VOLUME VI: THE ROAD TO TAZROUT
Field Journey: A Field Journey into the Geography of Resistance
Archive Reference: Taher Lhioui Digital Archive / Northern Morocco Archive
Subject: Moulay Ahmed Raisuni & The Historical Geography of Buhashem
The Political Character of Moulay Ahmed Raisuni
The history of Moulay Ahmed Raisuni cannot be understood simply as a history of military confrontation. To reduce him to a warrior, a rebel, or a man who lived by force is to miss an important part of his political character.
Behind the armed struggle was another Raisuni: a political actor who understood negotiation, influence, local authority, human relationships and the value of geography. His struggle was not simply about defeating an enemy. It was about preserving a form of sovereignty as he understood it.
Sovereignty as Raisuni Understood It
Raisuni lived in a political world in which authority was divided, contested and constantly negotiated. The Makhzen had its own conception of authority. The European powers imposed another. The tribes and local communities possessed their own loyalties and political structures. Raisuni operated within this complicated space.
His objective was therefore not simply to replace one flag with another. He sought to preserve his own political authority and the autonomy of the region in which he operated. This is why his history cannot be reduced to the question of whether he won or lost individual battles. The deeper question is what happened to sovereignty: How was it exercised? Who recognised it? Who challenged it? And how could a local political authority survive when confronted by the military machinery of European colonial power?
Diplomacy Before Destruction
One of the most important characteristics of Raisuni's political personality was his preference for negotiation whenever negotiation remained possible. He understood that war destroys more than soldiers. It destroys families, villages, livelihoods and the future of ordinary people. A military commander may accept casualties as part of a campaign. A political leader who knows his people must also think about what remains after the fighting ends.
Raisuni therefore did not always seek confrontation for its own sake. He could negotiate. He could communicate. He could listen. He could use intermediaries. And he could attempt to obtain political objectives without turning every disagreement into a battlefield.
This is an important distinction. The ability to fight is not the same thing as the desire to fight. A man who possesses the capacity for resistance but still understands the value of negotiation is operating according to a different political logic from the commander whose solution to every problem is military force.
The Strength of Gentleness
There is another element of Raisuni's character that deserves attention. His strength was not necessarily expressed through anger. It could also appear through gentleness. A composed man who does not immediately respond with rage can sometimes achieve what violence cannot. He can make people speak. He can make opponents sit with him. He can create relationships where another man would create enemies. He can win people rather than destroy them.
This does not make him a saint. Nor does it remove the conflicts and contradictions surrounding his life. It simply means that the human dimension of his political character must be taken seriously. The man who could resist military pressure could also sit with people, speak with them, exchange stories and jokes, and create relationships across political and cultural boundaries.
This helps explain why some Spaniards who encountered him directly could see something different from the image of a distant enemy. For some, he was not simply an enemy in a military report. He was a man. And sometimes that human encounter changed the way people remembered him.
The Men Who Tried to Defeat Him
This is also where the difference between the political mind and the military mind becomes visible. A general is trained to confront difficult terrain, casualties, logistical problems and armed resistance. But not every military commander understands the political character of the person standing on the other side. Raisuni could not always be understood through military calculations alone.
The question was not simply: How many soldiers does he have? How many weapons? How much territory? The deeper question was: Why do people continue to follow him? Why does the landscape continue to protect him? Why can he negotiate with people who are supposed to be his enemies? And why, after military forces occupy his territory, does the political problem remain?
This is where the Spanish campaigns against him become especially important.
Tazrout and the Failure to Capture the Man
The occupation of Tazrout is one of the clearest examples of the difference between occupying a place and defeating a political opponent. Spanish forces could advance. They could bring artillery. They could occupy strategic positions. They could impose military pressure upon the surrounding region. But the central problem remained: Raisuni himself was not eliminated.
The geography of Tazrout and Buhashem made it possible for the struggle to continue beyond the occupation of a particular settlement. The mountain was not merely terrain. It was part of the political strategy. The forest, the paths, the elevations and the caves created another form of protection. The army could enter one place while the political centre of resistance moved beyond its immediate reach.
The Geography of Resistance
The landscape of northern Morocco must therefore be treated as historical evidence in its own right. Buhashem was not simply beautiful countryside. Its valleys, mountains, forests, water sources, slopes and passages formed a living geography of resistance.
A modern map cannot fully communicate what the landscape meant to someone moving through it on foot. A mountain path has a distance. It has an elevation. It has visibility. It has concealment. It has difficulty. It has natural protection. A cave is not merely a hole in a mountain. Its position relative to the surrounding valleys and routes can determine whether it is exposed or protected. This is why fieldwork in Tazrout and Buhashem is not a secondary activity. It is part of the historical investigation itself. The researcher must leave the page and enter the landscape.
The Road to Tazrout & Fieldwork Route
There comes a point in historical research when the document is no longer enough. The researcher must leave the page and go to the place. This is the purpose of the journey described in this volume. The objective is not to reproduce a familiar story about Moulay Ahmed Raisuni, nor to turn the landscape into a backdrop for a historical narrative.
- Souk Khamis Beni Arous: The starting point of the physical journey.
- Al-Sallam: Identification of the 1922 Battle of Al-Sallam location.
- Boumendil & Bousrwas: Documenting terrain challenges and the memory of Sidi Yandar.
- Tazrout Palace: Analysis of structural routes and surrounding terrain.
The Palace and the Ground Beyond It
The next stage is the approach to the palace at Tazrout. From there, the investigation will extend beyond the palace towards the surrounding ground, including the location described in the historical material as being approximately a mile from the palace and associated with the death of Colonel Tablas. This location will be treated as a fieldwork question requiring precise verification. The objective is to establish the site, photograph it, record its coordinates and surrounding geography, and compare the physical evidence with the historical documentation. A name on a page is one thing. A precise place on the ground is another. The distance between the two is part of the research.
The Memorial at Tazrout
The investigation will also examine the history of the memorial erected at Tazrout in memory of Lieutenant Colonel Santiago González-Tablas. Historical documentation indicates that a stone memorial was erected at Tazrout in 1955 at the place identified as the exact location where González-Tablas received the wounds that proved fatal. The site was therefore deliberately marked as a place of historical memory. The memorial later fell into ruin. In 1990, members of the Grupo de Regulares 54 travelled to Tazrout with the intention of recovering the stone bearing the commemorative inscription.
The fate of the original memorial at Tazrout raises crucial questions: Who removed it? When did it disappear? What remained at the site after its removal? And can the original location of the memorial still be identified with precision?
Towards Wadi Al-Satah & The Mountain Path
From Tazrout, the journey continues towards Wadi Al-Satah. Here the character of the expedition changes. The terrain becomes more difficult, and the route ahead cannot simply be treated as an ordinary excursion. This is the point at which local knowledge becomes essential. People from the area who know the paths, slopes and approaches will be consulted and, where necessary, accompany the fieldwork.
One of the principal objectives of the expedition is to document the mountain path associated with the ascent of Raisuni towards the summit overlooking the Buhashem and Akhmas area. The first task will be to locate the route carefully. The second will be to photograph the steps and physical remains of the ascent, wherever they survive. The third will be to document the surrounding landscape from different points along the route. And the fourth will be to establish, as precisely as possible, the relationship between this route and the historical accounts describing movement through the mountains.
The Unknown Path & The Land as Evidence
After returning from the mountain route, the expedition will move towards the paths leading to the cave. This will be the first journey of its kind for me. I do not yet know what is inside. That uncertainty is precisely why it must be approached carefully. The cave will not be entered simply for the sake of discovery. Its approach, entrance, surrounding terrain and visible features will first be documented.
The purpose of this expedition is therefore larger than photographing beautiful landscapes. Buhashem is beautiful. Its quiet valleys, water, forests and mountains are part of what remains. But behind that beauty lies another landscape: the landscape through which people moved, fought, sought refuge, governed, travelled and preserved their memories. The task is to document both: the landscape as it exists today, and the landscape as it can be reconstructed through historical evidence.
The Human Side & Spanish Encounters
The military campaigns of this period should also be understood from the perspective of the ordinary people caught inside them. Every campaign has soldiers. But behind soldiers are families. There are wives waiting for men who may never return. Children who grow up without fathers. Villages affected by fighting. Farmers who lose crops. People displaced from their homes. This is why the political choice between negotiation and war cannot be treated as an abstract matter.
The surviving memories and photographs connected with Spanish figures who encountered the Raisuni family may eventually add another dimension to this history. Some Spanish officials and military figures appear in the surviving visual record in circumstances that do not fit a simple image of permanent hostility. These materials deserve to be examined carefully—not because they erase the colonial conflict, but because they show how political enemies could still recognise one another as human beings.
A Return to the Land
I was not returning to an entirely unfamiliar land. My father had known this community, belonged to it, and recorded part of its history in Hisn al-Salam Bayna Yaday Awlad Moulay Abd al-Salam. Near the shrine of Moulay Abd al-Salam, my father was laid to rest according to his wish. Since his death, I have continued to return to his grave from time to time.
When I return today, I am therefore not simply approaching the region as a researcher following an old historical trail. I am returning as his son and as the keeper of the papers he left behind. People in the area still recognise me through my father and remember the connection he had with them. That relationship cannot be recreated through a book or a digital archive. It exists in memory, in conversation, and in the continued presence of a family within its landscape.
The journey begins with a road. It continues with a mountain. And somewhere between the document and the landscape, the past may reveal another part of its story. The archive gives us the question. The land gives us the test. The journey gives us the evidence.
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