High on a plateau in the Middle Atlas Mountains stands a rambling complex of rough-hewn rock buildings. These days the buildings are quiet; overhead, crows caw and buzzards scream; grass creeps through chinks in the pavement. Only three soldiers, stationed there to prevent looting, are now camped where a community of Benedictine monks so recently thrived. The monastery of Toumliline, a hopeful experiment of Christian witness in Moslem Morocco, is closed, probably forever.
Toumliline was founded above the Berber town of Azrou in 1952 by a group of French monks who chose the site—about 100 miles southeast of the Moroccan capital of Rabat—because it was suitably remote for contemplation. At first, French colonial authorities tried to persuade the monks to Christianize the area's Berber tribesmen (and thus play them off against Arab nationalists in the cities), but Prior Dom Denis Martin and his monks refused to cooperate. "It would be criminal to convert Moslems," said Dom Denis, explaining that any converts would be outcasts in their own country. Instead, the monks set about building a monastery, planting an orchard and quietly living their contemplative life. Only after a year of close watching did nearby Berber villagers send a delegation of turbanned notables to indicate that the newcomers were welcome.
Political Complexities. Children soon followed in crowds to see the marabouts (holy men). The monks responded by opening a school for them and the children of French settlers. When the villagers learned that one monk was a doctor, the monastery was besieged with sick calls and a dispensary was opened. Much against their will, the monks were drawn into the complexities of Moroccan politics. One day during the summer of 1954, a group of Arab nationalist prisoners from a nearby detention camp, working on a water main near the monastery, complained of the heat and their thirst. The prior dispatched some monks with mint-flavored tea, a favorite Moroccan drink, for the prisoners. When the local French commandant ordered him to stop, he refused, explaining simply that it was "elementary Christian charity."
It was also, inadvertently, Toumliline's passport to fame. When Morocco became independent in 1956, several of the prisoners that Toumliline had helped became members of the new government. One of them, Driss M'hammedi, remained the second most powerful man in the country, next to King Hassan II, until his death two months ago. In 1957, a high Moslem official went so far as to call Toumliline "a lesson and a school, a center for cohabitation between Christian and Moslem." It became a meeting place for international conferences between Moslems and Christians. King Hassan exulted in "the climate of cooperation" that Toumliline exemplified in his country, which is 97% Moslem. The monastery even inspired a book called Benedictine and Moor: A Christian Adventure in Moslem Morocco.