«C’est une maladie qui vient de Dieu»: dā’al-sukarī. Pluralismo medico e credenze religiose in Marocco

Starting from medical anthropology perspective the author discusses some cultural and social issues related to the experience of becoming diabetic in Morocco. A special focus is about the impact of religious beliefs and practices on the representation of this chronic disease and on its care processes. After a brief analysis about medical pluralism, and the socio-cultural, economic and politic health determinants in this Islamic country, he reports a part of his ethnographic research experience in a ward for the care of diabetes in an hospital at Marrakech, focusing on the story of Noureddine, a middle-aged diabetic man. His intense narrative about his troubled therapeutic itinerary offers, togheter with the point of view of the diabetologists, several insights into the complex relationship among this disease and its representations, traditional medicine and biomedicine, culture and society in Morocco.