المؤسسة الملكية و مكانة الدين في الدولة

Abstract EN

This research paper reviews the reality of monarchy in Morocco and the status of religion in the state.

It suggest that intellectual input of whoever sit on the throne is the input that is shaping the features of the state in Morocco, defining the philosophy that frame the relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

Therefore, understanding the religion position, in the Moroccan state, will remain incomplete If you do not investigate the monarchy’s discourse and perception of issueof building the national state after independence, and even before that.

Therefore, this paper is trying to explain this through reviewing the Mohammed V’s reference state foundations and conception of nation-building.

It discusses Mohammed V’s reservation concerning the concept of "constitutional monarchy" before recognizing it in 1952 on two occasions: the first occasion in a memorandum submitted to the President of the French Republic on March 20, and the second occasion is his speech from the Throne on November 18.

However, the agreement between the king and the National Movement on the "constitutional monarchy" slogandoes not mean that there is an agreement on its contents, and on the way of drafting the constitution.

The researcher attempts to enrich research by reviewing the King Hassan II’s foundations of the elements of the state through discussing and analyzingthree key ideas: the dialectic of state and religion, bay‘ah, and leadership of the faithful.

The concept of the leadership of the faithful draws its source from the Islamic political heritage, and was employed extensively within the formal political discourse, especially in the moments when there are troubles with the King’s relationship with political opposition, so that the King as leader of the faithful assume sacred status within the Moroccan political system, beyond the constitutional text.

In the conclusion, the researcher highlights the influence of winds of change in the Arab Spring on constitutional reforms in Morocco, where the new constitution regulates the king-making powers as leader of the Faithful, and provides that the King practices these religious powers relating to the leadership of the faithfuland conferred upon him exclusively through agents, and this realizes him as being leader of the Faithful.

The trait of holiness was cancelled, Constitution regulates the powers of the King as head of state, and the King is no longer representative of the nation, he rather has become the Supreme Representative of the state.