Berber Dahir

The document known as the Berber Dahir (Arabic: الظهير البربري, French: Dahir berbère, formally: Dahir du 17 hija 1348 (16 mai 1930) réglant le fonctionnement de la justice dans les tribus de coutume berbère non pourvues de mahakmas pour l'application du Chrâa) is a dhahir (decree) created by the French protectorate in Morocco on May 16, 1930.[1] This Dahir changed the legal system in parts of Morocco where Berber languages were primarily spoken, while the legal system in the rest of the country remained the way it had been before the French invasion.[2] Sultan Muhammad V signed the Dahir under no duress, though he was only 20 years old at the time.^[1]

The new legal system in Berber tribes would ostensibly be based on local and centuries-old Berber laws inherited and evolved throughout the millennia of the Islamic conquest of North Africa rather than Islamic Sharia.^[1] According to pan-Arabist activists, the French colonial authorities sought to facilitate their takeover of the Berber tribes' property while maintaining a legal cover.^[1]

The Berber Dahir was based on the colonial Kabyle myth,^[2] and reinforced a dichotomy in popular Moroccan historiography: the division of the country into Bled el-Makhzen—areas under the direct control of the Sultan and the Makhzen, or the state, (especially urban areas such as Fes and Rabat)—and Bled es-Siba—historically and geographically isolated areas beyond the direct control of the Makhzen (the central state composed of war-lords with Aristocratic heritage), where Berber languages are primarily and spoken, Arab culture and norms are not adopted and where dogmatic Islamic Sharia was not applied.^[3] However, this legislation explicitly characterized the former as "Arab" and the latter as "Berber."^[1]

The Berber Dahir gave birth to the pan-Arab pro-Islamic Moroccan nationalist movement.^[1] Protests broke out in Salé, Rabat, Fes, and Tangier, and international figures such as Shakib Arslan took it as evidence of an attempt to "de-Islamize" Morocco.^[1]