Certainly, they had evidently decided to settle along the trail that camel caravans from the other side of the Sahara followed to reach Marrakech. It undoubtedly seemed prudent to them to welcome travelers here for a welcome respite. Oral tradition suggests that pottery trade must have been flourishing, as even today the elders of the ksar refer to the site as Ighrem n’Iqddarn, meaning the village of potters. As often, the choice of names preserves the thread of stories over time, and it is in the winding alleys of the ksar that a well with an eloquent name, Anou n’Tarmouyte, the well of the Christian woman, somewhat illuminates the origins of the place.

Then one must make a connection with a legend reported by the explorer Charles de Foucauld during his passage in the region in 1883, to begin to sketch in his mind a very distant epoch when the region was under the authority of a Berber king, Christian, named Ouâd. One of his four daughters, Aïssatou, is said to have settled at the foot of the rock while her other sisters, Skoukta, Zelfa, and Doulatou, had settled in villages nearby. It is said that during his reign, games around the fire were particularly popular, and to this day, this custom persists. Further on, another place refers to his presence since the north tower of the ksar is named LBorj n’Tarmouyte, which means the tower of the Christian woman. This would be to recall the place through which Princess Aïssatou is said to have escaped the assault of Muslim armies from Arabia in the 7th century to conquer the lands of Africa to their west.

The echo of her memory will be heard centuries later, as the music of her name will resonate in that of the tribe of Aït Aïssa, reputed to be the originators of the founding of the ksar in the 11th century under the Almoravid dynasty. Here again, a legend tells that a man named Aïssa, who came one day from the desert, stopped at the foot of the rock to found the first village there. For a long time, the ksar was known as Ighrem n’ Aït Aïssa until a new leader, Amghar Ben Haddou, in turn imposed the use of his surname on the entire tribe, which had become a member of the Aït Zineb tribe and the confederation of tribes of Aït Ouaouzguite.

Faced with so many hypotheses, official history holds the 18th century as the first milestone of existence, as the only available written documents date back to this period. But one certainty remains, and the brilliance of legends confirms it: the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, around its rock, attracted the humble, the powerful, and the wise, leaving forever veiled the reasons for such a strong allure.

Version originale en français : Aït Ben Haddou, de la légende à l’histoire

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The traveler thus admires, scattered along the valleys fracturing the mineral vastness of the Atlas, all these villages and their homes, huddled together with a clear intent of protection, made of earth and embedded in the earth, as if veiled, almost invisible beneath the uniformity of the ochre adorning them.

At the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, as everywhere else in the southeastern Moroccan region and beyond the vast Sahara Desert, the structure of dwellings is built block by block using the compaction technique within a wooden frame of slightly moist earth interspersed with stones. This is the age-old technique of rammed earth construction.

One must envision the repeated action of the artisan mason. He compacts, using a long and heavy wooden pestle, the natural mortar to the rhythm of the workers’ song, who pour, one after the other, their bucket of earth into the mold, thus rendering, under the force of his blows, and after drying, the earth mixture as solid as rock.

To live in the embrace of the earth is above all to shield oneself from the vagaries of climate, and the region welcomes them here in their starkness, both winter and summer. It is also to indulge in the encompassing silence. It is to provide one’s community with an organized, comforting home, as so many peoples have done under different skies, around a central room pierced in its midst by an opening to the sky and its lights, with a series of rooms surrounding it.

This earthen structure is covered on its facades with another layer of earth mixed with straw or sand. Here lies the opportunity to inscribe the signs of its mixed traditions, perpetuating the sacred or simply delighting in presenting to the eye the elegance of the designs.

Often, walls surrounded the villages in their entirety to fortify them against all threats and thus preserve their agricultural harvests from the voracious appetite of enemies ever on the lookout. The village then became a ksar, an Ighrem in the Amazigh language. In its center, a large space allowed the inhabitants to gather to discuss collective affairs or to celebrate around traditional Ahwach dances. Here in Aït Ben Haddou, the agora is organized in a square called Agoulid n’Youssef.

The Jewish community of the ksar used to gather around a round stone, Tifirte n’raha, also called Abraham’s stone. The caravanserai near the north entrance, called Imi n’Taqmout, welcomed visitors and their mounts. A main street irrigated a maze of narrow alleys, often covered with a roof. Stone benches here and there offered rest for the elders. The mosque awaited prayers, as did the synagogue.

Thus went life in the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, at the heart of the earth and on the thread of time.

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