How To Become A Saint...
Published in
ORIENT (Journal of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan)
Vol. XLII 2007, pp. 5-25.
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HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND
IMMOBILITY 1
Abderrahmane LAKHSASSI*
One day, the inhabitants of a small town in south Morocco found a man early morning sitting near one of their main mosques. The mosque itself is separated from the sanctuary of the patron saint of Tiznit by a small river. For nearly half a century, the man never left his place. The first tent that was later offered to him has been successively renewed until it was replaced by a wooden shed. Still no one knows much about the man. Not even his name or what language he speaks, Berber or Arabic. The space near the Id-Zekri quarter mosque which the man has been watching for days, months, years and decades in an almost immobile posture with the same light smile had been becoming more and more crowded with social changes the small town had been subject to after 1975 and the Sahara question. Few years before he passed away, we started to get interested in him and particularly in what people think about his case. We succeeded in collecting some stories and miracles attributed to the enigmatic person.
Until his death in 1998, nobody could pretend to have had a conversion with him. Even with the very few persons he alowed to feed him and take care of his affairs, he often used to answer their questions with a "yes" or a "no" and sometimes with a gesture or a simple smile. Moreover, Local Authorities [or a long time never dared to disturb his peace ... Can simple silence and immobile position be the real assets that alowed him to ascend from the status o[ a privileged beggar to that of being a respected and [eared holy man and finally attributed to him a Prophetic genealogy?
Keywords: Saint, Holy man, Silence, Vox populi, Miracles
«Un mendiant européen entre dans un café; un indigène [musulman] se lève et lui donne une pièce. "Penses-tu, lui disent les autres [musulmans], qu'Allah te tiendra compte de cette aumône'? - On ne sait jamais, répond-il, qui se cache sous l'apparence d'un pauvre!»
J. Desparmet 1936, 158
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* Professor, Mohammed- V University (Rabat, Morocco)
Vol. XLII 2007
17
Le dynamisme de la sainteté tire son origine de sa capacité à épouser les formes les plus diverses, voire apparemment contradictoires."
M. Kerrou 1998, 32
Introduction
One trend in anthropology of religion maintains that society generates holiness of a person reputed for being a saint. As was concisely put, "a person is a [saint] by virtue of being held to be one" (Gellner 1973, 60). In other words, to be held as a saint might have less to do with the person and much more with people around him. Our concern in this paper is to see to what extent this assumption applies to the person whom we used to refer to as "Afqqir n ddu Temzgid" (the poor man near the mosque) or "Afqqir n' Iggi Wasif' (the poor man near the wadi) until1960's. Forty years later, when we were investigating about his case, people interviewed referred to him as the Sharif near the mosque. How did he gain Prophetic lineage and what people meant by that?
This ethnographic piece of work has, as one of its objectives, to challenge two opposing views (Orienta1ism and Salafism) that agree on one and unique point: both ignore the historical and anthropological dimensions of Islam, focusing either on a static religion with its constant competition between theological schools, or ideal ahistorical Islam with its Golden Age. The assumption of one trend in Orientalism is that "true" religion is the one that "expresses itself only in institutions independent of other aspects of society" probably because Muslims themselves believe in such a view of their religion; any sociological manifestation of religious belief is therefore considered to be a "cover" used for other pUI1Joses (Eicke1man 1976, 28). On the other hand, in spite of the tremendous efforts of the reformist movements (Salafism from the eighteenth century on) to eradicate Sufism and sainthood, the ordinary Muslim is still attracted to both phenomena and responds to certain spiritual appeal as well as to the saint's call throughout the Muslim world. If, for some Modernist Muslim thinkers like Faz1u Rahmam, "Sûfistic spirituality to which the Muslim masses are still subject is, as a who1e, "no better than a form of spiritual delinquency often exploited by the clever Sufi leaders for their own ends" (Rahman 1979, 245), it is our intention here to treat these manifestations of popular religiosity as an integral part of "true" Islam in the same way the officiaI and institutionalized version of this religion claims to be.
Our project here consists in giving an ethnographic description of the process of sainthood production. In order to avoid taking clichés for
18 ORIENT
HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND IMMOBILITY
descriptions, and taking our material for more than it was meant to say, we will not generalize from this particular person to an already established body of literature on popular saints, but will simply present this specific case in order to raise a series of questions on sainthood constructions. In other words, our goal is not to show how holiness/sainthood is generated in general by reducing its rich and diverse aspects to a restricted number of typical cases but to demonstrate how a particular individual in a specific place ascends through lime from one social status to another. As it has been succinctly put, "it is no exaggeration to say, at least so far as the sociology of religion is concerned, that there is no route to general knowledge save through a dense thicket of particulars." (Geertz 1968, 21-22)2
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The person in question occupies the quasi totality of the second half of the last century. As he has rarely spoken to anyone, the man himself will be described as an object rather than as a social actor in the usual sense of the term. He has neither a discourse to be analyzed nor actions (apart from his immobility) to be interpreted. Sa far no one has convincingly claimed to have had a sustained conversation with him. Because he seldom uttered an extra-ward, he will be viewed rather through the discourse of those among whom he lived until he passed away in October 31st, 1998. But the discourse on him did not stop with his death. On the contrary, our interest on him as ethnographers (Tozy and I) forced some of our interviewees to scrutinize their memory in order to liberate themselves from the burden of silence behind which they have been trying to hide their anguish caused by such an enigmatic case.3 For some but not all of our city dwellers it was only when he left his place for the cemetery that they realized that he has always been with them. There, next to the mosque, as part of the scenery, he "found peace in immobility, in an iron calm" - just like Kalidjaga and unlike Al- Yusi (Geertz 1968, 31). Actually, most of people interviewed were embarrassed and t0111 between admitting "miracles" attributed to him and rationalizing a puzzling case they have been living with for more than forty years. This ambivalence as well is what we will be dealing with here.
We also want to challenge the idea implicitly included in Emile Dennengham's distinction between "popular" saints and "serious" saints. Not that this classification is not to a certain point helpful - though all saints in the last resort are constructed directly or indirectly by the vox populi.4 However, for the establishment's scholars, only the so-called serious saints are subject of hagiographic work. It seems that a saint is classified as "serious" once he has
HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND IMMOBILITY
had a hagiography written down in due form, and not the reverse. If that is the case, what would prevent us today from writing and publishing our main informant's vulgate of Afqqir n'Iggi Wasif. Nothing, it seerns.
Some Questions, and Hypotheses
As a teenager, 1 personally remember Afqqir coming out of his tent and walking along the nearby wadi still uncovered then. It must have been around midnight when we crossed, some friends and I, his area as we were coming out of the late movie session. Against the light of the shining moon, he appeared to us in his brownish jellaba as a ghost. It was the first and the only time 1 saw him standing up. He must have been then in his late twenties and his black beard was full. For us he was a simple poor man who used to sit on some cardboard against one of the walls facing the Id-Zekri district mosque. Years after, he was provided with a tent and was known as "Afqqir n'Iggi Wasif' (The Old man near the wadi). Decades later, his successive tents were replaced by a wooden barrack and when the wadi was covered and shops built on top of it, the man was referred to as "Afqqir n'ddu Temzgid" (The Old man near the mosque). Few years before his death and after the famous incident of his second displacement during the renovation of the neighbourhood mosque, we were surprised to hear some people interviewed referring to him as "the Sharif' while others avoided using any particular term in talking about him. Some employed simply "That One" (ghwann) or "Him" as if he were some spirit. Apart from Mustapha (the young man who chose to regularly devote some of his time to take care of him) and probably Local Authorities (not before his death), no one really knows his name. More enigmatic is the fact that no one seems to be interested in finding out neither his name nor where he is from or even less who he is, as if to avoid 100 king for some undefined trouble.
In this case, we practically have two sources of information in addition to a written document (the copy of his death certificate): The ordinary people of Tiznit and particularly those among them who happened to occasionally be in contact with him for one reason or another, on the one hand and Mustapha on the other. We can say without exaggeration that Mustapha imposed himself on the Old man and in doing so 'kidnapped' him as if he were his own object. This is how he recounts his first encounter:
"One day my aunt told me to go and see Bu-lberraka (The man-in-the-
HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND IMMOBILITY
hut) if he would let me shave his beard that has grown too much. 1 told her that I couldn't approach the man. I must have been in my twenties and my father was still alive then. I must confess that I was slightly afraid as I was approaching his place. But, as my aunt had insisted that I should take care of the poor man, I took some courage and went with a blade razor in my hand. 1t must have been a Friday. Once in Font of his shed, he fixed me right in the eyes for quite a while before he takes off his turban without uttering a ward. Once I had shaved bath his head and beard, he smiled.
People could not believe what they saw happening in Font of them. 'But how did you do it? [i.e. achieving to let you shaving him]. No one has ever succeeded in touching him, let alone in shaving his face and head, not even those who feed him everyday'. My reply was: '1 myself don't know, that's the divine mystery, God alone knows.'"
From this particular situation on the one hand and our interest as ethnographers through Mustapha as our main informant on the other arise a series of questions: - How do certain people like Mustapha monopolize the saint for themselves? Indeed, some bad tongues in town maintain that Mustapha helps himself to the money people offered Afqqir. As time goes, the latter became Mustapha's propriety and private business. Who benefits from producing an accepted (orthodox) vulgate of a person as a saint? Can our case help us comprehending how hagiographic discourses are built, and what pushes certain persons (adepts/ novices) to construct a systematic vulgate for some saints and not for others?
- How do social scientists (anthropologists or social historians ...) through their interest and demand of information and data, participate in creating a certain expected vision of things (like in the case of late stories in One thousand and one Night)? Are not their demands for information about some particular persons encouraging informants in generating vulgates about some of them as saints? Is the demand for producing a particular vision of the saint more important that the saint himself or his novice?
Our hope in scrutinizing the case of Afqqir who lived among us during the last half of the XXth century is that it can provide us with some hints in understanding or at least imagining how historical saints were born and constructed in the past. In other words, can we use this particular example as a stratagem to answer a series of puzzling questions such as the following?
- How do people attribute sainthood to a certain person? How do 'hagiographists' build a certain systematic version of the saint's life that ends up by being the accepted (i.e. orthodox) vulgate? In brief, can we pretend to
HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND IMMOBILITY
understand sainthood and the concept of holiness in its own terms by using a case such as the present one?
I. THE HISTORY OF THE MAN
According to Mustapha, the man used to work in a Rabat bakery belonging to some French people. His boss appreciated him very much, and Saleh (only Mustapha mentions his supposed name) learnt a lot from him. After a while, he decided to quit his job and return to his village in Ida-Weltit in the Anti-Atlas mountains where he still has one sister and two brothers.5 There, Mustapha continues, the man chose to sweep his village streets until he decided - for no apparent reason ~ to leave for Tiznit.
This version of the man's life, only Mustapha claims to know it. He pretends to have learned it from Afqqir's brother who came lately to see the Old man after nearly fort y years. What the collective memory retains from Afqqir however is not his life prior to his coming to that spot near the mosque. What has been of great concern to the ordinary person in town since the late fifties, when he chose their city, is to understand the relationship between the mysterious man and Mbark, the SATAS transportation company employee. How come that Mbark and his family are totally devoted to the unknown man they found one morning sitting in their neighbourhood? What mysterious power could such a poor man hide to have Mbark feeding him daily for years and decades and later providing him with a shelter? Those kinds of questions, and not what he was doing before, or what his name is and who he really is, are more meaningful to the collective consciousness of our city dwellers. Anyone in town will provide you with the founding myth of the quasi-sacred relationship between Mbark and his family on the one hand and the mysterious man on the other.
The Founding My th of Mbark's Relationship to the Old Man
The man was hitch hiking in the northern city of Tassurt [Essaouira] asking Mbark as the driver of SATAS (transportation company) coach to take him to Tiznit. As a poor and filthy person without money, no attention was paid to his demand. When Mbark arrived early morning in town, he was surprised to find him there waiting. Yet no vehicle overtook his coach during the trip from Tassurt to Tiznit. One version of this story added that after Mbark's categorical refusal,
HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND IMMOBILITY
the poor man defied the driver in front of his passengers that he will be there before him. Since then, he and his family have been taking care of the mysterious man. For the impressed driver, only a saint could achieve such a miracle.
Let us now see how Mbark's daughter recounts the special relationship her father and the whole family had with Afqqir. Mbark came to Tiznit with his family in 1951 when he found a job as a mechanist in the transportation company, SATAS. "When my mother died in 1959, we had prepared the usual funeral banquet at home and my father had come out with part of the sacrificial meal (lma'ruf) and the first poor person he had found outside was Afqqir sitting on a cardboard against the wall facing the masque. Since then he continued to take care of him. After my father's death, we, sisters and brothers, still follow the same habit. "
A basic question imposes itself at this point. Why does a community construct a certain founding myth even though some elements that it is composed of are known to be totally false? For instance, every one in Tiznit, including me, knows that Mbark was not working as a coach driver in SATAS, but as a mechanist in the same transportation company. I myself had forgotten that nuance until Mbark's daughter reminded me of this well known fact. Does collective consciousness prefer a certain constructed reality because it is vital to it and suppress certain obvious things because the y might disturb its worldview? This kind of conflict between reality and truth or at least between two beliefs and the preference to stick to a particular one rather than another will also be raised as far as certain karamat (saints' miracles) attributed to Afqqir are concerned.
II. THE CRUCIAL EVENT: RENOVATING THE MOSQUE
In 1992, six years before his death, the local Association in town, Al-Birr, undertook the renovation of the Id-Zekri quarter mosque. The Old man's shed was leaning against its wall for years now. The Association provided the man with a new wooden hut placed against the opposite wall in the same street. The problem consisted of finding out the person in charge of removing his old one away from the wall to be renovated. No one wanted to take the initiative of touching the man or removing the home he never leaves away from its place, neither the Association members nor the building enterprise that was supposed to renovate the mosque. Local Authorities had been contacted for that matter.
They agreed to do the delicate job and displace the man.
The ad hoc Commission
In order to organize the man's displacement, Local Authorities set up an ad hoc commission for that purpose. It was composed of four Municipality garbage collectors, two firemen (Civil Protection), two police officers, some official guards (Mokhaznis) as well as the quarter representative (Amghar of Id-Zekri quarter district). The first night, not all members of that commission were present. According to my informant, who was part of the group as one of the garbage collectors, "each one thought of coming later once the displacement had been done. This in order to avoid participating in the act of touching the man... "When the garbage collectors were asked to remove Afqqir, they replied that their job consisted of cleaning the place and getting rid of the old hut, not to touch the man. They said that it is rather to the Civil Protection agents to do that. "But these also did not want to approach Afqqir. They were of the course as afraid as we were."
Another appointment had to be fixed for the following night, always around midnight to avoid a crowd around. But, according to Lahcen, our informant, even at such an hour, about fort y persons were there waiting. Thus, nothing was achieved either the second night. "The third time, the vice-Caid (lexlift) came to warn us that all members of the Commission have to be present the following night and by all means." Finally, the fourth night everyone was there. This time, the district representative (Amghar) brought with him the young man who used to shave him and take care of him, the famous Mustapha. The latter explained to the Old man the goal of the Commission ... The man who has been surrounded by this group of people with their garbage lorry, the ambulance, the fire brigade lorry and the police car for four consecutive nights kept silent. .. No word did he utter, no reaction to what has been happening in front of him all these consecutive nights. "We were there around him as if, for him, we did not exist at all "explained my informant who continued: "Once Mustapha touched him, others dare finally to make the move and help him removing Afqqir from his shed."
For Lahcen, the man did not seem to have any problem of being removed from his place. "The problem is rather with us, in our minds. None of us seemed to be exempted from some curse or malediction (tagat) that could be generated by him and directed towards us, neither the fire brigades (who were supposed to physically remove him), nor we as garbage collectors (who were there to clean the place). Even the policemen and Municipality officials who are foreign to the region and its local beliefs were trapped in this contagious collective fear."
The fear engendered by the enigmatic side of his person and its unusualness that was hanging over our men's head like a kind of Damocles' sword had been giving rise to a series of stories circulating in town which, in turn, magnifies that same fear and increases his power of distributing particularly curses and malediction. These "unexplainable" stories are constructed and recounted by our dwellers as signs of his holiness, even though part of them were clearly contradicted by some evidence. Yet, the need to maintain them as "true" happenings appears to help people who voluntarily disregard any contradiction with established facts to create their own saint.
Common Enigmatic Things for Our City Dwellers
There is no question that there exists a series of things about the man that have been puzzling the majority of our city dwellers for decades. All people interviewed maintain that Afqqir n'Iggi Wasif is enigmatic in more than one way. These mysterious facets that include behavior and attitudes stretching from simple indifference towards what they estimate important in life, to things such as resisting natural phenomena like rain, cold or very hot whether can be due only to some miraculous power.
a. - Ignoring His Name
To the Old Man people usually refer as "Afqqir n'Iggi Wasif' or "Afqqir n'ddu Timzgid." One of our informants often used the expression "Afqqir-lli" (the old man) or "Afqqir-an" (that old man) while others employed "lxir ad" (This good thing) or even "ifckan n'rbbi" (God's belongings). Not knowing his name does not really bother anyone. That remains an open question for us, ethnographers, but not for our city dwellers. It seems to us that no one actually dares as king about it. "Of course nobody knows his name ... 1 myself do not even remember what term we used when we talked about him ... During the displacement of 1992, we simply referred to him as 'ghwann' (That One)." Anyway, in the 1960's, to allude to him, we preferred to use terms like, "Bu- Tgitunt (the man under the tent)." One thing is sure, however; the word "andalab" (beggar) has never been applied to him, because as Lahcen says "he never asks for anything ... " As to terms like "lfaqqir," "shrif" or "lwali," they are used only very recently. I myself was very surprised to hear Mbark's daughter during the last interview referring to him as "sharif."
b. - Appearing Always Clean
To the majority of people, Afqqir appears surprisingly clean and fresh all the time in spite of the fact that he never moves from his place to look for water. Outside his tiny home, no one has ever noticed him neither to wash his face nor to perform his ablutions - if ever he cares for them. Decades ago, people still remember him going out for a walk around midnight and using a public faucet near by. But for at least the last twenty years, the public faucet has been removed from his area. Since then, Mustapha is the person who has been supplying him with bottles of water. But no one has ever observed him using that water for cleaning himself. On this issue Lahcen is equa11y puzzled, "1 am surprised by his cleanness and his continuous serene face. Look at other dropouts that are near the sanctuary of Sidi Abderrahmane (the patron saint nearby), they are very dirty. Between them and Afqqir, the difference is like between devils and angels. Whereas they spend their time scratching, he, on the contrary, is putting all day long a constantly serene and clean face with the same look in a motionless position. During the famous event of his displacement, 1 personally was paying close attention to him; on his outfits or clothe, neither a lice nor any other insect was found; no dirt on his skin or body was noticed. Did ever anyone have seen him going to the hammam (public bath) or even entering the mosque which is so close? Don't tell me he is an ordinary person."
b. - Relieving Oneself
From that undeniable state of affairs comes the inevitable mysterious question for everyone: How does he relieve himself or does he? Even the night guard of the Id-Zekri quarter maintains that for years he has never seen him going outside of his hut. Lahcen is equally puzzled: "It happens that we, garbage collectors, work day and night,' we have never seen him neither going out nor washing outside his shed." The question of relieving oneself remains then wide open for almost everybody in town. The majority of persons questioned do not hesitate to add immediately that, whatever the case might be, his hut does not smell at all. To render things more mysterious, Mustapha assures us that from his place comes rather a good odor. For the pharmacist, there is something surprising in his case. "How come he never falls sick either, be it in summer or in winter ... again, to try to explain that by using the idea of autism is not enough and all
HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND IMMOBlLITY
autists do not live like him .... "
Let us now see some objective facts that are admitted by some but not by most of our informants. There is no question, says the garbage collector, that he relieves oneself on the spot since excrements as well as urine had been found in the pile of blankets he sits on ... Some of these blankets were as hard as cardboard. His shed and underneath had been full of cockroaches that feed on these wastes ... and of rats that ate the food left. "Anyone that tells you he does not shit is lying. He does it like any living human being but solely on the spot." What makes then the group maintaining the contrary to the point that some goes as far as saying that his home smells rather good. One of the garbage collectors who did the cleaning was the only one to contradict this well spread belief. But was he able to eradicate the community's conviction for the opposite. Not sure.
c. Resisting Thirst during Hot Summers
There is another problem that remained unsolved for the majority of our city dwellers. "I remember some very hot summers in Tiznit... With the same smile and tranquil look, he has been bearing that kind of very hot weather and heat wave for years and decades ... There is no question that he must possess an exceptional force allowing him to do that. There are times in Tiznit when it is so hot to the point that neither you nor I can remain on the same spot more than five minutes. Ta my knowledge he has never been sick either and for me, this can only be due to a 'mu'jiza' (miracle)." On this particular point, Mustapha goes even further to pretend that when he shaves him during these hot periods, he usually finds his shed rather refreshing and cool "as if it were a refrigerator," to use Mustapha's own image.
e. - Indifference towards Money
All interviewees reported to me the story of young delinquents stealing money offered to him by the passer-by. What surprises them in this case is not the youngsters' non-respect of the defenceless Old Man and his belongings. They were rather impressed by his indifference towards money. "He does not react or even say anything ... /" The garbage man who cleaned the hut during his displacement attested that pieces of currency wrapped in the offended 100 dirham banknotes were found under his blankets or inside the hood of his jellaba. "For him this money has been put there as if it were pebbles or a mediocre object without any value whatsoever ... " For Lahcen, this shows that Afqqir never looked at what people usually used to throw inside his shed with a simple gesture as they pass by. He collects it as such and puts it underneath one of his blankets. As Lahcen hirnself says "but what for? He does not need money anyway as he is continuously provided with the daily food. "
f. - The Non-Existence of the Outside World
The impression Afqqir gave to all those who approached him is no doubt a continuous absent-mÏ11dedness, a sort of a non-existence of the world outside of his own. Nothing apart from his proper self seemed relevant to him and worth disturbing his quietude. When 1 was talking about him as a contemporary phenomenon to some friends of mine in a Casablanca café in 1990's, a young woman among them was astonished of hearing a story that rather seemed to belong to One Thousand and one Night for her. Few days later she decided to satisfy her curiosity by taking a coach to Tiznit with a friend of her. "We were in front of his hut talking to him as to a rock. His gaze went through us as if we were a piece of glass; as if we do not exist at all. "The most amazing part of this encounter, if encounter there was, is the fact that it was rather people in the vicinity who were disturbed by the two women's intrusion, not the man himself. "You must leave him alone," shouted people at the two female visitors.
g. - (Permanent) Immobility
If few people prefer to have some doubts about the good smell of his place claimed by Mustapha, no one remains indifferent or without some admiration about his immobility. "Personally, says a pharmacist, that is beyond my comprehension ... One finds him sitting in the morning, the afternoon, the evening ... the following day, months and years ... always in the same position or almost. Even when he sleeps, he always keeps the same posture: squatted as in a praying posture (isjjd), the head half outside to see the world around ... When one does that for a white, one will necessarily be full of scars; also explaining that immobility by autism as I heard some persons doing does not help us the least to understand the whole phenomenon." For many people, the fact of remaining that long in nearly the same posture can only be due to some miraculous factors. It was in this same posture (ghi kelli s irbbà) that the man has been moved to his new hut: his legs folded under his body, his back leaned... That was also the posture in which he was found dead. "Actually, explained one informant, only those who know the state of dead people noticed that he was no longer alive."
h. - (Eternal) Silence
Apart from these questions without any answer, no doubt, it is through silence that Afqqir imposed himself on this southern town and around. In his "iron calm" he succeeded in gaining respect from his city dwellers. For years, no one knew if and what language the strange man speaks. Moreover, no one ever dared to raise the question and find out. Probably evel1 Mbark's family did not insist in making him speak at the beginning. Mbark's daughter confessed that he usually communicated with her through gestures and face expressions. As for Mustapha, sometimes, when Afqqir was in a good mood, so he claims, he had long conversations with him but, Mustapha adds immediately that "this was rather rare." Usually if not all the time, he answers questions with gestures and face expressions. "Can you imagine, says Lahcen, it took us four successive nights to finally solve the problem of displacing him. Why? Simply because he does not say a word, nothing at ail, not even a significant expression or a gesture then ... One desperately hopes to hear something, a yes' or a 'no' ... Nothing, as if we did not exist for him."
If some sceptics among our city dwellers denied the qualification of miracles to ail these events and phenomena that they prefer to classify as simple unsolved problems or enigmas waiting for some eventual rational explanation, there are other things which the same people or at least the majority of them admit as being miraculous instead.
I. BU-LBERRAKA (The man-in-the-hut)'S MIRACLES
For a modernist like Fazlu Rahman, because the Islamic community has been postponing a just social order, the Muslim masses found refuge in Sufism as "an escape from the uninviting realities of life - economic hardship, social imbalance, political uncertainties" (Rahman 1979, 246). In the same line of thought, we can say that the attachment of these same masses to sainthood and miracles follows the same logic. Far from getting out of this disenchantment of the world that characterizes modernity, it is legitimate to raise the following question: Can we consider the belief in miracles as a stigma of pre-modem societies? The answer to this straightforward interrogation is more complex than it might appear in the first place. It is equally possible to argue that the more we enter in the snares of modernity, the more irrational beliefs and wonderfulness seem to be needed
Miracles / Baraka / Karamat
The term baraka has preoccupied generations of North African social scientists for a long time. Here we leave aside the interestil1g and complex question of "adequate translation" raised by Bryan Turner concerning the terms saint/wali ... or charisma/baraka (Turner 1974: 56-71) or for that matter miracle/karamat and we will use these equivalent terms interchangeably. For Geertz, what we call baraka in the case of saints, cannot be imagined as a sort of "miraculous, almost physical, force" (Dermengham 1954, 24), or, to use his own expressions, "a paraphysical force, a kind of spiritual electricity (Geertz 168, 44)." There is no question that Afqqir has attained enough of it as Geertz himself wanted it to be defined. But unlike in Geertz's definition, this "personal presence, force of character, moral vividness (Geertz 1968, 44)" is attained in the case of our man neither genetically nor from his own spiritual efforts, but rather through silence and peace that "Kalidjaga sought (and found) in immobility, in an iron calm, at, to use Eliot's figure, the still point of the turning world (Geertz 1968, 31)."
* * *
Here we choose to approach sainthood from the consumers' viewpoint rather than from that of miracle producers themselves. Our case is an extreme one, indeed. We speak of Afqqir as being a saint simply because others refers to him and treat him as such. We can say with Alfred Bel that he is a kind of "homme fétiche," i.e. a living individual with a personal charisma in the eyes of others. As for him, he never claimed anything whatsoever. The man was silent, if not silence itself. Moreover, he does not have any descendant. None of his qualities/capacities has been genetically inherited or transmitted. He lives alone and never asked for anything, including Mustapha's regular he1p and the daily food from the neighbors or money from the passer-by. Yet, it was these same persons and all others that refer to him as 'lwali n'rbbi' (God's saint). Why? Our hypothesis is that others need his holiness and not vice versa. This attribution is not granted to him after performing what others take for being his own miracles but rather the opposite. Because sainthood is ascribed a priori to him, miracles are then easily seen performed by him, like steam from a kettle of boiling water.
HOW TO BECOME A SAINT THOUGH SILENCE AND IMMOBILITY
- Benedictions (Saint's Power versus Doctor's)
With much emotion, Mustapha tells us the following story: "The day my first child was born, 1 noticed that the newborn was yellowish. In hearing the maternity physician saying that the baby is moribund and. will not probably survive, 1 was about to loose my mind. At one o'clock in the morning I went to see Afqqir. In his hut 1 found him sleeping in his usual posture, squatted. I wake him up 'Saleh!' Be asked me: 'what brings you here at this hour?' I told him the problem 1 have with my newborn and his answer was brief and simple: 'return home and do not worry!' (balak ad truht). The next morning 1 arrived at the hospital and found my baby fine and everything went alright." For Mustapha, there is no question that it was thanks to Afqqir and his baraka that his child was saved. Mustapha is no doubt very grateful to Afqqir to have saved his first child. Since then and from time to time, he takes with him his three children to be blessed by Afqqir. "He hugs them and holds them in his arms for a while. Thanks to his blessing, my family and I never lack anything."
In comparing in his mind the doctor's judgment with the saint's power, Mustapha gives me the impression of somebody who was rather happy that modern science represented by the gynaecologist in this case is far below the saint's holiness and capacities. This attitude is clearly reiterated by another story reported by him. This one concerns Afqqir's corpse on which an autopsy immediately after his death had to be done. Apparently his corpse resisted any chirurgical cutting: "Listen, Mustapha, believe you me, says the doctor, I have practiced medicine for a long time, and have done so many medical acts but for the first time my science and know-how have totally failed, I cannot reach this man's corpse, 1 have to give up! (tslim!)." Mustapha continues in the same vein to recount the miraculous things about that same corpse in the hospital: "In the mortuary, there was the corpse of another person that has been recently brought there. It smells very bad, says Mustapha, whereas Afqqir s has been there long before and has no bad odor at all. His, rather emanates a kind of perfumed odor." Whether alive or dead, Afqqir for Mustapha radiates but good smell.
B. Maledictions
It is no exaggeration to maintain that North African saints are much better in punishing injustices than in distributing rewards. In other words, there are more "furious saints" that Saints of Sister Théresa type. Here we are inclined to put foreword such hypothesis as the following one: Sufism, like sainthood in Islam, is also a refuge for the masses against despots and social injustice and abuses done to the weak. No surprise to hear a popular discourse that enjoys recounting how saints distribute curses and punishments as if to counterbalance injustice here below in this world. It is worth noting that only the would-be disciple of Afqqir reported positive miracles and benedictions. Among all those interviewed, no one mentioned such blessings as the kind reported by Mustapha. But most of them, including Mustapha, recount the numerous maledictions and curses Afqqir had been distributing to all nasty and unjust individuals.
It was said that a drunkard who attacked him one night was found killed by other delinquents less than one week later. His tagat (malediction), everyone believes, is pitiless. It was also said that one of the garbage collectors had been injured while working in getting rid of his old shed during his famous displacement. His colleagues, among them Lahcen, maintain that it is because he had taken a few coins from the money found in the hut. "How come that nothing happened to us!" they kept saying to the injured worker.
The most current case we heard from almost every informant we talked to concerns some police officers. It was said that Afqqir had been removed from his first tent decades ago to the old shed before his second displacement due to the mosque renovation. A door was to be opened in the wall of the Endowment foundation (Habous) against which his tent was leaning. Two police agents who knew nothing about him had taken him abruptly and thrown him out by force. "1 did advise the police chief not to let his men touch him. None had listened to me at all." said Mustapha. Apparently Afqqir did not utter a word. Mustapha maintained that he simply fixed them with tears flowing from his eyes. The following days, one of the police agents had his hand paralyzed and the other lost his mind for good.
C. Two Special Miracles
Two additional kinds of miracles continued coming up from now and then when one discusses Afqqir with people: The first one concerns crossing long distances in a very short time, and the other touches on being protected from rain. In fact, the first kind called, inziwâ' al-ard lahum, is more common in sainthood literature. Taj al-Dîn al-Subki (d. 1370) for instance, mentioned it as the fifth kind out of the 25 miracles listed in his famous al-Tabaqât al-shâfi'iyah al-kubrâ, (al-Nabhânî 1991, 49). However, the second type of karamat (divine gifts) attributed to Afqqir is in a sense more awkward since it is usually the opposite that is reported about Muslim saints: making rain fall (Dermengham, Il and Subki, 50).
The first one being the founding myth of the special relation Afqqir had with Mbark, the supposed vehicle driver who refused to give him a ride, had been reported on many other dropouts of the region. In Mustapha's story about Afqqir's coming to Tiznit appeared the second unusual kind of miracle. He recounted that the day of Afqqir's departure from his village in the nearby Anti-Atlas, it was raining all around except in front of the coffee shop next to the road where he was waiting for a ride. Around him and only there, no raindrop was falling. Curiously, Mbark's daughter related to me a similar story: "Once I took some food to him as usual. That day it was raining in Tiznit and all around except on his tent and in front of it where I was standing. Everybody outside had been wet, but not me and his tent." How come that the same immunity against rain was reported twice about Afqqir in two different periods of his life and by two completely different persons? Moreover, Muslim saints usually make rain fall in countries like Morocco and particularly this southern region where water is even more scarce and desperately needed. Afqqir's miracle consisted rather of having a supernatural power against getting wet.
It is interesting to note that generally people are more inclined to attribute to him malediction (tagat) than benedictions (karamat). They are at ease in recounting the bad things that happened to whoever has dared to disturb him. But this malediction concerns more Local Authority people than delinquents who, they also admit, steal his money. Can we view this as an indirect political discourse on power? Can we look at the saint as a moral text through which people speak of their grievance and social injustice?
Problem Posed in Anthropology
In this paper, we have tried to show that it is not easy to go against some beliefs commonly needed by a certain community at a certain time. We have seen that some claims held by our city dwellers have been contradicted by those among them who were in a better position to know the truth. Yet their opinions weigh nothing in comparison to the common belief about the unusual person. Why then do we still talk about Afqqir as a saint? Simply because popular religiosity of our city dwellers decided to be so. As already said, at the last resort, it is always the vox populi that has the last ward on such matters. This is apparently the case even in Christianity where sanctification is "officially" done through the church by the Pope's decision. In both cases, "collective appreciation of holiness was also expressed in terms of vaguely defined properties such as charism (Christianity) or Baraka (Islam) ... (Cornell 1998, xxxiv)." In other words, once the belief of being a saint is collectively established, as in the case of our man, miracles flow rather like steam from a boiling kettle.
In the case of Afqqir, one thing is sure. He is far from being either a Sufi or a saint in the usual sense of these terms (having recourse to dhikr, spiritual meditation…or intervening in charity matters or solving community problems…). Moreover, if at least some pre-Ghazalian Sufis were exempted from orthodox rituals, Afqqir is nevertheless granted some respect like a local saint without performing any of the five pillars of Orthodox Islam. People agree that he never entered the neighbourhood mosque next door. One of my interviewees confessed his total confusion in this way: "He certainly hears daily the muezzin's calls, but never stood up to pray ... 1 am really lost; 1 cannot understand ... 'you have in front of you some God's utensils' (ifckan n'rbbi kiyyi hatninn). No one apart from Allah who created him really knows what 'that thing there' (ghaynna) is." Yet the puzzled person never doubted for a second that Afqqir is not for that matter an ordinary person. The same informant continues expressing his bewilderment as follows: "Usually we say that someone is a God's saint (lwali n 'rbbi) when that person does good deeds, something useful for the community ... But in the case of this wali, nothing whatsoever; he is there in an eternal silence. How can you understand?" Is the fact of not being an ordinary, Muslim (praying five times a day ...) combined with some strange behaviour the real asset that helped him to have access to sainthood in the popular 's eyes?
From our part, we cannot accept Westermarck's simplistic appreciation that, because in Morocco derangement of a person's mind is al ways attributed to some supernatural influence, consequently "harmless lunatics are venerated as saints, whose reason is in heaven while the body is on earth. ( ... ). This is the case with the bûhâlî (pl. bûhâla fem. bûhâlîya, pl. bûhâlîyât), the idiotic fool, who is quiet, silent, and generally dirty; (Westermarck 1926, l, 48)." The same idea is maintained about Muslims elsewhere than Morocco. When it is not of a very aggressive and dangerous kind, insanity is generally considered by Muslim believers "as a quality that entitles the subject of it to be esteemed as a saint (Lane 1987, 60)." Even if we admit some truth in these over simplifications, we should immediately ad here that Afqqir is neither a lunatic nor an insane person. In his case, aren't we rather in front of the folk wisdom that prefers to be cautious about any person showing some strange and unordinary behavior? The fact that the man ignores all orthodox rituals adds mystery to his person. Afqqir has pushed to its ultimate conclusion Ghazali's lesson that "an excessive stress on the external disciplines of religion merely creates religious fossils" (Rahman 1979, 244). From Ghazali's idea to Afqqir's behavior, the circle is closed and sainthood is easily at hand
CONCLUSION
If all saints are not Sufis, and our man does not appear any way to belong to any category of Sufism, what made us refer to him as a saint? So far our answer has been vox populi. The distinction between Sufism and sainthood appears to be rather a matter of degrees. Sainthood seems to characterize both Sufis and saints. At the top of the sainthood hierarchy are the Sufis as such ... Then come "the ascetic, the devout, the poor, the malâmati-s ... " But there are also the majdûb-s who are so to speak victims of the jadba (attraction towards God). These include "authentic" mystics that are unable to control their impulsive behavior as well as simple and weak minded individuals (Dermengham 1954, 21). If being a saint is to be a saint for others, the requirements for that status change with people, time and place. In Christianity for instance, it has been demonstrated that in late antiquity, as an individual exemplar, a saint "was a martyr or an ascetic; in medieval times he was a mystic or a miracle worker; in modern times he is a practitioner of charity (Cornell 1998, xxx)." Therefore, sainthood changes not only with religious systems, but also with time and space within each system. As a consequence, it is legitimate to ask what is a saint today for Muslims in a southern Moroccan town? Can Afqqir be added to the long list of categories of holy men? After all, it is al ways up to the vox populi to decide. And in our case, it has done so and in a categorical way. Here we have chosen to investigate in depth a unique example of popular saint construction and by doing so we hope to have added one more facet to the already rich spectrum of sainthood.
Notes
1 - This paper is part of a project on sainthood production in the Souss region (Morocco) undertaken in collaboration with M. Tozy.
2 - On this point Geertz rhetorically raises the following question to which he answered of course negatively: "is it not true, as someone has remarked that the more we plunge into particulars the less we know anything in particular? Is the comparative study of religion condemned to mindless descriptivism and an equally mindless celebration of the unique? (Geerlz 1968, 54)"
3 - It is interesting to note here that local police authorities were puzzled by our interest as ethnographers in Afqqir. The more we are involved with some of our informants the more these were summoned by the police and questioned about us and our interest in such a man.
4 - About our methodology and its limits in acceding to this vox populi, it should be said here that ail our fieldwork was carried among lower and lower middle classes of Tiznit.
Unfortunately, we did not succeed yet in interviewing some religious scholar (faqih), religious reformist (Salafi), or militant Islamist though most of our informants among school teachers for instance do espouse some of the ideas of these categories. On the other hand, if other informants among lower classes lack certain ideological background and probably some historical depth as well, they provide us with much more cultural innocence and penetration. And so much the better, since, after all, we are concerned here with constructing "a social history of the imagination (Geertz 1968, 19)." About sainthood in Christianity as a construction of lower classes, Cornell writes: " ... studies of sainthood in medieval Europe have demonstrated that whatever the official Church position on sainthood might have been, the vox populi was just as c1early herd in Latin Christendom as it was in Moroccan Islam ( ... ). Even in modern times, the Church has remained aware of the fact that although individual saints may have been princes, bishops, kings, or popes, the saint cult as an institution is maintained by the common people who visit saints' shrines (Cornell 1998, xxix-xxxii).
5 - Mustapha insisted in adding one important detail: that Ida-Weltit region (Anti-Atlas) is the country of the saints (and particularly female saints) par excellence. He continuously evokes tagurramt Lalla Tiazzat.
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