Talk:Beni Zeroual
Discussion page of Beni Zeroual
More actions
Talk
Discussion for: Beni Zeroual • View • Links • Related changes
Use this page for verification notes, disputes, and action items. Keep narrative content on the article.
Page scope
Beni Zeroual treats Beni Zeroual as a cannabis growing area: the country of the Beni Zeroual tribe round Ghafsai, in Taounate Province. It covers the kif grade named for the tribe, the protectorate-era permission to grow, and growing since the 1990s. The rest of the province is treated at Taounate, the town at Ghafsai. The Beni Zeroual of the Dahra in Algeria are a different tribe.
Data verification
Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.
Discussion
Why Beni Zeroual is a growing area
- Chouvy (2022) places the Beni Zeroual in the Jebala country of the Rif foothills north of Fez and south-west of Ketama, and writes that hashish production there "continues to this day".
- Finances News Hebdo (2015) reports kif grown round Ghafsai, which it calls the seat of the Beni Zeroual, since about 2000. TelQuel (2024) names a licensed cooperative at Ghafsai growing the local seed.
- Bellakhdar (2013) records zerwalî as one of three regional grades of kif and the 1926–1929 permission to grow on Beni Zeroual land.
- Eight genebank lots collected in 2023 fall inside the border. One of them is named for the commune of Sidi Yahia Beni Zeroual.
- The status is Active, from the 2015 and 2024 reports and Chouvy (2022).
Province
- The tribe's territory lies in Taounate Province. Finances News Hebdo places Ghafsai, "the seat of the Beni Zeroual", in the province; the national survey of 2004 marks a commune of Bni Zeroual next to Ghafsai and Tafrant on its map of the province; the present administration has a caïdat of Beni Zeroual, with the communes of Sidi Yahia Beni Zeroual and Sidi Haj M'hamed, in the Cercle de Ghafsai.
Extent and border
- No source read gives the limits of the tribe's territory.
- The map border is approximate. It is drawn on the Cercle de Ghafsai and the town of Ghafsai, about 1,330 km². The town is the place the sources name, and the circle holds the caïdat that carries the tribe's name.
- The circle may reach beyond the tribe's lands. A narrower border on the Beni Zeroual caïdat alone (about 145 km²) would leave out Ghafsai itself.
- The area figure in the infobox is rounded from the border.
Sources
- Is cannabis still grown here? Bellakhdar wrote in 2013 that the Beni Zeroual had stopped producing kif, which is why the regional grades no longer held. Finances News Hebdo (2015) and Hini and colleagues (2026) describe the crop arriving, or returning, round Ghafsai from the mid-1990s and 2000; Chouvy (2022) says hashish production continues. The article gives each account under its author's name.
- Grade or cultigen. Bellakhdar calls ktamî, zerwalî and gnawî merchantable grades named for their regions. Chouvy calls the zerouali a cultigen. The article keeps each author's word.
- Lyautey, 1926. The date and the grant are Bellakhdar's (p. 133); no primary text for them is cited, and the article gives them as his.
- Heddawa. Bellakhdar reports Abderahmane Ben Tayeb's observation, published by Mouliéras, that the order was well established among the Beni Zeroual and that kif was much smoked there. It is not evidence of growing, and the article does not use it as such.
- Hini et al. 2026 locate the first growing in the Jebala of Taounate at the douar of Lmchaa, commune of Oudka, which lies in the Ghafsai circle. They do not tie it to the Beni Zeroual by name.
Sources not used
- Brunel (1955) and Benabud (1957), whom Chouvy cites for the zerouali, were not read for this page.