مغاربة العصر الوسيط و البحر : نقد للكتابات الكولونيالية

Abstract EN

Geographically, the Maghreb, well knows asthe countries of the Islamic West in the Medieval Era, is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the West.

Also, part of its terrain extended in the Sahara Desert to the South.

This geographical determinism has prompted many colonial and post-colonialresearch to stressthat the Moroccans of the Middle Age had strong relationship with the desert and Camels, and they had no historical relationship with the sea, sincethey focused in their culture on describing desert, Camels and Sahara.

These ideas which were mentioned among the colonial writers, were adopted by many Moroccan researchers.

They are promoting that the Moroccans hadnot authentic maritime culture, in other words, this latter was taken from the Greeks, the Romans, and the French.

Their argument for that was the absence of marine culture in the Arabic language, we find the word sea used to refer to the river and valley and to those who have great knowledge.

And their historical capitals example Kairouan, Tiaret, Tlemcen, Fes Marrakesh, Sijilmassa were capitals of countries associated with the Sahara more than with the sea.

And that the Moroccans were afraid of the sea and traveling on ships.

So to what extent can the colonial claim be considered credible? How can these narrations be criticized? These questions will be discussed in this paper.