This book is one of the first comprehensive studies of Islam as locally understood in the Middle East. Specifically, it is concerned with the prevalent North African belief that certain men, called marabouts, have a special relation to God that enables them to serve as intermediaries and to influence the well-being of their clients and kin. Dale F. Eickelman examines the Moroccan pilgrimage center of Boujad and unpublished Moroccan and French archival materials related to it to show how popular Islam has been modified by its adherents to accommodate new social and economic realities. In the course of his analysis he demonstrates the necessary interrelationship between social history and the anthropological study of symbolism. -- Publisher description.