The Jebala are a tribal confederation inhabiting an area in northwest Morocco from the town of Ketema to the west. The Jbala region thus occupies the western part of the Rif mountains. The Jbala has a population of 1,284,000 and is divided into over 40 tribes, today known as "rural communes", and adjacent to them are a small group of nine tribes called the Ghmara (غمارة), who inhabit the territory between the line of mountain peaks to the north of Chefchaouen and the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to tribal heterogeneity, this region is also geographically diverse. High mountains are interspersed with hills and flatlands, and local inhabitants settle in both the high mountains and valleys. In addition to the rainy climate, which influences the way the inhabitants build their houses as well as their special agricultural practices, there are also numerous cultural characteristics that contribute to an emphasised sense of identity and make the Jbala people clearly distinguishable from their neighbours from the eastern part of the Rif Mountains where the climate is more arid, and from the former shepherds from the Atlantic coast (‘Arab). There are only a few cities in the country of the Jbala, and its population remains mostly rural. During the Middle Ages, chroniclers and historians knew the Jbala under their original name, Ghomara.

Moroccan Arabic, also known as Darija, is the dialectal, vernacular form or forms of Arabic spoken in Morocco. It is part of the Maghrebi Arabic dialect continuum and as such is mutually intelligible to some extent with Algerian Arabic and to a lesser extent with Tunisian Arabic. It is spoken by 90.9% of the population of Morocco. While Modern Standard Arabic is used to varying degrees in formal situations such as religious sermons, books, newspapers, government communications, news broadcasts and political talk shows, Moroccan Arabic is the predominant spoken language of the country and has a strong presence in Moroccan television entertainment, cinema and commercial advertising. Moroccan Arabic has many regional dialects and accents as well, with its mainstream dialect being the one used in Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Marrakesh and Fez, and therefore it dominates the media and eclipses most of the other regional accents.