106 The Harem and Seraglio

According to Fatima Mernissi the Moroccan Muslim feminist there are two distinct kinds of Harems: the Harem where the wives and concubines of one man lived and the Harem were the extended family of a patriarch lived. In ‘Dreams of Trespass, tales from a Harem childhood’ Mernissi as a young girl constantly tries to define the concept of Harem. One definition was: a safe space for women where everything was kept out that was ‘Haram’ or bad. Another definition was that women who according to male perception were cause of all disorder (Fitna) had to be kept hidden away from the world. The most famous, politically savvy and enduring Harem, the one that inspired horny western painters in the nineteenth century like Ingres and Delacroix, was the Harem of the Ottoman Sultans in Istanbul the Seraglio in the Topkapi Palace. It is said that the Ottomans were for a century or more looking from the other side of the Bosporus jealously at the fabulous city of Constantinople with its visible domes and invisible royal ‘Seraglio’. The women of the Christian Byzantine ‘Seraglio’ were not allowed out at all and if they for some reason had to go out they had to be heavily veiled and accompanied by armed eunuchs. Western writers criticize the 12th century Byzantine biographer Anna Comnena as being terrible vague on locations, dates and battles. They obviously didn’t take into account the fact that she wouldn’t have had the necessary knowledge locked up as she was in the Seraglio of the palace. When Constantinople finally fell into the hands of the Ottomans in 1453 they introduced into their culture two things: Domes and ‘Seraglio’. Read all about it in: The Imperial Harem: women and sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire by Leslie P Pierce. However Harems were already introduced into the Muslim world during the Abbasid Califate (8th to 13th century). The drawing is of the White or Women’s Stronghold, the building that housed the Harem of Iligh.

88 Michiel de Ruyter in Iligh

Michiel de Ruyter has written in his diaries about his visits to Iligh and his meetings with the ‘Sant’. But until now there are no documents found written by people in Iligh about his visits. Of course Iligh was destroyed a few decennia later. The strange thing is that there isn’t a memory either among the family Aboudmiaa of a Dutch trader selling them modern weaponry. Maybe the sounds of the name were just too foreign: El Soussie who wrote about Iligh in the nineteen fifties did mention him and gave him an unrecognizably scrambled name. Bert Hogervorst hasn’t figured out yet how he came by his information: from the biography of De Ruyter or by documents he got from the Aboudmiaa family and reportedly never gave back? Thinking about De Ruyter in Iligh I can see that the set up might be different from what he was used too, but I’m sure De Ruyter also saw similarities between Iligh and the Dutch Republic. Iligh was small but was making a name for itself in international trade in particular across the Sahara. It had mighty enemies that were eager to destroy it. It was wealthy and it had a liberal attitude towards others. Jews in particular had found refuge there. Not Jews from the Iberian Peninsula as in the Republic but Jews from nearby Ifrane. And as in the Low Countries the Jews had brought prosperity because of their connections. It was ‘The Golden Age’ in the Republic but the same can be said about Morocco. In the seventeenth century there wasn’t such a big difference between the standard of living and the level of development in Europe and the Islamic world. That only came to be in the nineteenth century with the industrial revolution in Europe.

80 Vlissingen 1652

1652 was an important year in the life of Michiel de Ruyter. Het married Anne van Gelder and had bought a house. His trade with Iligh and the Caribbean had made him a rather wealthy man. He wanted to spend more time with his family and less time on the seven seas. However that was not going to be. Johan de Witt asked him to help out the young Republic as it was threatened on all sides. This map of Vlissingen shows a relative big city that is well protected from outside enemies both human and water. The population of Vlissingen has grown but not by much. The old town and coast are still more or less the same. Although most harbours and docks as well as the moat have been filled in. What I had to draw I could find on this map. The history of Vlissingen is a long one. It has always been a desirable possession because of its strategic position at the entrance of the Schelde estuary and its rich hinterland of Antwerp, Brugge and Gendt. In 1572 it became the second city within the very young Dutch Republic to rid itself of Spanish rule. They weren’t ‘taken’; the population freed itself. After that it became a wealthy port and trading centre by itself till Amsterdam took over in importance. Typical after getting his commission as Vice Admiral of the fleet De Ruyter had to move to Amsterdam. However he kept his house in Vlissingen.

76 In search of Michiel de Ruyter

The first chapter of the Graphic Story about Iligh will be about the Michiel de Ruyter connection. Michiel de Ruyter was born in 1607 and died in 1676 during a sea battle against the French. He hailed from the town of Vlissingen on the island of Walcheren in the Province of Zeeland. Zeeland was in the 17th century an independent region of small but rich and powerful islands within the Dutch Republic of Seven Provinces. Michiel de Ruyter is an iconic hero of the seas. His sailors gave him the honorary title of ‘Bestevaer’ (grandfather). The latest biography about him by Ronald Prudhomme van Reine was called ‘De rechter hand van Nederland’ (The right hand of the Netherlands) and a movie about his exploits during the wars with England was titled ‘Admiral’. At primary school I learned the song ‘In een blauwgeruite kiel’ (In a blue tartan shirt) about him as a youth dreaming about going to sea while working on a ropewalk. Lately his heroic status has been questioned and to have an interest in him is considered dubious and ‘not done’. He is accused of facilitating the slave trade. The Dutch had taken over the cross-ocean trade from the Portuguese and made it more ‘efficient’ and thus more vicious and dehumanizing. As with all iconic figures a lot of myths were attached to him and he had become more like an institution than a human being. Time to get a ‘feel’ for this man and to make drawings ‘in situ’ for the graphic story. I took the train to Vlissingen. It was a beautiful sunny day when I set out to the railway station only to find out that the scheduled direct train to Vlissingen had been cancelled. Time enough to sit down and do some serious sketching of the monumental Amsterdam Central Station.

Aicha and her projects

To be able to 'get things done' for the village Aisha Aboudmiaa went into politics. She stood for election for the regional council. She got in and is now a representative. Although she works and lives in Agadir where she is a civil servant and works on her phd, she applies herself to make life in the local community better. The dusty football pitch is a visible example. In March 2018 work was on the way to upgrade the pitch to a proper sports field. In the sketch Aisha is talking to the workmen who are setting out a sports oval. Another successful undertaking was the coming of the Medical Caravan. For about a week a number of mobile medical facilities were set up in the village. People were seen to for free. The aim is that in future the Medical Caravan visits the village on a regular basis. Aisha had also asked the women of the village, what they needed most. On top came out: good quality water. The water the diesel pump brings up is barely good enough for irrigation. Because of the opening up of water as a marketable commodity, drinking water is now bottled and sold in shops and has become too expensive for most local families. Through Aicha's efforts a deep well has been sunk that brings up drinkable water for the use of the villagers. Another thing is that for the olive harvest the women have to go miles away. Aisha has planted about a hectare or more on the south side of the village with olive trees. In 2018 they stood about at 1.50 m. However the orchard has suffered from draught and theft. Year round safeguarding and maintenance has proven very expensive.

The short life of Paul Pascon

Paul Pascon was born in 1932 in Fez. His family originally came from France but had lived for a couple of generations in Morocco. When Morocco became independent in 1956, he chose to become a Moroccan citizen. Pascon became an important sociologist embracing new methods of research and introducing them in Morocco. His work inspired a whole generation of Moroccan sociologists and historians with his post-colonial take on his studies about rural society. In 1965 he visited for the first time Iligh and the neighboring Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa. Through his studies of old documents he was able to throw a new light on how pre-colonial society in that part of Morocco (Tazerwalt) worked. It was not a strictly tribal society but a society made up out of different groups formed around the descendants of the Sufi saint and its 'symbolic capital'. His studies of the society in the Tazerwalt was so sympathetic to the existing make up, history and population that his memory is still cherished. The sympathy was mutual. Also the participating students and other scientists participated in it. Unfortunately his life was clouded by misfortunes. During a camping trip his two sons disappeared never to be found again. Pascon himself died on a road trip in Mauritania in 1985. Not everybody believed it was an accident. Rumors abound.

Having a good laugh about it all

The situation surrounding our trip to Iligh, what Bert and I would find there and what we would do with it was so confusing we had a good laugh about it. We decided that whatever would happen, we would take it in our stride. Whatever bridge we'd encounter, we'd cross. Whatever we would find on the other side we would take on and not despair. In short: this was it. This was the story. This we would shape into a graphic novel. Well, supposedly one had to know beforehand what the purpose of the effort was and which part of the public we were aiming for. Initially the Jewish History Museum of Amsterdam had been interested in it as a possible part of educational projects they were doing to create more understanding of Jewish history among Muslim school-age children of Moroccan descent. Many kids with a Moroccan background believed that current Israeli politics was what being Jewish was all about (to say it politely). Anyway with this radical change of plan, we didn't know anymore who our public was and if we would have any at all. And the designers of my website whom I told our plans to also pressed the importance on me of making it fit tablet and smartphone. I did a little try-out before I left: it looks as confusedly scattered as I felt.

Doubt is creeping in

In the two months between booking the plane tickets and hiring a car for our trip to Iligh and actually traveling doubt started to creep in. At least with me. Bert and I rarely spoke. I was busy in Polranny, Ireland and she was busy in Amsterdam. I knew she tried a couple of times without success to get Aicha on the phone or by Messenger. We knew already that she had been ill for quite a while in the winter. But what was ailing her we didn't know. What were we going to find when we stood at the door in Iligh? It was all one big uncertainty. Letterlijk & Figuurlijk the book by Joost Pollmann about the different forms a graphic story could take had had a profound influence on me. Did it still make sense to draw a straightforward historical story set into the traditional framework? I had visions of me researching endlessly the original props surrounding Michiel De Ruyter on his trips to Iligh. And how about the detailing of the court of Aboudmiaa? It would take years for the graphic story to get finished. On top of that I always had said myself that a 'historical' movie said more about the time it was made in than the time it was supposed to be in. Wouldn't it be the same for a graphic history? And what about making an entire graphic novel on the computer instead of on paper? Was Photoshop really the right software for it or did I have to resort to Illustrator or Indesign? Did I have to take a subscription out for the software and do a course in how to use it? Did I really want to spend time and money on those things? When Bert and I got together again three weeks before the departure we didn't know anything anymore. Wasn't the whole rigmarole surrounding our involvement with Iligh a story in itself?

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.

Itinerary for the next visit to Iligh

Bert and I are still very unsure about situations we would meet in Iligh, things to do and which direction the Graphic Story should take. There are a number of angles we could pursue. Should we tell about the general history of the chiefdom, concentrate on the Dutch angle with Michiel De Ruyter, or focus on the Jewish history of the place and the possible connection between the Sephardic community in Amsterdam and Iligh in the 17th century? And then there was the format of the Graphics itself. Which way image and text could be used together? We had the idea that Bert would do the interviews and view the documents and that I would make as many drawings as possible. But we didn't even know how welcome we were. Aisha had indicated that we would be welcome to stay in the compound where her parents lived. But would they be there? We decided to rent a car so we would be independent. At least we would be able to travel between the nearest town Tiznit and Iligh every day. In case we had to take a hotel. But most important of all: we had a lot of fun making up the itinerary.

First sight of Iligh

Bert Hogervorst and I are making a Graphic Story about an small former chiefdom in the south of Morocco. This is how we got into it: Bert visited the stronghold of Iligh on the edge of the Sahara desert for the first time in March 2015. She owns a company for private travel called Flying Hippo and was there with a small group. Bert was charmed by the architecture of the old buildings of 'Maison d'Iligh'. They looked more Sub-Saharan and less traditional Moroccan. There was a sign that said: Museum. She knocked on the nearest door. Nobody was at home. A few days later in Agadir she met up with Aisha Aboudmiaah the daughter of the owner of Maison d’Iligh. Aisha told Bert about a chest containing 1500 documents in Arabic and Hebrew in addition to a library of 3000 old books. All of which are in grave danger of  falling apart with age and neglect. At her return in Amsterdam Bert contacted the Jewish Historical Museum. They had organised in 2009 an important photo exhibit  about Jewish life in Southren Morocco. She also contacted the director of the Musée du Judaisme Marocain in Casablanca: Zhor Rehilhil. But Zhor reacted doubtful: is there proof the chest really exists? In October Bert and I visited her. It was an interesting and informative meeting, but we didn’t succeed then to bring her in contact with Aisha.