Islam
According to The World Factbook maintained by the American Central Intelligence Agency, 99% of Moroccans are Muslims.
Islam reached Morocco in 680 CE, taken to the country by the Arab Umayyad dynasty of Damascus. The first Islamic dynasty to rule Morocco were the Idrissids, who were of the Zaydi Shia school. Article 6 of the Moroccan constitution states that Islam is official religion of the state. The King of Morocco claims his legitimacy as a descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
The Maliki Sunnite population of Morocco is much greater than the Shiite population. Relations between Sunni and Shiite have been strained in recent years, with a Moroccan crackdown on material and organisations originating from the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran and terror group Hezbollah.
The Justice and Development Party is an Islamist party.
Read more about this topic: Religion In Morocco
Famous quotes containing the word islam:
“Awareness of the stars and their light pervades the Koran, which reflects the brightness of the heavenly bodies in many verses. The blossoming of mathematics and astronomy was a natural consequence of this awareness. Understanding the cosmos and the movements of the stars means understanding the marvels created by Allah. There would be no persecuted Galileo in Islam, because Islam, unlike Christianity, did not force people to believe in a “fixed” heaven.”
—Fatima Mernissi, Moroccan sociologist. Islam and Democracy, ch. 9, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. (Trans. 1992)
“Sooner or later we must absorb Islam if our own culture is not to die of anemia.”
—Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
“The exact objectives of Islam Inc. are obscure. Needless to say everyone involved has a different angle, and they all intend to cross each other up somewhere along the line.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)