The History of Morocco in 7 Days

According to all travel guides, travel articles, and everyone in and out of Morocco we talked to about visiting Morocco, there are two primary activities that tourists in Morocco are expected - nay, required - to enjoy: eating, and shopping. Given that we had bad luck with the former, and very little interest in the latter, we suffered a certain unguided confusion: how could we experience Morocco in a way that revolved around neither couscous nor soukhs?

I was reminded of Alain de Botton's essay "On Curiosity", and how he struggled as a tourist in Madrid to appreciate the bland architectural statistics recited by his guide book. Set down the book, he says, and follow your own curiosity: a botanist might look at a national park and wonder how many species of linchen grow on a mountain side; a philosopher (like de Botton) might look at a church and ask "Why do we worship God?"

As an armchair historian, my questions tend more along the lines of "Who were the Saadi sultans? And why were their tombs covered up?" These questions proved hard to answer, however, because cities and countries are - most inconveniently - not arranged chronologically.

But with the aid of retrospection and Wikipedia, I can magically re-order our trip to tell the history of Morocco in 7 days (with, fair warning, full literary and romantic license):

Romans: While the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians also made an appearance in ancient Morocco, the Romans left the best ruins. Volubilis, about an hour outside Fez, was the capital of one of the farthest flung provinces of the Roman Empire, Mauretania Tingitana. The city remains largely intact today, a maze of stone foundations and tall columns spread at the foot of green mountains and facing a broad plain. Fading mosaic floors gather puddles after rain storms; tall grass and wildflowers crowd stone steps.

The Roman presence (and the Phoenician and Carthaginian) demonstrates how Morocco is in many ways Mediterranean - in look, in feel, and in economic ties.

Idrissid Dynasty: Sometime in the 700s, a man showed up in Volubilis, claimed to be descended from Mohammed, and set about establishing the first Moroccan dynasty. He (Idris I) founded Fez in 789, and his son (Idris II) built it up as the capital of the new kingdom.

Peeking inside the
Kairouyine Mosque

Fez was from the start a crossroads of peoples and cultures: local Berbers, Arabs from Spain and Tunisia, Jews and Christians. In 859, a wealthy educated woman founded the University of Al-Karaouine, which might be the oldest university in the world (though it was not technically called a "university" until 1947, so go figure).

Since non-Muslims cannot enter the university, its adjoining (and ginormous) mosque, the tomb of Idris II, or many other Islamic sites, so we had to content ourselves with quick glances and stealth photography.

Almoravid Dynasty: The history of Morocco is in many ways a tug-of-war between the North (with its links to the Mediterranean world) and the South (with its trans-Saharan trading routes and their silk, gold, and slave wealth). After 1000, the balance shifted south, where Yusuf ibn Tashfin created a new capital, Marrakesh, for his new Berber dynasty, the Almoravids. By 1070, the Almoravids controlled territory stretching from south of the Sahara all the way to Spain and Portugal (map).

Where Fez is white and stony, Marrakesh is pink and adobe; where the Fez medina is relatively small and compact (most of its population today lives in the new part of town), Marrakesh's is sprawling and largely unnavigable to outsiders. People (tourists) seem to like either one or the other, but not both (though this seems largely dependent on the quality of the riad they stayed in and the aggressiveness of the street vendors they encountered).

What makes Marrakesh particularly unique is its main square: the Djemaa al Fna.  Ever consistent in our priorities, we ignored the street performers, dancing monkeys, snake charmers, and often cheesy musicians for the makeshift food stalls that fill the square every night with bright lights and white steam.

A sample Djemaa al Fna menu, in three installments: (1) Small bowl of snails in salty broth, ladled from a giant cauldron. (5 dirhams, or about 60 cents). (2) Spicy little sausages from one of the popular sausage stands, where the patrons crowd benches around the grill and hand back cooled food to be reheated. (Plate of sausages with flat bread and dipping sauce, 35 dirhams, or about $4.50.) (3) Intensely spiced tea served from a giant copper vat and a dense dessert of something like unsweetened cocoa and cloves - for me, the tea stole the show. (2 teas and 2 desserts should cost only 10 dirhams.)

Merinid dynasty: While the Merinids were (I am told) Berbers from the south, they returned the capital to Fez around 1248.

Water Clock, sans "clock"

My vision of Fez as a city of great medieval learning is largely based on the legend of the water clock (c. 1300s): based on the flow of water behind the scenes, every hour a ball would drop through a window into one of the twelve copper bowls resting on the carved wooden beams below. Unfortunately (for us), the bowls and mechanism were removed in 2004 to be reconstructed. I'm not sure why it's taking seven years, but I like the idea that no one today is quite sure how it ever worked. Very Da Vinci-esque.

The courtyard of the Bou Inania medersa

The water clock sits across the street from the Bou Inania medersa and mosque, yet another institution of higher learning in Fez, also built during Merinid rule. Recently restored, the medersa is one of the few Islamic sites in Fez open to non-Muslim tourists.

Fez is renowned for its intricate plaster work; the tiles and carved cedar wood aren't too shabby, either. What Morocco lacks in representational art it makes up for in spades with Alhambra-esque palaces and religious centers.

Saadi dynasty: By the 1500s, the power pendulum was swinging south again, where the Saadi sultans ruled Morocco from Marrakesh. Among other accomplishments, at a time when Europe was first flexing its colonial muscle, the Saadis successfully kicked the Portuguese off the Moroccan coast.

Many of the Saadi kings, their families and servants are buried in the (creatively named) Saadian tombs, at the south end of the Marrakesh medina. What makes these tombs so intriguing for tourists is the fact that the next guy to come to power so thoroughly walled up and hid away these ornate tombs (the better to help the people forget about former dynasties), no one remembered they were there (no outsiders, at least) until they were disclosed by aerial photographs taken in 1917. That "next guy" was none other than the infamous Moulay Ismail.

Courtyard with tombs of servants and disfavored cousins

Moulay Ismail: There is no shortage of legends about Moulay Ismail ibn Sharif, an early member (1672-1727) of the still-ruling Alaouite dynasty. Known for his "war and woman", Moulay Ismail relied on an army of loyal black slaves, his infamous Black Guard, to control an often fractious country. Story goes he gave them women and then raised their sons within the Guard's ranks until his personal army grew from 15,000 to 150,000. Meanwhile, he's reported to have had hundreds of wives and 1000 children (or, at the very least, 889). Busy man.

Just one row of the royal stables

Everything about Moulay Ismail was oversized, so it's no surprise he decided to designate a new capital, Meknes, and fill it with oversized public works. Slave labor built massive walls, massive graineries, massive stables, and massive mosques, all out of stone, mud, and straw. The cavernous galleries of the graineries could hold enough wheat to feed the entire city through lengthy sieges; they are still naturally kept cool by the impossibly thick walls and the underground wells from which water was channeled through the building. Outside, the royal stables are in a more advanced state of ruin, endless rows of stone arches fronting a man-made lake built to water the Sultan's 12,000 horses.

The mausoleum of Moulay Ismail in Meknes is actually open to non-Muslim visitors, yet it was inexplicably closed the day we were there. Instead we wandered through the underground complex next door, allegedly a prison for Christian hostages, or perhaps just another storage area for grain. More empty cavernous rooms, more infinite series of arches.

Although not a gentle or enlightened ruler, Moulay Ismail did succeed in repelling multiple Ottoman incursions and in kicking out the Europeans every time they tried to get a foothold along the coast. But why this constant struggle for control of Morocco? Let us pause to consider the trans-Saharan trade routes.

Ksour: Winding up through the Atlas mountains from the south, the lucrative trans-Saharan trade routes pop out near Marrakesh - but first they must pass through countless Berber ksour in the mountains (ksar in the singular), each demanding tribute. Fortified towns made out of mud, straw, and bits of wood, the striking red ksour have entered our collective imagination largely thanks to one in particular: Ait ben Haddou, used as a movie set for countless Hollywood productions, from Lawrence of Arabia to Gladiator and The Mummy.

But despite what Gladiator would have you believe, ksour like Ait ben Haddou might not date back to Roman times. UNESCO only suggests they may have been around in the seventeenth century. The historical difficulty? The construction method used for ksour is not durable, and repairs are needed after every rain storm. According to our guide (though I remain a bit skeptical), Berber villages built in the traditional manner must be reconstructed almost from scratch every five years. But the rapid deterioration of these enclaves could help explain their inherent romance, as they are almost always in a state of half-ruin.

Trade with Europe: From Marrakesh, the goods from the trade routes were transferred to the coast for shipment to Europe. Due west from Marrakesh is the port of Essaouira, a primary port for the country for (give or take) two centuries.

The Phoenicians were here, as were the Romans; the Portuguese tried to build a castle on the site in the early 1500s but were soon kicked out by the Saadis. The French gained a foothold in the area in the 1600s, and Mohammed III hired French engineers to design the city's dramatic fortifications and harbor walls (made famous in modern times by the opening scene of Orson Welles' Othello). Essaouira was the site of military battles and diplomatic relations, a symbol perhaps of Morocco's love-hate relationship with Europe.

This is no gentle beach-y coast: this is a rough-hewn, rocky harbor, home to a contingent of sea-battered fishing vessels. Though crawling these days with European tourists (the nearby airport at Agadir is heavily serviced by the discount European airlines), the old medina is ruggedly beautiful, its white-washed houses with their bright blue doors a relief from the incessant pink of Marrakesh. Waves crash, seagulls cry, and the sun's heat is broken by the constant sea wind.

Colonialism: From kicking the Portuguese out of Essaouira in 1510 through the "First Moroccan Crisis" of 1905-1906 (which, despite its name, was in fact a European crisis sparked by the rivalry between France and Germany for control over Morocco), Morocco valiantly fought off European efforts to colonize and control it for four hundred years. But after the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911 (something about Germany establishing an outpost in Agadir and the French responding by exerting more control over Essaouira?), Morocco was forced to sign the Treaty of Fez in 1912. While it didn't lose its sovereignty per se, the country was termed a protectorate and divided between French and Spanish control.

The Moroccans never took well to French rule, and after World War II their demands for independence grew. After Mohammed V openly supported the independence movement against the French administration, the French exiled him and his family to Madagascar in 1953. (Boo.)

The French were aided in this move by the very powerful Glaoui family, whose vast control over the south was threatened by the continued presence of the northern Alouite dynasty (and the nationalist movement). Among the Glaoui holdings: the Telouet ksar, guarding one of the key mountain passes leading to Marrakesh. The Glaoui family had built three successive castles at the same strategic point, abandoning the old as they fell into advanced states of disintegration. The most recent was built only a hundred years ago and was inhabited until the 1950s - but it's now also a ruin.

A functional stronghold, the abandoned Telouet ksar consists mostly of bare rooms and narrow stair wells, like this:

But all of a sudden you come across this:

And this:

And this:

I'm not sure if the whole place was ever this elaborate, or if the greatest decoration was saved for these harem rooms. At any rate, the family fled to France when King Mohammed V returned triumphant to Morocco in 1956, having negotiated independence from France and Spain. In the story of Morocco, the North won again.

Modern Morocco: Morocco is still a constitutional monarchy, with an emphasis on the monarchy bit. But the new king, Mohammed VI, is reportedly forward-thinking and has announced constitutional reforms after the recent Arab revolutions. Still, it's hard to get a finger on the real sentiments of Moroccans when a formal portrait of the King is ubiquitous in every public space, from train stations to the carts of street vendors. This is not (yet) a fully open society.

But while outsiders continue to romanticize Morocco's past (erhem), most of the country lives in modern apartment blocks and villas in modern cities, like Casablanca, Rabat, and the Ville Nouvelle of Fez. Modern Moroccans do not aspire to live in the medinas beloved of the tourists, but in pretty villas in tree-lined suburbs bordered by broad boulevards. Meanwhile, Morocco's permanence as a romantic tourist destination has helped spawned trendy clubs, high-end spas and shopping districts frequented by rich outsiders and upwardly mobile locals alike.

I did not get to see this Morocco (more accurately, I did not choose to, in our limited time). The closest I got was the Majorelle Garden, a small botanical park made famous by Yves St. Laurent, whose ashes are scattered here. As a tourist destination, the garden was a disappointment: so crowded with yammering tourists that there was not an inch of solitude in the surprisingly small space. Yet Yves St. Laurent's vision of bright colors and lush abundance is a happy and optimistic note on which to end our superficial tour of Moroccan history.