Muḥammad VI

Muḥammad VI (born August 21, 1963, Rabat, Morocco) is the king of Morocco since 1999.

Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan completed primary and secondary schooling at the Royal Palace College before entering the Mohammed V University in Rabat; there he received a bachelor’s degree in law in 1985 and, three years later, a master’s degree in public law. For a brief period in the late 1980s the crown prince studied at the headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels. He then entered the University of Nice in France, where he received a doctorate in law in 1993. His doctoral thesis dealt with relations between the Arab Maghreb Union and the European Economic Community. He was educated in both Arabic and French, and literature and art were among his interests.

Over time the heir to the throne of Morocco took on increasing responsibilities in support of his father, King Hassan II. He became known particularly for advancing efforts to help the poor. In 1985 his father gave him the task of coordinating the country’s armed forces. As his father’s health declined in the 1990s, the crown prince represented him at a number of political meetings and ceremonial functions, both in Morocco and in other countries.

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Hours after the death of his father on July 23, 1999, Muḥammad took the throne as Muḥammad VI. The new king thus joined two other young rulers of the Arab world—King ʿAbdullah II of Jordan, who was a personal friend, and Sheikh Ḥamad ibn ʿĪsā Āl Khalīfah of Bahrain—who had both assumed power in 1999 upon the deaths of their fathers.

Hassan II, who had ruled Morocco for 38 years, was widely held to be a moderating influence among Arab nations and in relations between the Arab world and the West. His death and the assumption of the throne by his son were seen as part of a pattern of the transfer of power between generations that was taking place in a number of Arab and Middle Eastern countries. The transition from the rule of Hassan II to that of Muḥammad VI went smoothly and was without incident, and the new king continued in the moderate tradition established by his father.

In June 2011 Muḥammad VI attempted to head off a growing pro-democracy protest movement in Morocco by proposing a new constitution that he claimed would curb his powers and strengthen representative government. The new document expanded the powers of the prime minister and parliament but preserved the king’s role as the final authority in all areas of government and gave him exclusive control over religious affairs, security, and strategic policy. Voters approved the new constitution in a referendum in July, over the objections of critics who charged that it did too little to open the political system.