Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

Following the Casablanca suicide bombings in 2003, King Mohammed VI of Morocco announced a series of reforms to restructure and reassert state control over the religious field. Religious reforms at home, which have emphasized
Morocco's image as a beacon of moderate Islam, have been paralleled at the transnational and international levels by an ambitious religious diplomacy aimed at Morocco's European diaspora on the one hand, and at African countries
on the other, though more recently in the latter case.
Based on Salim Hmimnat's work, this paper describes how in Africa and the Sahel region, Morocco's pragmatic religious policy has sought to provide an alternative approach to the hard power counterterrorism measures implemented
by Western countries while striving to make religious affairs one of the tenets of the economic cooperation with African countries. This paper contends that Morocco's effort to enhance its international soft power by stepping up its
religious diplomacy abroad has been part of a holistic policy in pursuit of the country's long-standing geopolitical and geostrategic interests. The paper concludes that the future of Morocco's religious diplomacy rests on its ability to
operate independently from the pervading influence of these neo-liberal/neo- colonial challenges.