The Berber Dahir (Arabic: الظهير البربري, French: Dahir berbère, formally: Dahir du 17 hija 1348 (16 mai 1930) réglant le fonctionnement de la justice dans les tribus de coutume berbère non pourvues de mahakmas pour l'application du Chrâa) is a dhahir (decree) that was created by the French protectorate in Morocco on May 16, 1930.[1] The document changed the legal system in the parts of Morocco in which Berber languages were primarily spoken, and the legal system in the rest of the country would remain the way it had been before the French invasion.[2] Sultan Muhammad V signed the Dahir under no duress though he was only 20 years old at the time.[1]
The new legal system in Berber tribes would be ostensibly based on local and centuries-old Berber laws that had inherited and evolved throughout the millennia of the Islamic conquest of North Africa, rather than the Islamic Sharia.[1] According to pan-Arabist activists, the French colonial authorities sought to facilitate their takeover of the Berber tribes' property and to maintain a legal cover.[1]
The Berber Dahir was based on the colonial Kabyle myth[2] and reinforced a dichotomy in popular Moroccan historiography: the division of the country into Bled el-Makhzen, areas under the direct control of the Sultan and the Makhzen, or the state, (especially urban areas such as Fes and Rabat), and Bled es-Siba, areas that were historically and geographically isolated and beyond the direct control of the Makhzen (the central state composed of warlords with aristocratic heritage) in with Berber languages being primarily and spoken, Arab culture and norms not being adopted and dogmatic Islamic Sharia not being applied.[3] However, this legislation explicitly characterized the former as "Arab" and the latter as "Berber."[1]
The Berber Dahir gave birth to the pan-Arab and Islamic Moroccan nationalist movement.[1] Protests broke out in Salé, Rabat, Fes and Tangier, and international figures such as Shakib Arslan took it as evidence of an attempt to "de-Islamize" Morocco.[1]