Ahmed Toufiq (born 22 June 1943) is a Moroccan historian and novelist who has been serving as Minister for Islamic Affairs in the government of Morocco since 2002.
Ahmed Toufiq | |
---|---|
Minister of Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs | |
Assumed office 7 September 2002 | |
Monarch | Mohammed VI |
Prime Minister | Abderrahmane Youssoufi Driss Jettou Abbas El Fassi Abdelilah Benkirane Saadeddine Othmani Aziz Akhannouch |
Preceded by | Abdelkebir M'Daghri Alaoui |
Personal details | |
Born | Margha, Morocco | 25 June 1943
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Mohammed V University |
Thesis | al-Mujtamaʿ al-Maghribī fī al-Qarn al-Tāsiʿa ʿAshar: ʼInūltāne (1850-1912) |
Doctoral advisor | Germain Ayache |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Historian |
Biography
editToufiq was born on 22 June 1943 in Marigha Village in the High Atlas.[1] After completing his primary and secondary studies in Marrakech, he enrolled at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of Rabat, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history in 1968, then a master's degree in history. Toufiq also holds a certificate of Archaeology. He presented his PhD in 1979 on the subject of social history in the Moroccan rural areas in the 19th century.
He started his career as a teacher at L'École Normale Supérieure de Marrakech and taught in a high school in Rabat. Thereafter, he joined the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences in Rabat, where he served in various roles from 1970 to 1989; lecturer, assistant professor, associate professor. He was appointed director of the Institute of African Studies at the Mohammed V University in 1989. holding the position for six years until 1995. From 1995 to 2002, he worked as director of the National Library of Morocco.[2][3]
In 1989, Toufiq received his first Moroccan Book Prize for his novel Shajarat Hinna' Wa Qamar (A Tree of Henna and a Moon). In 2001, he served as a Visiting Professor of Islamic Studies at Harvard Divinity School, affiliated with its Center for the Study of World Religions.[4]
In November 2002, Toufiq was appointed to the government as Minister for Islamic Affairs. He is also a personal advocate of interfaith dialogue and currently sits on the Board of World Religious Leaders for The Elijah Interfaith Institute.[5] Toufiq is a Sufi.[6]
Bibliography
edit- Historical studies
- La société marocaine au XIXe siècle - Inoultane 1850 - 1912
- Islam et développement
- Les juifs de Demnat
- Le Maroc et l'Afrique Occidentale à travers les âges
- Novels
- Abu Musa's Women Neighbors (translated by Roger Allen, from Jarat Abi Musa, 1997, ISBN 2-87623-215-4)
- Al Sayl (The Stream, 1998)
- Shujayrat Hinna' Wa Qamar (translated by Roger Allen, Moon and Henna Tree, 2013, ISBN 0292748248)
Further reading
edit- Marvine Howe, Morocco: The Islamist Awakening and Other Challenges, pp. 343, Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-19-516963-8
References
edit- ^ "M. Ahmed Toufiq, ministre des Habous et des Affaires islamiques". Maghreb Arabe Press. 2017-06-22. Archived from the original on 2020-06-29. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- ^ Wainscott, Ann Marie (2017). Bureaucratizing Islam: Morocco and the War on Terror. Cambridge University Press. p. 127. ISBN 978-1-316-51049-0.
- ^ Park, Thomas Kerlin; Boum, Aomar (2006). Historical Dictionary of Morocco. Scarecrow Press. pp. 331–332. ISBN 978-0-8108-5341-6.
- ^ McDowell, Wendy. "Ahmed Toufiq: Modern Speech in Orthodox Islam". Harvard Divinity School. Archived from the original on 2020-10-13. Retrieved 2020-05-11.
- ^ "The Elijah Interfaith Institute - Muslim Members of the Board of World Religious Leaders". Archived from the original on 2011-05-26. Retrieved 2010-12-09.
- ^ Washington Institute: "Sufism: An Alternative to Extremism?" by Sarah Feuer Archived 2015-09-19 at the Wayback Machine March 11, 2015