A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

In making your list of people to whom you want to wish good luck regarding endeavors of importance, don't forget to include King Mohammed VI and the people of Morocco:

Morocco's 42-year-old King Mohammed VI has discovered religion as a means of modernizing his society -- and progress through piety seems to be the order of the day. By granting new rights to women and strengthening civil liberties, the ruler of this country of 30 million on Africa's northern edge, which is 99 percent Muslim, plans to democratize Morocco through a tolerant interpretation of the Koran.

Morocco's 350-year-old dynasty, the world's oldest next to the Japanese imperial dynasty, claims to be directly descended from the prophet Mohammed. And as "Amir al-Muminin," or leader of the faithful, the country's ruler enjoys absolute authority.

The Conseil Supérieur des Oulémas, or council of religious scholars, which the king installed a year and a half ago, has been issuing fatwas on the most pressing questions of the 21st century -- and, surprisingly, they've been well-received by both young people and hardened Islamists. If the king's reform plan succeeds, Morocco could become a model of democratic Islam.

Five decades after his country declared its independence from its French and Spanish colonial rulers and six years after the death of his father, Hassan II, Mohammed VI is trying to achieve a delicate balance between thousands of years of Islamic tradition and the demands of a globalized world.

Eight weeks ago Mohammed VI, as Morocco's "citizen king" and "first servant," addressed his "dear people" during festivities to celebrate the anniversary of his grandfather's return from exile. "The path we have irrevocably chosen," said Mohammed, "is to strengthen civil rights for the benefit of all Moroccans - whom I view as equals, regardless of their status." The foreign dignitaries in attendance, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, praised the course that the government of Prime Minister Driss Jetou has taken under the king's leadership.

Soumia Benkhaldoun, 42, is also enthusiastic about her king. An engineer with a doctorate in computer systems, Benkhaldoun is one of the six women representing the Islamist "Justice and Development Party" at the country's opulent parliament building in Rabat. Although her party's true objective is to preserve a devout and god-fearing lifestyle in Morocco, the Islamists are also very pleased with the reforms of family law that began in the fall of 2003.

The public debate in Morocco currently revolves around ways to reconcile the demands of feminists with the Islamists' concept of family. Should women be permitted to go to the beach in a bikini? Should they be able to hold high-ranking public office? Do illegitimate children receive the mother's citizenship? The answers to these and other questions, in Morocco and in other Arab countries, will likely reveal whether the Islamic world is even capable of reform.

"The king has taken our concerns into account," says Professor Benkhaldoun, and a proud smile darts across her girlish face under her white headscarf. Indeed, Mohammed VI has managed to incorporate Morocco's only Islamist party into his reform agenda. The progressive king and the pious member of parliament from Kenitra, a woman so devout that she even fasts once a week when it isn't Ramadan, both base their reasoning on the same source: Sharia, or Islamic law.

The Islamist party has also taken up the cause of this form of family law derived from the scriptures of Islam. Whether it's the issue of polygamy (which, though not prohibited, has become the exception), arranged marriage (which is no longer mandatory, but still possible), or divorce based on the principle of fault (now women are also eligible to file for divorce) -- the devout parliamentarian believes that the core issue is "the stability of the family." Only well-established family structures, says Benkhaldoun, can protect a society facing high unemployment and widespread poverty from collapse.

I don't remember offhand which writer it was who compared the behavior of the Shah of Iran regarding the Shi'ite religious community in his country with the behavior of Mohammed VI's father, the late King Hassan regarding the Moroccan religious community. But I do remember the line that was used: "For the Shah, the mosque was an enemy. For Hassan, it was an accomplice."

Years of carefully cultivating the Moroccan religious community may therefore be bearing fruit. The result increasingly appears to be a Morocco capable of balancing between a respect for religious traditions and a healthy regard for modernity. All those who in good faith crave the positive reformation of the Middle East should pay attention to what is going on in Morocco and draw the appropriate lessons.

(Cross posted on RedState.)