What Moroccan sayings are about family?

Family is not one part of Moroccan life — it is the ground everything else stands on. You will hear "El 3a'ila hiya kollshi" — family is everything — and people mean it literally. Homes are multigenerational, decisions are made together, and a person is understood first as someone's daughter, son, mother or cousin. The saying "Dem ma kaywelli ma" — blood does not turn to water — captures how unbreakable those ties are felt to be.

Respect for elders runs through the sayings too. "Lli ma 3andou kbir, ma 3andou tdbir" — whoever has no elder has no good counsel — means the old are the keepers of wisdom and should be consulted, not sidelined. A mother holds an almost sacred place; you will hear "El jenna taht aqdam el ommahat" — paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers — a phrase that makes even tough men go quiet with respect.

You will witness this constantly as a traveller. Children kiss the hands or heads of grandparents; an aging parent is never put in a home but cared for under the family roof; Fridays draw the whole clan together for couscous. When I host guests in a family riad, they are often moved to see three or four generations living warmly side by side, the smallest child and the oldest grandmother equally treasured.

The value behind these sayings is interdependence — the belief that you belong to a web of people who hold you and whom you hold in return. Individual success matters less than the honour and wellbeing of the family. If a Moroccan asks warmly about your parents and children within minutes of meeting you, this is why: to them, knowing your family is knowing you. Ask about theirs in return and you will have made a real friend.