This book discusses hagiographical sources from Morocco taking in consideration the often-overlooked oral tradition. Orality, as is shown in this study, completes and enriches the vision of hagiography that written sources traditionally has offered. The most relevant example in this book is the high presence of female saints in oral narratives that were not included in any other written sources. Recovering oral tradition to study hagiography as well as the role of female saints in Morocco has been one of the main areas of focus in this study as well as problematizing the dependence and dialogue between written and oral culture and can help to understand the diffusion and presence of similar phenomena in other areas of Morocco.
Rachid El Hour (1968), University of Salamanca, is Full Professor or Arabic and Islamic Studies. He has published numerous studies on Islamic law and hagiographic literature in Western Islam. He is the author of several relevant monographies including Hagiografías, sufismo, santos y santidad en el Norte de África península ibérica (Helsinki, 2020) and La organización judicial de los almorávides en al-Andalus(Helsinki, 2006).
Manuela Marín (1946) served as Full Professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), until her retirement in 2011. She has published monographs and many articles on the religiosity and society of al-Andalus and Western Islam, paying special attention to women. Among her publications, Las mujeres en al-Andalus (Madrid: CSIC, 2000) and Testigos coloniales: españoles en Marruecos (1860-1956), (Barcelona: Ediciones Bellaterra, 2015).
[...] 'Par le croisement, rarement pratiqué à ce jour, des sources écrites, des récits oraux et des traces matérielles de la mémoire, et par la finesse de ses analyses, l’ouvrage d’El-Hour et de Marín a assurément vocation à ouvrir de nouvelles pistes à l’interprétation et il faut espérer que cette étude en inspire d’autres et s’étende à d’autres régions du Maghreb, où la sainteté féminine reste encore largement sous-étudiée'.
Nelly Amri, Archives de sciences sociales des religions [En ligne], Bulletin bibliographique 204 | 2023, mis en ligne le 02 février 2024, consulté le 07 juin 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/assr/73531 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/assr.73531
Academic readers, students, professors and researchers on religiosity, Moroccan religious studies and cultural Studies, women studies, Sufism and oral tradition.