Hijab and its effect on Moroccan women's fashion:

Hijab and its effect on Moroccan women's fashion:

The idea of hijab - to cover or provide privacy - is a central factor in any discussion of Moroccan women's clothing. "In some Arabic-speaking countries and Western countries, the word hijab primarily refers to women's head and body covering, but in Islamic scholarship, hijab is given the wider meaning of modesty, privacy, and morality" (Wikipedia Hijab). Thus being, the essential philosophy behind Moroccan women's clothing is to cover the body with clothing which preserve for the wearer an impression of modesty, piety, and highly reserved sexuality. The Qur'an (24:31) states that:
“And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts and do not display their ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them wear their head-coverings (khimars) over their bosoms (jaybs), and not display their ornaments except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands' fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex . . . "
In practice, hijab means that women must keep the essential forms of their womanhood covered from view with clothing that does not provide much of an indication of the shapes and graces found within when in public or in the company of men that are not of their family. This means that the women of Morocco tend to publicly wear long and loose robes (djellaba), button-up blouses which extend down to the knees or the ankles (kafkan), and headscarves (khimar) which cover most of the hair, the ears and the neck. Young girls in Morocco are except from the practice of hijab until the time of puberty, when they too are required to begin donning the concealing clothing of their mothers.
Although hijab - the wearing of modest clothing - is highly regarded in Morocco it is not compulsory for a woman to dress this way. It is becoming fairly common in Morocco for women to go out in public without wearing headscarves, long sleeves, and in Western style clothing. But for formal occasions, such as weddings or religious festivals, the principles of hijab prevail and women tend to wear traditional style Moroccan clothing (Wikipedia).   
Examples of hijab mandated Muslim women's fashions are below: 

Various examples of hijab throughout the Muslim World. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Hijab article.  Although the clothing that the Moroccan women are wearing in the above photo appear to be modern or Western, they still sort of conform to the principles of hijab, as the dress is still modest in appearance and cover 

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The Djellaba

The Djellaba of both Moroccan men and women 
The base article of clothing that makes up the wardrobe of both Moroccan men and women is the djellaba. This is just a long, loose fitting robe which has a hood attached. The woman's djellaba is usually brightly colored and is ornately stitched with various patterns and/or is beaded. The djellaba generally covers the wearer from head to ankles and, keeping with the principles of hijab, is meant to provide a look of modesty. But the woman's djellaba is becoming adapted to meet with modern fashions and, "are becoming slimmer and shorter" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djellaba. The traditional women's djellaba can also be considered a jilbab, "which refers to any long and loose-fit coat or garment worn by some Muslim women.
The djellaba's, "hood is of vital importance for both sexes as it protects the wearer from the sun and in earlier times was used as a defense against sand being blown into the wearers face by strong desert winds. It is not uncommon for the hood to be used as an informal pocket during times of nice weather, and can fit loaves of bread or bags of groceries", The hood of the djellaba, which is called a "cob," is also what distinctly defines it from the kaftan, which is simply a button-down cloak that extends to the ankles or, in modern cases, the knees of the wearer that does not have an attached hood.
Examples of the Moroccan woman's djellaba are below:

This is an example of the Moroccan woman's djellaba.

Another photo of women in a market in Casablanca wearing the traditional Moroccan djellaba robe.

An example of a Moroccan woman's djellaba. Notice the hood at the back of the garment.These are examples of how Moroccan women's clothing is adapted with designs and accessories to be more feminine. Such djellabas as the ones pictured above are very common in Morocco.

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Berber Food and Folk Music

Berber Food and Folk Music
by Chris BeauchampThe dusty streets of Zagora feel very far away and very long ago. It’s hard to believe it was only yes­ter­day. The con­trast between the desert and even a small town like Zagora couldn’t be more pro­nounced. When the wind dies down out here, it is per­fectly still. Perfectly quiet.
The view from under our Tamarist tree. That’s another tam­ar­ist beside the dune. These trees are quite lit­er­ally the only shade to be had out here, and tend to grow only in the dunes.
We are about six to ten kilo­met­ers from the camp where we spent last night. It is about 30 degrees Celsius in the shade right now, and we are passing the hottest part of the day under a desert tree. Our young guide, Rashid, 28, tells us it is calledTamarist in French, “Lit-luh” in Arabic, and “Tashwoodth” in Berber. He doesn’t know the English name. Rashid is himself Berber, des­cen­ded from the desert nomads who once lived off the land in this area, but who have mostly settled down in nearby com­munit­ies since Rashid’s grandfather’s time. He speaks only slightly more English than we do French, which is very little indeed, but we’ve been getting along well regard­less of lan­guage dif­fi­culties. Hand ges­tures and our own search­ing French do sur­pris­ingly well, as we try various syn­onyms of what we want to say in the hopes of hitting upon the half-forgotten vocab­u­lary of long-ago French classes. Although it is now just the three of us making our way into the desert, last night we enjoyed the company of four or five other young Berber men, most of them Rashid’s age.
The bivouac encamp­ment we stayed in is design for some 20 to 40 vis­it­ors at capa­city, but we were lucky enough to be the only two. It is just past the high season around here, a time when the desert starts to get too hot for most. The camp includes several heavy wool Berber tents for sleep­ing, a per­man­ent squat­ter toilet out­house, and a com­munal tent for pre­par­ing meals and relax­ing among rugs, cush­ions and low tables.  Our mouths were water­ing as we sat in the com­munal tent (named, without a hint of irony, The Restaurant), smelling the tajine stewing in the next room and enjoy­ing tra­di­tional Berber music. Tajine is prob­ably Morocco’s most sig­na­ture dish (along­side couscous), and you can find it on menus through­out the country. A good tajine can be made from pretty much any­thing you’d put into a stew, and the best tajines use only the freshest local ingredi­ents; oil, carrots, pota­toes, onion, yams, almonds, dates, lemon, olives, and peppers are all common, though seldom found alto­gether in the same tajine. It can be a veget­arian dish, or include beef, chicken, fish or lamb. Really, any­thing goes, but what makes every tajine a tajine is the conical ceramic cooking dish, or swaoui, a proper stewing time of several hours, and the inclu­sion of the typical Moroccan spice medley: saffron, paprika, cumin, ginger, salt and pepper. The night’s tajine was served with bread, com­munal style in a large  swaoui in the middle of the table, and was very deli­cious. We were sur­prised to get desert as well: a heaping plate of watermelon.

The warm and invit­ing “Restaurant” at our first night’s bivouac camp. It was way cozier in there than in the harsh winds of the evening. The winds died down after sunset, and we enjoyed the first of several beau­ti­ful night skies.

Laura wearing her turban. The first night out there was unbe­liev­ably windy, so these things were neces­sary to keep the sand out of our mouths. In the coming days, they would prove to be the most import­ant garment we owned, provid­ing shade and shelter from the beating sun and reg­u­lat­ing our body tem­per­at­ure better than any single thing we did.
The music was a perfect way to bracket the meal, as our Berber com­pan­ions began to “jam” while the tajine was just getting started, and picked up where they left off after dinner. It impresses me deeply whenever I am exposed to a culture or family with such integ­ral music tra­di­tions. Although music is very import­ant to me, and I was a musi­cian myself some years ago, I was not raised in a par­ti­cip­at­ory music tra­di­tion, and its not nearly as wide­spread in our culture than in many places in the world. In the West, musi­cians are spe­cial­ized indi­vidu­als who perform their trade for the enter­tain­ment of others. Among the Berbers, and cul­tures with similar tra­di­tions, every­one is a musi­cian, and music is not some­thing to watch or listen to so much as to make together. These tra­di­tions will always be stronger in a culture where indi­vidu­als must depend on enter­tain­ing them­selves and each other, rather than being enter­tained by elec­tronic mass media.
But making and sharing music is uni­ver­sal; every culture in human history has folk music tra­di­tions. I think our easy access to pre­pack­aged enter­tain­ment in the West has trained us away from the instinct to simply go for it.
Anyway, Laura and I did our best to simply go for it, taking our turns clap­ping along, as well as playing the cymbals, beating the drums and dancing. I also tried the lute, but with a foreign tuning scheme, ten strings and no frets, I found it far more dif­fi­cult than guitar, and could only manage a few feeble notes. The Berber songs typ­ic­ally used a call-and-response singing struc­ture and although the words were unin­tel­li­gible to us, most of the songs were lam­ent­a­tions. The sor­row­ful wails in Arabic and (I assume) the Berber dialect of Tashelhit seemed to speak of tra­gedies and injustices borne out of the distant past. These were occa­sion­ally offset by more upbeat melod­ies, with the pound­ing rhythm of make­shift tam tams (drums) thump­ing into fren­zied finales. Other songs were instru­mental, led by the lute player, and seemed to include impro­visa­tional ele­ments based around a tra­di­tional song structure.
After some encour­age­ment Laura and I were induced to share the only piece of Canadiana that would come to mind, although I’m not sure “Barrett’s Privateers” has ever been accom­pan­ied by such African-influenced per­cus­sion. And I, for one, choose to believe it was that relent­less rhythm that drove the lyrics clean out of my head, forcing us to repeat the first verse four or five times before begging off at last in an awkward ending that seemed to leave our new friends unsure what to make of it all. They didn’t ask us to sing again after that, which was fine by me.

We joined in when we could. It was a great evening.

We were treated to tra­di­tional Berber music, by Daoud (right), and our guide Rashid (left), among others.
I’ve been in other situ­ations where the ease with which those present share and par­ti­cip­ate in music has humbled me, and each time it forces me to ask myself: “Where are my songs?” On T.V.? The radio? The punk rock clique I was into as a younger man? The other music cliques and genres I could have fallen into had I made dif­fer­ent friends? The folk music of cowboys? Of the mari­times? I enjoy these things but am neither cowboy nor mari­timer. Where are my songs?
These young men know every word, can join in and impro­vise on a dozen or more tra­di­tional songs, passing the main rhythm drum and other instru­ments back and forth at will, sharing singing duties as needed. For them playing together is a daily routine, some­thing to be savoured whenever and wherever they can come together in one place and time. These songs and the exper­i­ence of sharing them are central to what makes them Berber.
Where are our songs?

Our last meal. Before the desert at least. Bread, tea, con­fec­tions like jam and butter. That was pretty much it for break­fasts. You can see the Berber sleep­ing tents of the bivouac in the back­ground. We just slept in the Restaurant, as it was already cozy and blocked the sand much more effectively.morocco culture,moroccan food,morocco food,moroccan cuisine,morocco beaches,moroccan meal,beaches in morocco,moroccan culture,hercules cave,hercules cave morocco