Drought, Plague, and the Increasing Importance of Rural Centers of Scholarship in 17th-Century Morocco

Abstract This article argues that environmental crises in 17th-century Morocco led to the increased importance of rural scholarship hubs, contributing to a changing Moroccan intellectual culture. I use quantitative data and anecdotes from biographical dictionaries, tree-ring data, and insights from text mining to bridge environmental and intellectual history. The biographical dictionaries of al-Qadiri (d. 1773) and al-Hudaygi (d. 1775) reveal an increase in activity in rural areas for scholars who died after 1631. Tree-ring data and observations by Moroccan historians show that the early 17th century coincided with severe environmental crises that were especially destructive in the cities. Meanwhile, rural areas offered environmental security. Anecdotes of people fleeing cities due to environmental crises demonstrate the link between the impact of these crises on urban areas and the shift to rural learning. Increased scholarly activity in rural areas changed Moroccan intellectual culture, as shown by the rise of rural themes in the text mining of poetry and the growth of Tamazight-language literature. This paper recenters environmental crisis in Moroccan history and shows that a methodology such as that described in Bulliet’s Cotton, Climate and Camels in Early Islamic Iran can succeed with greater specificity.