Morocco’s Avid Bookseller
- A viral thread shared Mohamed Aziz, described as Morocco’s oldest bookseller, who read over 4,000 books in multiple languages. (x.com) - The post quoted Aziz saying, “Those who can’t read won’t steal books. And those who can, aren’t thieves,” which resonated widely. (x.com) - The story sparked readers’ nostalgia and praise for lifelong reading as an ethic and public good. (x.com)
A bookseller in Rabat’s old medina has gone viral after a social media post revived interest in his decades-long habit of reading at his stall every day. (x.com) Mohamed Aziz is widely described in recent coverage as one of Rabat’s oldest booksellers, working from the same stretch of the medina for more than 40 years and reading for six to eight hours a day. (news18.com) Profiles published before the latest viral post said Aziz left school at 15 because he could not afford textbooks, then built a life around secondhand books in the capital. A 2019 report traced his stall to Mohammed V Avenue in the old city and said he had spent more than 43 years there. (moroccoworldnews.com) The line that spread fastest online was Aziz’s explanation for leaving books unsecured: “Those who can’t read won’t steal books. And those who can, aren’t thieves,” as quoted in the viral post. The quote turned a local bookseller into a global symbol of trust tied to reading. (x.com) That message landed in a country where literacy has improved sharply but is still uneven. World Bank data, drawn from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, put Morocco’s adult literacy rate at 85.62% in 2022, while Moroccan census results reported an illiteracy rate of 24.8% in 2024. (worldbank.org) (moroccoworldnews.com) Recent retellings do not agree on every number in Aziz’s story. Some reports say he has read more than 4,000 books; others put the total above 5,000, and his age is variously given as 71, 72, or “late 70s.” (reportersatlarge.com) (magazine.1000libraries.com) (news18.com) The consistent details are narrower and sturdier: Aziz sells books in Rabat’s medina, reads in Arabic, French, and English, and has been photographed for years sitting with a book at the entrance to his small shop. Multiple profiles also describe his anger at missing pages and at children working instead of studying. (moroccoworldnews.com) (reportersatlarge.com) The latest burst of attention did not come from a new business opening or a prize. It came from an old image of a man reading among stacked books, and from a sentence about readers and thieves that people decided was worth passing on. (x.com)
