Hammoudi, Abdellah 1945-

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Hammoudi, Abdellah 1945-

PERSONAL:

Born 1945, in Morocco. Education: Sorbonne, Ph.D., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Princeton, NJ. Office— Department of Anthropology, Princeton University, 116 Aaron Burr Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER:

Mohammed V University, Agronomic Institute, Rabat, Morocco, professor, 1972-89; Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, Faisal Visiting Professor, beginning 1990, founding director of Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, 1994-2004.

WRITINGS:

La victime et ses masques: essai sur le sacrifice et la mascarade au Mahgreb, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 1988, translation by Paula Wissing published as The Victim and Its Masks: An Essay on Sacrifice and Masquerade in the Maghreb, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1993.

(Editor, with Stuart Schaar) Algeria's Impasse, Center of International Studies, Princeton University (Princeton, NJ), 1995.

Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1997.

(Editor, with Rémy Leveau) Monarchies arabes: transitions et derives dynastiques, La Documentation Française (Paris, France), 2002.

Une saison à la Mecque: récit de pélerinage, Editions du Seuil (Paris, France), 2005, translation by Pascale Ghazaleh published as A Season in Mecca: Narrative of a Pilgrimage, Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to newspapers such as Le Monde.

SIDELIGHTS:

Abdellah Hammoudi is an anthropologist and ethnographer whose research and teaching interests include colonialism, French ethnographic theory, the relationship between history and anthropology, and symbols of power. A native of Morocco, Hammoudi also concentrates on the social and geopolitical aspects of the Middle East and North Africa. Much of his academic work has centered on the ethnohistory of Morocco, and he has written on such Moroccan-centered topics as agricultural policy and the relationship between tribal society and religion. Hammoudi's ethnographic work has also served as the basis of several television films.

The Victim and Its Masks: An Essay on Sacrifice and Masquerade in the Maghreb describes and analyzes a festival and masquerade celebrated by Sunni Muslims in a Moroccan Berber community. In the first part of the book, Hammoudi critiques earlier French anthropological analyses of the festival and masquerade. He also provides descriptions of how earlier European writers downplayed or neglected outright the importance of these types of celebrations to local populations. He rounds out the first half of the book with detailed descriptions of the geographical area and Berber community where the festival took place, and his own observations of the animal sacrifice, accompanying feast, and the masquerade. In the second half of the book, Hammoudi provides his own anthropological analysis of the sacrifice and festival. "Hammoudi's ethnography addresses important issues not well considered in other materials from north Africa," commented T.O. Beidelman in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. For example, he directly relates the ceremonies he observed to the religious beliefs and cultural practices of the local Berber population. He discovers connections between feasting, human fertility, agricultural fecundity, and religious blessings. He also notes connections between the public ritual of sacrifice and the private processes of female food preparation and childbearing and reproduction. Though Beidelman concluded that the book was too short to provide thorough ethnographic analysis, the work is still "a valuable contribution to north African studies."

In Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism, Hammoudi "seeks to answer a core question which many have asked before him, namely: How can we account for the prevalence of authoritarian systems in Arab/Muslim societies?," related Rachel Bloul in the Australian Journal of Anthropology. Noting that Arab and Muslim peoples have long been unable to challenge the strict hierarchies established in their social order, Hammoudi seeks to find the "emotional and cultural underpinning of attitudes and responses to authority" that account for the inability to resist or change the long-held authoritarianism, Bloul stated. Using his native Morocco as an exemplary case, Hammoudi "aims to show that such cultural schemata are modeled on the master/disciple relation of Sufi mysticism," commented Bloul. The master/disciple relationship identified by Hammoudi is similar to that found in other religions and traditions, but the Moroccan style "contains specific elements—particularly the importance of the feminization of the disciple—that account for the resilience of the authoritarian impulse in Morocco and neighboring Arab states," observed Lisa Anderson in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Hammoudi explores how the feminization of the disciple leads to the assumption, and acceptance, of a subservient role, and how this process reinforces the authoritarian structure of Moroccan, and Arab, societies. He also "convincingly demonstrates how the master/disciple relationship influences the acts of gift giving, ritual initiation, and loyalty, which are ultimately tied to Moroccan authoritarian rule and bureaucracy," remarked Brooke Olson in the Journal of Religion. Anderson concluded that Hammoudi's "perspective is enormously provocative, and thus distinguished from most of the literature in its field."

A Muslim himself, Hammoudi describes his experiences undergoing the sacred journey of the hajj in A Season in Mecca: Narrative of a Pilgrimage. This pilgrimage to Medina and Mecca is a sacred duty of Muslims the world over, a public journey with a deep personal core, and it is often undertaken despite the tremendous effort it requires and the great hardship it inflicts. Hammoudi describes the practical aspects of undertaking the hajj, including the bureaucratic hurdles he had to overcome (including necessary bribery of mid-level officials so that he would even be added to the list of pilgrims allowed to travel), and the sheer overwhelming physical presence of thousands of pilgrims and the animals they are required to sacrifice. He is also dismayed by the commercial intrusion of the marketplace, where vendors enthusiastically sell all manner of goods to the pilgrims, and by the often illogical and irrational authoritarianism of the Wahhabi who are in charge of the sacred sites. "It is not religion that Hammoudi seeks, but rather what religion can lead one to discover of oneself—ritual action begetting knowledge of one's world," commented Paul L. Heck in Commonweal. The book, Heck added, "records the Hajj of a particularly erudite person, even as it offers an inquiry into the nature of religion in an age of political and intellectual conformism." Hammoudi finds and describes the experiences of his pilgrimage, both religious and secular, offering both a personal reflection on the meaning of an age-old ritual and the professional observation and analysis of a trained scholar. A California Bookwatch reviewer felt the book would be a necessity for those "who would understand modern Muslim sentiments." He provides "an absorbing, detailed account of a journey that non-Muslims can never take and can barely imagine," concluded Peter Heinegg in America.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, March 27, 2006, Peter Heinegg, review of A Season in Mecca: Narrative of a Pilgrimage, p. 25.

Australian Journal of Anthropology, December, 1998, Rachel Bloul, review of Master and Disciple: The Cultural Foundations of Moroccan Authoritarianism, p. 341.

Booklist, January 1, 2006, Brendan Driscoll, review of A Season in Mecca, p. 27.

California Bookwatch, April, 2006, review of A Season in Mecca.

Commonweal, March 10, 2006, Paul L. Heck, review of A Season in Mecca, p. 30.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, summer, 1998, Lisa Anderson, review of Master and Disciple, p. 156.

Journal of Religion, July, 1999, Brooke Olson, review of Master and Disciple, p. 505.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, June, 1995, T.O. Beidelman, review of The Victim and Its Mask: An Essay on Sacrifice and Masquerade in the Maghreb, p. 439.

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2005, review of A Season in Mecca, p. 1266.

Publishers Weekly, November 14, 2005, review of A Season in Mecca, p. 65.