108 17de eeuwse handelsbetrekkingen

When Michiel de Ruyter went to Iligh in the 17th Century he traded in hats. What the lord of Iligh really wanted of course were weapons and lots of it. But the Staten Generaal, the parliament of the Dutch Republic had ordered that there would be no weapons sold to the Sultan of Morocco for fear he would turn them on the Dutch. But Ali Aboudmiaa presented himself as an independent ruler who had nothing to do with the Sultan. That was the arrogance that would cost his offspring and Iligh dearly later on. For De Ruyter Aboudmiaa's word was enough. The hats provided excellent cover for the more profitable canons and muskets. On the other hand hats and other head coverings like helmets only showed the importance of the wearer if decked out with exotic oistrich feathers and that was something Ali Aboudmiaa had plenty of.

The Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa

The history of Iligh had been illustrious. By the middle of the seventeenth century it had evolved from the Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa who had settled there in the late sixteenth century to a rich and powerful chiefdom that stretched from Ifrane in the south to Agadir in the north . Around 1670 it had irked the Alawite rulers of Morocco sufficiently to have a force send out to them. Iligh was destroyed and its inhabitants were either taken as slaves, killed or fled into the mountains of the Anti Atlas. However fifty years later one of the descendants of the Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa came back and build up the chiefdom from the ruins. From the middle of the eighteenth century till the very end of the nineteenth century Iligh was back as an important link in the chain of the trans Sahara trade.It had ambassadors to all the great powers of the time. With Britain in particular it did a lot of trade. Iligh's largest export product being Oistrich feathers. However changing geopolitics and evolving fashion wear brought Iligh down. By the time the French in 1912 took over Morocco as a protectorate Iligh's fortunes had already declined dramatically. But the pull of the Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa is unabated. Every year in August tens of thousand of people gather around the sanctuary for the yearly Moussem or pelgrimage. When Bert, Heleen Toet and I visited in October 2016, it was a quiet midweek day. There was no Souk and most of the regular little shops and workshops were closed for siesta.