valid for covering a whole issue. We can, for instance, classify Arab political orders as being ‘republics’ or ‘monarchies’. The explanatory value of such a general typology seems to be little. The Arab monarchy of North Yemen, for in: se, became a republic after the coup d’état of 1962. For a social scientist to whom change is meaningless unless it affects the existing social structures, little can be discerned in the aftermath of the abolition of the Imamate in Yemen. Therefore changing the place of North Yemen in the typology has little telling value. Typologies can, however, be specified in a way that improves their explanatory power, but reduces their general application. To acertain extent typologies have to be general but this gener- ality has to be restricted, in the sense that a typology is valueless if it is non-specific. A way out of this dilemma seems to lic in combining, a typology with a respective conceptual framework. A typology can then help to classify the data, and the conceptual framework provides the explanatory power. This task, however, cannot be attempted in this chapter, in which I primarily wish to deal on a conceptual level with the two monarchies legitimised by Islam: Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Since I am not grappling with these monarchies for their sake but rather within the framework of the study of comparative government of the Middle East, it is necessary to place both of them in a respective typology and to outline the frame of reference employed in this chapter.A Typology of Arab Political Systems 49 Conceptualising and Typifying Arab Political Orders With reference to my own long-standing study of Arab political systems,” T propose to employ the following typology, drawing a distinction between four types of government in the contemporary Middle East 1. Traditional political systems with religious, religio-tribal or merely tribal legitimacy: all existing Arab monarchies (except Jordan’) are to be placed under this pattern. The five Sheikhdoms of the Gulf* have a tribal order. Saudi Arabia’ and Morocco® are religio-monarchies. Jordan is difficult to classify. 2. Secular one-party systems: Tunisia’ and both Arab states ruled by the Ba’th party’ (Syria and Iraq) have a secular legiti- macy, though their elites are, in fact, religio- practice.” Tunisia is, on the contrary, comparatively speaking, the most advanced secular Arab state 3. Military regimes with a charismatic leader: Nasscr’s Egypt is the best example of this type of government.” Similarly with the second type mentioned above, these military regimes may also have their one-party systems. But the Neo-destour party of Tunisia, for instance, unlike the different state parties established by Nasser (the Liberation Rally, the National Union and lastly, the Arab Socialist Union), has its own tradition and was in existence a long time before coming to political power. This is an important distinction between type 2 and type 3. 4. Democratic parliamentary political systems. Egypt,!! prior to the coup d’état of 1952, Lebanon"? before the outbreak of the civil war in 1975 and Syria’ during the few years after independence were the only examples of this type of government in the Arab Middle East and North Africa. Today’s Egypt, though it has a multi-party system, cannot be considered as a parliamentary democracy since the ruling National Democratic Party, estab- lished by Sadat, is in effect a one-party system." ectarian in their This typology, however, cannot explain the diversity of political orders and of theirinstitutions that exist in the Arab region (the term “Arab World’ is deliberately avoided because there is an Arab part of world society, but not an Arab world of its own). There is clearly ed fora concept which would facilitate a better understanding of this diversity, but it is beyond the confines of this chapter to develop50 A Typology of Arab Political Systems such aconcept. Some main features must suffice with regard to the topic on which this chapter focuses. Such a conceptual approach must contribute to the elucidation of the following three compo- nents: (1) the political culture of the respective Arab country; (2) the existing social structures; and (3) the prevailing social system. Although there is one Arab nation, consisting as it does of different peoples, there are diverse political cultures within the Arab region, though these are similar and though they all, taken together, seem to be unique by comparison with other non-Arab political cultures. As it is not possible to deal at length here with the variety of concepts in the study of political culture," it may suffice to say that a political culture covers the normative systems, the collective identity patterns, and the mode of political loyalty to the system by the people. The configuration of the ruling elites and their socio-cultural profile, their norms, their interaction and action patterns, their way of dealing with conflict and with power allocation and in general their socialisation patterns, all thes the political culture of a socict: issues belong to It seems obvious that the political culture of Egypt varies substantially from that of Morocco, Iraq or Saudi Arabia though all thrce countries are Arab. The state of a political culture, of course, is related to historical development. There is no static political culture: the differences, therefore, are to be explained historically. In referring to the social structures underlying the diversity of political orders in Arab countrics, we can argue that these social structures also have a very wide range of diversity. Some Arab countries, Egypt for instance, have a long tradition of central power upholding the pervasiveness of the state. Others, like Saudi Arabia, are still grapling with the problem of establishing a pervasive state- structure. These differen are due to a differing state of development and accordingly to a wide range of varying degrees of complexity in the existing social structures. The institutionally developed Arab states have as a result developed social structures that are lacking in those Arab states with a newly imposed state structure. With regard to social structures there are great differences between most of the Arab countries, though all of them share the features of dependency and underdevelopment.'*A Typology of Arab Political Systems 51 Each society has its own social system. This refers to the organi- sation of social relations and to their underlying normative compo- nents in a society. They shape the prevailing patterns of interaction. Social institutions belong to the ingredients of a social system, too. All three components of the analysis can, with the aid of the above typology, provide a conceptual framework for a better under- standing of Arab political orders. This concept has to be understood inthe context of history —- the unity and diversity of the Arabs, their political cultures, the social structures they are living in and the social systems that are shaping their lives are products of history and of respective developments. In other words, it lies in the realm of stereotypes to deny or to overlook this existing diversity and to prociaim a projected unity Islam as a Political Legitimacy and the Islamic Tradition of Government Discussion about monarchies legitimised by Islam requires a consid- eration of the problem of Islamic political order and consequently leads to the question of whether there and whether Islam — being a religion — provides the base of a political order or whether it has merely served as a legitimacy device in the course of Islamic history, and in the present time as well. In his analysis of Arab politics, Michacl Hudson suggests that the ideal ofan Arab monarchy legitimised by Islam is entirely congruent with the value of a traditional culture, since it would be an Islamic monarchy governed by the most able uibal leaders tracing their lincage to a traditional authority, that is, to the prophet.'7 This is true for Islamic history and for both monarchies at issue. The adherents, however, of the Islamic principles of /khtiyar, that is, of the free selection of the Islamic ruler, denounce this dynastic pattern of government as a Sultanic (sultani) one. An enquiry into Islamic history with regard to Islamic political thought may provide an insight. In this respect, an overview of Islamic history seems to be helpful, too. A survey of historical developments since the founding of Islam reveals that there are no forms of government proper to Islam other than the caliphate, for Sunni Muslims, and the Imamate," for Shi'ite Muslims. Both stand for different religio-political traditions in Islam. Since the two monarchies under discussion are Sunnite monarchies it is then such an Islamic orderornot,52 A Typology of Arab Political Systems justified to restrict the enquiry to the political history and the political thought of Sunni-Islam The prophet Mohammed was a religio-political leader. In the words of the great French scholar Maxime Rodinson, Mohammed was ‘a combination of Jesus and Charles the Great’. The first Islamic state in history, the city state of Medina founded by Mohammed, was quite clearly a theocratic, political creation.” For his political decision-making the prophet consulted his companions (as-Sahaba). Accordingly, the principle of ‘consultation’ (Shura) was established as the primary clement of Islamic government. After the death of the prophet, a successor had to be chosen. The most able leaders of the tribe of Quraish felt entitled to do that. On a consultative level they were able to select freely a successor, a caliph. Hence, al-Ikhtiyar, the free selection of the Islamic ruler, became the second principle of Islamic government. Each caliph had to be endorsed by the Bay’a, the vow of loyalty and obedience of the people. This procedure was practised during the three decades after the death of the prophet and was even adopted after the victory of the Umayyads over their rivals. The Umayyads accepted this clement of the caliphate. They committed themselves — at least formally — to the Bay’a. In the course of Islamic history, the simple city state of Medina extended and became, during the Abbaside dynasty, a world-wide empire. This cmpire required more sophisticated patterns of government than the three principles mentioned above could ever provide. At the height of Islamic development, political legitimacy for the ruler was constituted with religion playing a central part init. Islamic legal scholars were introduced as legitimisers, as those with the power to ‘loose’ and ‘bind’ (ah/ al-hall wa al-‘aqd), that is, to legislate. Aside from the Shura, al-Ikhtiyar and the Bay’a, the idea of the institution of ah/ al-hall wa al-‘aqd became the fourth principle of Islamic political thought. The Ulama, out of which the legal scholars (the fagih) were recruited, became merged in the political system and were promoted to its primary religio-political source of legitimacy device. On a hypothetical level one can argue that the principles of Shura (consultation), al-/khtiyar (free selection), Baya (vow of loyalty), or in a modern translation, election, and lastly ahf al-hall wa al-‘aqd (people who ‘loose’ and ‘bind’), or in the modern understanding, the legislative body, could provide a system of democr: The well-known Iraqi historian and scholar of Islam, AbdulazizA Typology of Arab Political Systems 53 al-Duri, is of the opinion that due to the lack of respective political institutions in Islamic history, Islamic political concepts were never practised, except in the early period.” Opposition to the caliph had always been denounced as being a fitna’} (riot or turmoil) and had therefore been suppressed. The people that the different caliphs consulted within the framework of Shura and also those who were supposed to provide a valid political interpretation of Islamic precepts (ah/ al-hall wa al-‘agd) were completely subservient to the caliph. Islam is unfamiliar with the separation of powers. Therefore, there did not exist independent political institutions, which facili- tated the practice of the Shura principle and provided the people of al-hall wa al-'agd with the necessary autonomy vis-a-vis the ruler. Islam does not allow any human legislation. The task of Ulamais in this way restricted to interpreting the Islamic sources in order to provide believers with a divine guide for their behaviour. In this sense no autonomous tradition of political thought could arise in Islam. The late Iranian scholar Hamid Enayat, who taught at Oxford, points out that political thought ‘as an independent and distinct branch of intellectual activity is a fairly recent addition to Islamic culture’.# Muslim thinkers have always placed the study of politics in the related religious disciplines of jurisprudence and theology. Taking the political and social status of the Islamic legal scholars, the fagth, into consideration it is casy to conclude that their scholarship was restricted to providing the ruling caliphs, to whom they were completely ervient, with the necessary religio- political legitimacy. The fagih limited their efforts to proclaiming the political decision-making of the rulers as being in line with the Shari'a (lex divina), the divine law of Islam. Neither was there an autonomous tradition of political philosophy in Islam beyond the of the obligation religiously to endorse the ruler. The fagih, therefore, religious confines nor were there autonomous institutions fre lacked the ability to control the ruler except within the confines of the Shari'a. The interpretation of Shari’a was always at the service of the political rulers. The French educated Damascene scholar Adib Nassur, who is familiar with both Islamic and European histories of political thought, complained in an early essay in 1955 about the lack of a tradition of political thought in Islam beyond the working out of legitimacy devices for the rulers. The distinguished political writings of Mawardi, of al-Fabrabi and of Ibn Khaldun, among few others, are scarcely abundant, The existing tradition of political thought in54 A Typology of Arab Political Systems Islam seldom goes beyond the described (and prescribed) limits One of the severe flaws of any approach restricted to the history of ideas is the inability to explain realities beyond intellectual confines. The discussion of monarchies legitimised by Islam might mean to an old style orientalist, for example, that those monarchies are proclaiming Islam with the scriptures being the primary source of their order. A social scientist proceeds ina different way. For him realities, in the Durkheimian sense of fait social, must be the point of departure. Indeed the political systems of Morocco and Saudi Arabia vary substantially though both proclaim Islam to be their legitimacy and though both insist that there is only one immutable Islam. Nevertheless, also for a social scientist, the Islamic legitimacy of both monarchies must belong to the issues under analysis though he/she is usually trained to look at these things ina different way Before dealing with the political syste of Morocco and Saudi Arabia there is a further question regarding the issue of Islamic government, an issue which is now very pertinent in the Middle East. We have to raise the question as to whether there is, or is not, aspecific system of government that can authentically be considered an Islamic one. Long before Khomeini made this i one, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt raised the ¢ lishing a nizam Islami ~~ an Islamic system of government.” In a controversial publication in 19 Professor Ali Abdelraziq argued that in Islamic precepts there is no tem of government. Islamis, in Abdelraziq’s view, a religion: itis neither a political ideology nor the foundation for any political ystem. Abdelraziq contested the Islamic character of those govern- ments that proclaimed to be Islamic in the course of Islamic history.27 A closer examination of the Koran reveals that it only contains generalities when it comes to the political organisation of society. Galal Badr, who raises this issuc, argues thus: suc a popular aim of estab- in Cairo the Azharite scholar from the historical point of view Islam did not know only one particular form of government or only one particular set of constitutional rules in the course of its fourteen centuries of existence. . . Each phase of Islamic history and its corresponding form of government had their own rationalization in the writings of Islamic scholars.” The conclusion is, notwithstanding claims to the contrary, that thereA Typology of Arab Political Systems 5S is no specific Islamic system of government. In the Islamic past Omayyad and Abbaside rulers claimed to govern in accordance with Islamic precepts. But not even those few very general political components of the Shari'a, such as the Shura, had ever been seriously practised. The alleged Islamic character of the political rule was always a legitimacy device. It was a rationalisation of existing political power. Nowadays one finds an apparent projection of modern concepts into Islam, such as that of the ‘system’ (nizam) that does not exist in Islamic sources. But we should now leave this general level and move to the cases in point — Morocco and Saudi Arabia. lorocco and Saudi Arabia: Arab Monarchies Legitimised by [stam — A Comparative Appraisal Though both monarchies have the same legitimacy device they vary widely in their history aswell as in their contemporary structures and institutions. Morocco has a long-standing tradition of political institutions though the Moroccan political system cannot be consi- dered as being an institutionalised political system from the standpoint of political institutionalisation.”” Saudi Arabia has, on the contrary, no similar tradition. Morocco now has its third constitution since independence, whereas the leaders of Saudi Arabia insist that the Koran is the best constitution that has ever existed on earth. They therefore reject the idea of releasing any written constitution, There is no codified law in Saudi Arabia as is the case in Morocco which already has a legal structure Notwithstanding these very important political and institutional distinctions, Morocco and Saudi Arabia have Islam in common as their legitimacy device. Indced they share some crucial features such as the combination of both political and religious authority in the person of the ruler. In Morocco the king is amir al-mu’minin, the commander of the faithful and the leading tribal, and hence undis- puted, authority. In Saudi Arabia the king isa religious Imam and in addition shaykh al-mashayikh, the chicf tribal leader, In terms of social theory we can argue that both monarchies are a manifestation of the correspondence of the sacred and the political. The French anthropologist Georges Balandier interprets this correspondence as being a crucial feature of societies not oriented towards mastery over nature by means of the application of science and technology56 A Typology of Arab Political Systems but rather linked with it.2? A sociologist. concerned with development studies may argue that both countries are undergoing a process of rapid social change and are therefore restructuring. American social scientists employ the term modernisation to describe this process. Early modernisation theorists argued that modernisation is conducive to secularisation. In referring to these assumptions one is inclined, in a conceptual rather than an empirical appraisal, to raise the question whether these monarchies legitimised by Islam could survive the so-called modernisation process. Their future prospects could then be discussed. It is important to make it clear at the outset that my intention here is to focus on the explanatory level and that it is not my purpose to provide a survey of both monarchies under issue. Moreover, I am interested in enquiring into the correspondence between the sacred and the socio-political with regard to both monarchies in terms of social theory and not in terms of theology or Islamist studies. Therefore the controversy concerning the alleged and respectivel lam, briefly referred to earlier in quoting the views of Ali Abdelraziq, is contested unity of the sacred and the mundane in excluded. For the sociologist of religion this unity has clearly a fonction idéologique and in this sense a legitimising purpose Ideologies are not, however, merely a superstructure since they are interconnected with reality and can, therefore, affect it. Thisis nota normative-idealist view but rather a criticism of reductionism. [wish to focus on the problems of social change and then discuss the idcolog | functions connected with them Frame of Reference Regarding Arab Monarchies Legitimised by Islam My primary hypothesis lies in the assumption that social change is a process of functional differentiation of the social tem. In the course of societal development, religion is affected by this differen- tiation process. Religion becomes a part-system of the whole social system. Reducing holistic religious functions to partial functions is, in this sense, a by-product of the functional differentiation of a social system. Such a change cannot be brought about by policy measures which will fail unless they are a part of a societal transformation process. This has been the case in Kemalist Turkey. The failure of secularisation in the Islamic societies of the Middle East has to be explained within this contextas resulting from a lack of the required societal transformation. It cannot be adequately interpreted eitherA Typology of Arab Political Systems 57 asa failure of policy measures or within the framework of the histo of ideas, or from the analysis of cultural patterns. Old-style tradi- tional modernisation theorists of the early 1960s discerned Islam asa socio-political factor and classified it — a case of wishful thinking — as part of the traditional culture that has to be overcome in the process of so-called modernisation were unprepared to explain the Islamic resurgence that has taken place since the 1970s."* T have already alluded to the idea that both Moroccan and Saudi Arabian monarchies cannot be properly understood by merely referring to Islam itself. It is true that Islam in terms of the sociology of religion — is an organic and not a church religion. In Islam religious and political functions are fused. They create a unitary structure. This is, however, only the rationalisation of a model. The study of Islamic history draws attention to the fact that in reality there is no unified Islamic political culture. Instead one finds historically different, regionally specific and culturally variant forms of Islam m of the nineteenth century differs from early Istam, and Indo-Islam is not the same as African Islam, for instance It must now be very clear that merely referring to Islam is of little help in understanding the Moroccan and Saudi Arabian monar- chies. It is more useful to employ the concept referred to in the first part of this chapter, a concept which has three components: political culture, social system and social structures.» Political systems employing Islam as a legitimacy device can have historically and regionally different patterns of the same political culture of Islam. They can also have different institutional frameworks functioning in their social system. Moreover, political systems referring to Istam — in the sense of legitimation — can exist in societies having completely different social structures with regard Most of these social scientists to degrees of social complexity and development.° One can now apply this concept to Morocco and Saudi Arabia to find out similarities and differences between them. The question of the future prospects of both monarchies in terms of stability and durability of their order can also be discussed. Both countries are undergoing processes of rapid social change that are affecting them substantially. But before moving to this, and in order to avoid a repeatedly occurring misunderstanding, it is important to clarify the notions of ‘social change’ and ‘modernisation’. Since the nineteenth century processes of rapid social change have been taking place in the Middle East, as weil as in other parts of the58 A Typology of Arab Political Systems Third World. In the course of this uneven development modern segments were introduced into the traditional social systems, became part of them, and were merged in the old society. Moderni- sation does not mean, however, that these societies are developing towards the model of modern societies of the West.*” In my view, modernisation requires a social transformation and means the unfolding of traditional societies in creating innovational patterns out of the old and the new. Referring to Islam, this notion would mean that Islam is not going to recede in the course of modernisa- tion, as the modernisation theorists of the early 1960s once assumed.* Istam itself will be affected by processes of social change despite its alleged immutability. In this sense secularisation is to be understood as being a by-product of change. Secularisation is related to the differentiation of functions within asociety. Itis not an act of will and cannot be introduced successfully by laws and policy measures if the required societal structures of functional differenti- ation are still lacking. In other words, modernization does not mean the abolition of so-called traditional society and the installation of the new imported model of the West — labelled ‘modernity’. There is both historical and societal continuity. Modernisation, in my opinion, is a process of the unfolding of the new out of the old within the framework of societal transformation and not merely an adoption of superficial modernity. To make this notion clear we can allude to Saudi Arabia and notice that this country is modernisingin the superficial sense. The bedouin are getting mechanised, as Saad Eddin [brahim has observed,” but there is no social transformation of the socie After this necessary clarification we now move to applying the concept to both Moroccan and Saudi Arabian monarchies. First of all both can be characterised as being arbitrary and autocratic. But of the two monarchies the Moroccan one is to be considered more developed. In Saudi Arabia the Koran is still the official constitu- tion, whereas Morocco already has its third constitution as mentioned earlier. Morocco, unlike Saudi Arabia, has party systems and civil associations such as those of trade unions, women and students. The legal system of Morocco is influenced to a great extent by French civil law.“” During one of my last visits to Rabat, Abdelaziz Ben-Jalloun (the dean of the law faculty of the Université Mohammed V de Rabat) stressed in a meeting, together with the German Ambassador Dr Jesser, his deep interest in the German constitutional law (Grundgesetz) with regard to its adapta-A Typology of Arab Political Systems 59 bility to Morocco. It is worth noticing that Ben-Jalloun is legal adviser to the king. The political culture of Morocco is much more developed than that of Saudi Arabia.! This is due to the long urban tradition of Morocco and to the impact of French education. Morocco has a highly educated elite that is still lacking in Saudi Arabia. In indicating that Morocco has a modern multi-party system we do not overlook the fact that these parties correspond with existing societal clientele relations in agrarian Moroccan society.” In this sense these parties are not institutionalised social organisa- tions. Though the Moroccan political system cannot be judged as being democratic it does to a certain extent provide certain political freedoms that would be absolutely unimaginable in Saudi Arabia. Morocco, though an extremely conservative country, allows even more liberal freedoms than those Arab countries which proclaim themselves as ‘progressive’. The author personally knows many Moroccan colleagues in Rabat and Marrakesh who are openly critical towards the Moroccan political system and who are co- operating with Amnesty International, the international organi- sation for human rights, without risking the loss of their chairs or being imprisoned as is the case, for instance, in Syria and Iraq. Another striking difference between the Moroccan monarchy and the Saudi monarchy are the long and deep roots of the urban tradition of the Moroccan monarchy which are not found in the overwhelmingly bedouin political culture of Saudi Arabia.“* The Moroccan state, the Makhzan, has to be approved ina similar way to the Saudi one by the tribes. But the Moroccan state itself hasa more urban-institutional character than the Saudi one, which is more or less tribal. The Makitzar is imposed on the whole territory of the state by all military and policy means of the king. The state struc- tures are accordingly pervasive since the absence of this state authority and structures is discarded as a statclessness, bilad as- siba’. Morocean tribal leaders participate regularly in the bay'a ceremonies in order to assure their vow of loyalty and obedience towards the king. But these tribal leaders are not part of the decision-making process as is the case in Saudi Arabia. Tribal leaders in Saudi Arabia are much more important to the political item than they are in Morocco. This is indicative of a substantial difference in both political culture and the state of development of the social structures in both monarchies. The Moroccan Alawi dynasty has existed since 1666 and has therefore a long tradition in pacifying and appeasing tribal adversaries. 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