History · Morocco
Morocco: The Western Kingdom
The one North African land the Ottomans never took — home of Berber empires that ruled Muslim Spain, a sharifian monarchy since the 1660s, a French protectorate for 44 years, and the disputed Western Sahara
By Worldlore Editorial · 19 September 2026
The far west of the Muslim world
Morocco — al-Maghrib al-Aqsa, "the far west" — occupies the north-western corner of Africa, facing Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar. It is the one country in North Africa the Ottoman Empire never ruled, and one of the few in Africa that escaped formal colonisation until the 20th century, and then only for 44 years. It has been governed by the same dynasty, the Alaouites, since the 1660s. Its population of 37 million is Arab and Amazigh (Berber), and its king holds the religious title Commander of the Faithful.
A short history
- 42 CE
Roman Mauretania
The north becomes a Roman province; Volubilis its inland city.
- c. 789
The Idrisids
Idris I founds the first Moroccan Muslim state and Fez.
- c. 1040–1147
Almoravids
A Saharan Berber empire; Marrakesh is founded.
- c. 1121–1269
Almohads
Berber rule from Libya to southern Spain — the region's largest state.
- 1578
Alcácer Quibir
The Saadians crush a Portuguese invasion.
- from c. 1666
The Alaouites
The current sharifian dynasty takes power.
- 1912
The Protectorate
France and Spain divide Morocco; the sultan is kept as a figurehead.
- 1921–1926
The Rif War
Abd el-Krim defeats Spain before a joint offensive crushes the revolt.
- 1956
Independence
Morocco regains sovereignty under Mohammed V.
- 1975
The Green March
Morocco claims the Western Sahara as Spain withdraws.
Berbers, Rome, and Islam
The Amazigh peoples are indigenous to North Africa, and Morocco holds the oldest known fossils of our species, from Jebel Irhoud. Rome ruled only the north, from Volubilis and the coast, and withdrew by the 5th century.
Idris I, a descendant of the Prophet fleeing the Abbasids, founded Morocco's first Muslim dynasty around 789 and the city of Fez, whose Qarawiyyin, established in 859, is often called the oldest continuously operating university in the world.
The Berber empires
For two centuries Morocco was the seat of empires that ruled the Maghreb and Muslim Spain. The Almoravids, a Saharan Berber religious-military movement, founded Marrakesh and united Morocco with al-Andalus. The Almohads overthrew them and ruled from Libya to southern Spain — the largest state the region has ever known, and a high point of philosophy, producing Averroes and, in its Jewish community, Maimonides. Their defeat in Spain in 1212 doomed Muslim Iberia. The Marinids that followed made Fez a cultural peak, building its great madrasas.
The imperial cities
The sharifian dynasties
From the 16th century, Morocco was ruled by dynasties claiming descent from the Prophet. The Saadians rose resisting Portuguese coastal footholds, crushed a Portuguese invasion at Alcácer Quibir in 1578, and sent an army across the Sahara to conquer the Songhai Empire for its gold in 1591. The Alaouites, who took over around 1666 and still rule, produced Moulay Ismail — a long-reigning, formidable sultan who unified the country, built a slave army and an imperial capital at Meknes, and drove the English from Tangier. After him came weaker sultans, wide tribal autonomy, and slow European encroachment.
Protectorate and resistance
Nineteenth-century defeats, debt and forced trade concessions left Morocco exposed, and the European powers agreed to French dominance. The Treaty of Fez in 1912 imposed a French protectorate over most of the country, a Spanish zone in the north and south, and an international zone at Tangier, keeping the sultan as a figurehead.
Resistance and rule
French rule (1912–56) built railways, ports and a modern Casablanca, brought half a million European settlers, and only completed the military conquest of the interior in 1934. When France deposed and exiled Sultan Mohammed V in 1953, the move backfired, uniting the country behind him; France brought him back and granted independence on 2 March 1956, with Spain relinquishing its zones the same year — though Spain kept the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which it still holds.
The kings, and the Sahara
Mohammed V is revered as the father of independence. His son Hassan II ruled for 38 years as a shrewd autocrat. In November 1975, as Spain withdrew from the phosphate-rich Western Sahara, he sent some 350,000 unarmed Moroccans marching into the territory — the Green March — to assert Morocco's claim.
Morocco controls about 80 per cent of the territory, behind a 2,700-kilometre sand wall, and offers only autonomy under its sovereignty — a position now backed by the United States, France and Spain, though the African Union recognises the Sahrawi republic.
Mohammed VI, king since 1999, has overseen an acknowledgement of some past abuses, a reform of family law improving women's rights, and major infrastructure — while retaining ultimate power. The 2011 Arab Spring brought large protests, which the king headed off with a new constitution that recognised Amazigh and modestly strengthened parliament. A devastating earthquake struck the High Atlas in 2023.
What Morocco carries
Morocco's self-image rests on two pillars: an imperial past, when Berber and then sharifian dynasties ruled from the Atlantic to the Nile and across the strait into Spain; and a continuity almost unique in the region — never Ottoman, briefly colonised, and governed by one dynasty for over 350 years. The protectorate is a 44-year interruption in that story. The Western Sahara is the piece the monarchy insists is part of it.