Institut des Hautes Édudes Marocaines

(IHEM)

   To facilitate the work of native affairs officers, the French colonial administration founded this higher-education institution in 1913 in Rabat to train French and Moroccan teachers and colonial administrators and interpreters in the languages and cultures of Morocco. The institute also sponsored research on Moroccan society and published several scholarly journals of which Hespéris is the most highly regarded. Arabic and Berber languages dominated the curriculum, and attention was also paid to Islamic studies, ethnology, archaeology, and geography. This colonial institution was formerly known as the École Supérieure de langue arabe et de dialectes berbères, and M. Nehli, a linguist, was named its first professor.

   See also Comité d'Etudes Berbères.