...the extraordinary Medina
In Morocco, borders of Africa, gateway to Europe, the "imperial cities" are those which, over the successive Moroccan dynasties, have been the capital of the country: Rabat, Meknes, Fez, Marrakech ....
Our visits where on November 2010, in a circuit completed at a run, at the pace of a fantasia, almost in apnea.
Fez deserves special attention, magical and legendary city in the plain of Saïs, several times capital in its history, rich in 12 centuries of commercial, artistic, cultural, religious existence.
Its influence in the north of Morocco has often competed with that of Marrakech in the south.
Born of the Arab invasion in 789 with Idriss 1st (grandson of Muhammad's daughter), it is founded on the left bank of the Wadi Fez, which gives it its name.
It's the 1st Islamic city in Morocco.
Then it extends on the right bank with the nephew of Idriss 1st.
It then welcomes Spaniards expelled from Cordoba ("andalusian" district), Kairouanese expelled from Tunisia ("Kairouanias" district), Jews, Christians who Islamize.
An exile from Kairouan in Tunisia created there in 859 what is said to be the oldest university in the world when we exclude Antiquity, named Al Quaraouiyine, within the mosque of the same name.
Fez then became the cultural and religious center of Morocco.
The growth is considerable in the 11th century with the Almoravids who unify the districts of both banks, then the Almohads.
Under the Merinids in the 14th century, Fez had 200,000 inhabitants and became the capital of Morocco again for two centuries. Its influence is comparable to that of Cordoba of Al-Andalus.
It's the golden age of the city. Mosques are multiplying, sumptuous mansions are being built as well as elegant madrasas (Koranic teaching centers).
Andalusian artists, scholars, theologians, craftsmen of all stripes, foreign students, scholars from Europe flow to Fez.
Arab-Andalusian art in its extreme refinement finds its apogee around 1350, taking advantage of its position on the major north-south trade routes, the presence of rather generous wadds, its richness in materials such as stone, wood, clay.
It was also in Fez that Boadbil, the last sultan of Al-Andalus, took refuge and died in 1533, after the Iberian Reconquista in 1492.
Under the Saadians, in 1522 an earthquake destroys part of it. It declines in favor of Marrakech. Fez is depopulated, overwhelmed in the 17th century by plague, famine, local civil wars.
But intellectual prestige is restored in the 2nd part of the 18th century, before at the beginning of the 20th century, Sultan Moulay Hafid of the Alawite dynasty appealed, against internal uprisings, to the French protectorate.
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Fez remains the cultural beacon of Morocco, and one of the first religious sites.
It houses no less than 176 mosques, 250 hammams, 800 bread ovens and... more than 1.3 million inhabitants, including 156,000 in the Medina (2018 figure).
Because Fez is first and foremost for tourists as well as for Moroccans its fabulous Medina (old city in Arabic), intact since the Middle Ages.
Its terraces are discreetly studded with a multitude of imperceptible white dots on the soft ochre wash of the city : television antennas.
You enter today through 14 doors including the Blue Gate, or here the Boujeloude Gate.
The Medina extends, all in density that seems to leave no space, at the foot of small nearby mountains.
More than 64,000 craftsmen in more than 17,000 workshops work in more than 200 trades, organized into corporations : tinsmiths, boilermakers, mirror makers, tanners, potters, coppersmiths, upholsterers, ironworkers, leather workers, carpenters and wood sculptors, goldsmiths, ceramists, embroiderers...
For UNESCO, "the medina of Fez is considered one of the largest and best preserved historical cities in the Arab-Muslim world. The non-motorable urban space retains the majority of its original functions and attributions. [.......]
City of craftsmen who came en masse from the countryside, poorly paid, but a real engine of the local economy, here are quality and authentic artisanal products, and artisanal methods that have remained ancestral."
While it is true that artisanal methods remain old, probably close to those of the origins, there is more to be said about the quality of some artisanal products.
A maze of 10,000 complicated and winding alleys follow the slopes, sometimes steep.
Here in difficult crossings, you see busy passers-by, tourists, donkeys or backfiring motorcycles carrying heavy and voluminous burdens.
Marble is in abundance, like the precious mosaics of earthenware, the zelliges (with a technique cousin of that of the "azulejos" in Portugal which inspired it, but which are not made of mosaics), whose notoriety is universal.
A bearded potter operates his wheel with his foot.
Another craftsman decorates a dish, with remarkable dexterity in the regularity of reproduction of the pattern.
Everywhere, shops are real "ali Baba's caves" for pottery and tourist gifts, various works of mosaics, zelliges, mainly table tops, or small decorative fountains.
Elsewhere from a terrace, a bouquet of mint under the nostrils to try to hide the powerful smell of ammonic and skins that rises from the vats, it's the view at almost 180 ° on the open air activity of tanners of the "Chouara" district, who are treading, kneading, cutting, dyeing the skins with colorful colors.
A legend of the picturesque of Fez.
The leathers come from sheep, lambs, whose skins are collected en masse at the Eid time, but also camels. Essentially to make bags and babouches.
The basins date from the Middle Ages for some of them ; the work is totally artisanal, a real permanent struggle obviously exhausting.
We saw on the fetid cesspool of the Bièvre in Paris until the end of the 19th century other tanneries ; it was then for leather of rabbit or horse skins, very far in any case from the remarkable Moroccan picturesque.
Rapidly, the stalls scroll, where pancakes are cooked, which present and sell countless products : several varieties of dates, olives, surprising red arbouses that are not lychees, patties and loukoums, heavy rosaries of dry dates, fish, baskets of perennial snails ...
... or even the heads of camels, sheep.
The banana merchant takes a nap, under his hood of burnous, savoring his oriental dreams.
The "dinandiers" shops (working of metal among them the copper by hammering, and whose name comes from the city of Dinant in Belgium), exhibit their kitsch works in an attractive and jumble staging.
In the small squares, chibanis (the old) chat and remember.
Donkeys and mules, patient and resigned, wait a long time, motionless and submissive,...
... until they are loaded with their burden, carpets, voluminous boxes, sometimes even ... gas bottles in clusters.
Then they put they remaining energy to move forward, sneak in, go up, down, often carrying their old complicit master.
Dear donkeys, my beloved brothers, I am in solidarity!
When among tourists and in the flow of passers-by, a donkey or a loaded mule tries to pass, and that a craftsman pushing a hand trailer or riding a motorcycl shouts something like "balek!!" (which looks like "warning!!") in Arabic, this sudden animation is struck with the priceless seal of authenticity.
One of the ancient Koranic schools of Fez, the Attarine Madrasa, near the Al-Quaraouiyine University was built by the Merinids in 1323-25.
Delicately carved red cedar, very rich and elegant calligraphy ; its inner courtyard of high space and limited area around the white marble fountain of the patio suggests majesty.
Its small windows, those of the old student rooms under the broken arches, give the facades the haughty and jaded air of a severe ulema with a heavy eyelid.
The whole, in this limited space and without recoil is of great beauty.
The decorative fineness of stucco or cedar wood lace is a well-charged marvel of Arab-Andalusian architecture ; the octagonal pattern zelliges that line the bottom of the walls are more commonplace.
Since the beginning, 60 students at the rate of 2 per room were accommodated there until the beginning of the 20th century ; they were usually students of the nearby Al-Quaraouiyine University.
The many riads, which over time have become restaurants, hotels and place of presentation for local handicrafts, illustrate all the richest oriental splendour, without excessive sobriety.
Finally, on the heights to the west of the Medina is the superb royal palace Dar el-Makhzen and its gardens, on 80 ha.
Most of the buildings date from the 14th century.
From the vast Place of Alaouites, we will have seen only the outer copper doors, gilded under the setting sun (clever tour operators who organize the meeting point with the sun at the right time), and which have been built only in 1970.
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A pithy summary of Morocco's history
North-south geographical crossroads at the African continental limit towards the Ocean : Morocco.
Historically, the Maghreb has been inhabited by Berbers (also called the Moors). Nothing to do with the Arabs, future invaders from the East and Arabia.
Permanent but nomadic, they rub shoulders with several waves of invaders over time, often adopting their religion, but retaining a fierce autonomy in the mosaic of still bellicose tribes. A link in the entire history of the Maghreb.
Who are the invaders?
In antiquity,
12th century BC: the Phoenicians, merchant sailors go at least to the port of Essaouira (formerly Mogador).
5th century BC: the Carthaginians are there, strong power in North Africa.
End of the 4th century BC: creation in the north of Morocco of the kingdom of Mauretania (and not "Mauritania") by the Berbers.
From the 2nd BC to the 4th AD: the Romans consolidate Mauretania Tingitane (Tangier).
The dromedaries then introduced (only the horse was used until then) increased the autonomy of the Berber tribes.
Remarkable cultural, architectural and economic development during the reign of Juba II (husband of the daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony).
And foundation of the Roman city of Volubilis.
Around 439, capture of Carthage in Tunisia by the Vandals, who, by driving the Romans from the West make it the capital of their kingdom, far from mauretania Tingitan.
533-534: with a powerful army under the command of his already famous general Belisarius (left), the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian 1st the Byzantine (right) defeats the Vandals and pushes them out of North Africa.
However, the Berbers, accustomed to a certain autonomy, resisted, rebelled.
Arrival of Islam ; for a global vision of the Arab-Andalusian civilization
622: year 1 of the Hegira. Of Arabia began the conquest in 640 towards the west ; it reached the Atlantic coast around 705 with the submission of Berber tribes.
From then on, Morocco became the bridgehead of the conquest to the north and the Iberian Peninsula, via the Strait of Gibraltar.
But the huge Arab empire is mishanding itself. Strong resistance appears.
February 5, 789: Idriss ibn Abdallah, descendant of the prophet - he is the grandson of his daughter - founds, under the name of Idriss 1st the dynasty of the Idrissids and the city of Fez; he gathers together the Berbers of northern Morocco.
It is the 2nd Muslim kingdom after Andalusia to emancipate itself from the Caliphate of Baghdad. Dynasty that then erupts in successions.
1061: Nomadic Berbers from Western Sahara take possession of Morocco and found the almoravid dynasty who appropriated the Muslim religion; creating the city of Marrakech, they then conquer Andalusia.
Around 1125: another dynasty of Berbers this time Mauretanians, the Almohads,intransigent Muslims and Puritans take power, from Spain to Libya. Their most famous sultan is Yacoub el Mansour. But the Christians are trying to reconquer. The Empire is vast and distended.
1269 to 1421: the Merinid dynasty succeeds him, and remakes the unity of the Maghreb, New dissensions; the Portuguese seize some coastal sites.
1472 to 1492: the Wattassid dynasty that took over comes up against the apogee of the Christian Reconquest.
After the Reconquista
1578: The Saadians, another Arab dynasty engages in holy war against the Christians, defeats the Portuguese, takes to the south Timbuktu in 1591 and Mali ; it enriches itself by controlling salt mines, gold, and strengthening the slave trade of black Africa.
Around 1660: the Alawite dynasty (descendants of Ali, son-in-law of the prophet) whose members lead a poor, meditative and virtuous life takes power.
1672 to 1727: from the same Alawite dynasty, a contemporary of Louis XIV, King Moulay Ismail reorganizes Morocco, fighting against the rebellious Berber tribes, the Ottoman Turks, the Christians. He was nicknamed "the Bloodthirsty".
The modern era
With the plague at the beginning of the 19th century and the decline of the economy, Morocco withdrew into itself and is exposed to European expansion ambitions.
1912: French protectorate. Lyautey assumes the role of Resident General (Governor). With great respect for Islam, he vouched for the country's traditional values, including local notables in his reorganization. Still honored by Moroccans, his situation is special in the history of the French colonial period.
1925: Predicting the natural "detachment" of Morocco, he is immediately excluded by the French government.
March 2, 1956: independence of Morocco, without too much pain on either side, unlike Algeria for example; this may be explained by the attitude of Lyautey governor.
The Residents who succeeded him, less sagacious, less intelligent, try to oppose Berbers and Arabs with the complicity of the rich Glaoui Berber pasha allied with France, provoking in reaction the commitment of the UNITED STATES alongside Mohammed V for independence.
The current King Mohammed VI, his father Hassan II are the direct representatives and descendants of the Alawite dynasty, hence their title of "Commander of the Believers", which gives them a certain religious legitimacy throughout the Muslim world even today.
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