Introduction

This chapter aims at explaining the roles of the bayʿa (ceremony of allegiance) and the kings’ khuṭbas (speeches and discourses) on the occasion of the Feast of the Throne in Morocco as political institutions to connect the king and people and to gain the people's support for the monarchy, showing that this traditional ritual contributes to the resilience of the Moroccan monarchy.

As a consequence of major political uprisings since 2010, known as the Arab Spring, the resilience of Arab monarchies, which have remained stable in contrast to most other Arab countries which are republics, has been recognized as a noteworthy phenomenon, and researchers have attempted to clarify the factors resulting in this situation. The “rentier states theory” and the “dynastic monarchy theory” were significant for understanding the stability of the Arab monarchies, especially in the Gulf countries. However, the case of Morocco, which neither possesses enough “rents” to be distributed to the population nor can be governed by members of the royal family by dividing the state's responsible positions among them, shows that the resilience of monarchical regimes is still somewhat puzzling.

This chapter focuses on the religious rituals of bayʿa. In the traditions of Islam, the bayʿa normally refers to the act by which a certain number of persons recognize a person's authority. Thus, the bayʿa of a Caliph is the act by which one person is proclaimed and recognized as the head of the Muslim state. In this sense, nominations of the head of some Arab countries, such as the Saudi kings, follow the traditional bayʿa ceremony.