The first inhabitants of Telouet were Berber pastoralists who lived in caves carved into the sides of the surrounding mountains. Over time, Telouet became a crossroads of peoples and cultures. Jewish communities settled here early on, becoming chiefly wholesalers of salt and skilled artisans. During the medieval period, Arabs arrived with the wave of Islamisation that spread across Morocco. They founded medersas (Qur’anic schools) and zaouias dedicated to the teaching of Islamic theology. Renowned marabouts such as Sidi Ouarghal, Sidi Ouissaâden and Sidi Daoud established themselves in the region.

As for the dark-skinned population known as the Haratine, they were originally composed of enslaved people brought from Mali, Guinea, Sudan, and other regions of sub-Saharan Africa, transported north along the trans-Saharan caravan routes as far as Telouet and other inland territories.

Telouet was once an essential passage for the great caravan routes that crossed the Atlas via the Telouet Pass, Tizi n’Telouet. It was also a strategic stopover for military expeditions, including the campaign led by Ahmed al-Mansur al-Dahabi towards Sudan in 1590.

From the 17th century onwards, the arrival of the Glaoua family marked a turning point in the history of Telouet. According to some sources, the family descended from a marabout named Mohamed Ou Saleh, originally from the region of Asfi and said to be of Umayyad lineage. Upon settling in Telouet, the Glaoua established a zaouia and distributed indulgences and blessings—baraka—inherited from their saintly ancestor. Religious influence soon fostered political ambition.

In the 18th century, Sultan Moulay Ismail granted the title of caïd to the Glaoua, entrusting them with control over the caravan route and the collection of passage dues. Later, in 1893, Sultan Moulay El Hassan (Hassan I) led a military expedition, a harka, to subdue rebellious tribes of the Bled es-Siba. On their return, the Sultan and his army were caught in heavy snow in Telouet. El Madani El Glaoui organised a grand diffa—a ceremonial reception—in their honour.

In gratitude, the Sultan granted El Madani the right to levy taxes on surrounding tribes and to collect customs from caravans. He also gifted him arms, including a German Krupp cannon, which is still displayed today in the Kasbah of Taourirt.

In 1908, El Madani El Glaoui was appointed Minister of War (Ouazir al-Harb).

The rise of the Glaoua transformed Telouet into the residence of regional caïds and a major seat of authority in the South. Construction of the Kasbah began in the 18th century in a Berber architectural style.

The expression Bled Es Siba referred in Morocco to areas where the Sultan’s authority was not recognised, particularly in the Middle Atlas, High Atlas and Rif regions, as opposed to Bled El Makhzen.

The rise of the Glaoua transformed Telouet into the residence of regional caïds and a major seat of authority in the South. Construction of the Kasbah began in the 18th century in a Berber architectural style.

Between the 19th and 20th centuries, oriental and Hispano-Moorish influences were introduced as the Kasbah was expanded. It became both a seat of governance and a noble residence, housing a court of justice, a prison, ceremonial courtyards, stables, and living quarters.

The renowned El Hadj Thami El Glaoui, one of the most powerful caïds of his era, lived here. He amassed considerable wealth through extensive land ownership and investments in the Omnium Nord-Africain and the CTM transport company. A man of refined tastes, he played golf in Marrakech and collected carpets and precious stones. He hosted distinguished guests such as Resident General Steeg, Sultan Sidi Mohammed (on 16 November 1931), Winston Churchill (1937), General Patton (1942), Jacques Majorelle, Marshal Lyautey, and many others.

Today, the Kasbah is slowly succumbing to time and neglect. Only the main residence and a few annexes remain well enough preserved to receive the gaze of visitors. Yet these surviving chambers still reveal the finesse of the artisans’ craftsmanship, the elegance of its former masters, and the way of life of a world that has disappeared.

Every corner of the Kasbah is a page of Telouet’s human history, holding within its walls the memory of those caïds whom history remembers under a single name: the Lords of the Atlas.

Photo credits : Abdellah Azizi / azifoto.com

Location

The post Telouet: Cradle and Stronghold of the Lords of the Atlas appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.

It is Friday, 17th July 2020, and Sister Angela is about to close the wooden door to the little church of St Theresa, nestled in the heart of Ouarzazate, on the banks of the river and surrounded by old palm trees and tamaris. In just a few moments, she will leave the town, accompanied by her two colleagues, Sister Mary Jospeh and Sister Rozy. All three will carry with them the memories of the 48 years of this religious congregation, and Ouarzazate will slowly forget all about the women who came to carry out their spiritual commitment to serving others, everywhere in the world, and, which until now has been the sum of their whole existence.

The little church will withdraw into greater unobtrusiveness. Whereas not so long ago its stone cross could be seen from the central avenue of the town, signifying its presence to passing visitors, a large building recently erected is now camouflaging it more. With the nuns gone, silence will set in. The church bell will no longer ring at Easter or Christmas. The font at the entrance to the building is empty, as is the tabernacle, and only the glow of the sanctuary lamp still shines, preserving the notion of a sacred presence.

The fruits of the French presence in Ouarzazate

The church was built in 1931 by legionaries of the French army, part of the French Protectorate in Morocco. Three years previously in 1928, the first soldiers under the leadership of Lieutenant Spillmann had been installed at the top of a small hill just several hundred metres from the ksar of Taourirt, where the representative of Si Hammadi el Glaoui, the Pacha of Marrakech, reigned supreme. In 1931, Ouarzazate, still in its infancy, was officially established as an administrative centre to all the villages of a vast surrounding area; from Telouet and Taliouine to Foum Zguid and covering the Dades and Drâa valleys, thereby establishing its de facto control over all the numerous tribes that had lived there for centuries.

The Franciscan almoner of the Foreign Legion, Father Bonaventure Hermentier, settled down in the area and organised religious activity for the military and, above all, for the large number of European residents and their families who had come to settle throughout south-eastern Morocco, currently engaged in a frantic synergy of development.

The spirit of Francis of Assisi soars over Morocco

The presence of the Franciscan Order in Morocco dates back to the 13th century with the arrival of a first group coming to preach the Gospel to the Moors. Barely 10 years after having founded a religious order known as the Minor Friars, Francis of Assisi, still under the spell of his meeting with Sultan Abd-al-Malik in Egypt, who was under siege from the Crusader armies, decided to send a small group of his followers on an adventure that was as daring as it was incongruous, since it ended with the imprisonment of the monks as soon as they arrived, and with their execution in Marrakech in 1220.

Over the years having laid their proselyting aside, the Franciscan missionaries, faithful to their vows of fraternity, never ceased to come and settle in Morocco in order to bring assistance and comfort to Christian prisoners, as well as to poor and destitute Moroccans.

In the 19th century, the Franciscan, Jose Maria Antonio Lerchundi, became famous when he published a book in the Moroccan dialect. It marked the beginning of the opening of a number of schools and health centres in Morocco, based on a conviction irrevocably shared by all his fellow Christians:

The commitment of women in the service of this fraternity

So it is perfectly natural that a congregation of religious women, structurally attached to the Franciscan order, should come to Morocco in order to follow this mission of benevolence.

And so it is in this same spirit that in 1912 the first groups of Franciscan missionary sisters of Mary arrived in Morocco following the signing of the Treaty of Fes in the March of the same year between Moulay Abd el Hafid and the representatives of the French government, establishing what would become known as the French Protectorate in the Cherifian Empire.

This religious congregation came into being in India in 1877 at the incentive of a French nun from Brittany, Hélène de Chappotin de Neuville, better known as Sister Mary of the Passion. She dedicates her new congregation to the service of the poor and on her death in 1904 86 communities of sisters in almost 48 countries are opened. But it is at the instigation of the Second Vatican Council of1962 under Pope John 13 that innumerable Catholic congregations were sent throughout the world following the advocacy of openness and encounter with the poorest and the neediest.

And the congregation of the Franciscan missionary sisters would continue to follow this movement until at the height of its commitment it was present and active in 76 countries.

In Ouarzazate close to the population

Very rapidly, 22 establishments in Morocco were set up first and foremost to allow the inauguration of a health system capable of responding to the needs of the population, and equally quickly opening a number of schools providing instruction to Moroccan children and young people.

In 1973, the Ministry of Public Health of a now independent Morocco instructed the organisation to send its nursing sisters to Ouarzazate. Three of them, who had been posted to Fes, Sister Gabrielle, a Frenchwoman, as well as two Spanish sisters made the journey in order to assist their Moroccan brothers there.

They form a first group of nurses at the Sidi Hssain hospital. And throughout the sisters’ stay, the community would become involved in responding to various needs arising. There were teachers at the new school for the training of nurses, or like Sister Colette in public education giving maths lessons at the Crown Prince’s high school, now the Mohammed VI high school. There were kindergarten teachers and social workers for orphaned children or the most disadvantaged such as the disabled. There was vocational training for women in sewing, embroidery and carpet weaving.

From 1971 onwards, a community of friars in the region of Agouim was strengthened by another new foundation. This Franciscan missionary community of Mary included Sister Lucy, a nurse who spent her time on the road attending births and providing care. Another dynamic sister, Sister Huguette, with a university degree in biology and who cultivated saffron, opened a cheese factory that is still in operation today, and also began training farmers.

Other establishments were created in Errachidia, Goulmima, Midelt, Ighrem Nougdal.

Sister Francesca – tenacity in supporting the town’s growth

Sister Francesca Maria Leonardi, a trained social worker, arrived in Ouarzazate in 1979 and dedicated herself to respecting the instructions of her antecedent, the Franciscan José Maria Antonio Lerchundi, who appealed to the members of his congregation in Morocco to:

More than anyone else, she marked the 27 years of her time in Ouarzazate through her personality and her capacity to both initiate and complete major social development projects thereby ensuring that assistance to the most disadvantaged could be sustainably organised.

For this reason, she instigated the creation of the association Horizon des Handicapés, which was the first organisation anywhere in the southern regions of Morocco to support disabled people and their families. The association still exists today and has received recognition in its task of service to the public. Sister Francesca later founded the Achourouk association to serve deaf and dumb people, the Oxygène association to support the professional integration of young girls, and finally the Amnougar association to ensure the professional training of young disabled people in the jewellery, carpentry, sewing and agricultural trades.

Idir Ouguindi knew Sister Francesca well. He assisted her in setting up the Horizon des handicapés association together with Pierre Katrakazos, the current president of the association. Today he shows his deep regard for this extraordinary person who has earned a place in the history of Ouarzazate:

A page is being turned, a world is disappearing

The evolution of human societies has brought with it the disappearance of such lives as these, dedicated to the service of others. From year to year, religious vocations have been decreasing in number and now with fewer nuns available, the congregation has been obliged to close its establishments right across the world.

In Morocco, the community in Agouim left in 2001, followed by those in Errachidia and Ighrem Nougdal in 2008. The group in Taroudant closed in 2012. After the departure of the sisters from Ouarzazate, just four establishments will be left in Morocco; in Casablanca, Rabat, Meknes and Midelt.

It is now planned for a French couple to join the church of St Theresa in Ouarzazate soon, with the intention of receiving all those who wish to be welcomed to the chapel, and for those who wish to preserve the traces of the past which are gradually disappearing.

Memories live on in the hearts of several of Ouarzazate’s population; the nurses trained by the sisters, among the handicapped who received their support, the orphaned children who were able to grow up under better conditions thanks to the sisters’ devotion, and all those young women and young people who also benefitted from their presence and their attention.

In the service of others – everywhere and for ever

Each of the three sisters will set out with just a small amount of luggage. They are instructed always to leave everything of their various assignments behind them. They have become accustomed to having no personal belongings, apart from what they require for daily life. They feel at home everywhere, and are welcomed by the local populations, who have come to love them, like here in Ouarzazate, where they have propagated their devotion to their fellow man.

Sister Marie Joseph, born in Morocco, worked in Russia before taking care of the community in Taroudant for 18 years. She will now be based in Casablanca.

Sister Rozy, born in India, served in Libya, then India, in Tunisia and finally in Nador where she supported migrants until 2019.

Sister Angela, also born in India, came to Ouarzazate in 2002 to replace Sister Francesca. In a few days from the time of writing, she will get ready to go to Algeria to continue her mission there.

The Franciscan sisters of Mary have left. A page has been turned for ever. All these women, their faith firmly anchored in their hearts will, at one time or another, have decided to be the ones who love and take care of the growing Ouarzazate.

Translated by : Felicity Greenlaw / Desert Majesty

Erratum:
Sister Mary Joseph wishes to correct the statement concerning the church in Ouarzazate.

« The sisters are no longer in Ouarzazate; but the doorbell and all telephone calls will still be answered. In fact, a retired couple, formerly caravanners, have been hired by the Bishop of Rabat and will be living there as from September. In addition, a priest from Paris, resident in Ouarzazate, will conduct the Sunday services and those of the major festivals.»

Latest information :
A commentary has been posted by the people who will soon be coming to take care of the church in Ouarzazate.

« We are the French couple who have volunteered so that this wonderful site of Ouarzazate and its incomparable history can continue its mission. With the help of a priest living in Ouarzazate, the church will be open to everyone and at all times.
Our thanks go to our bishop Cristobal, who granted our request to maintain the Catholic presence in Ouarzazate.
Our arrival planned for May has been delayed by the pandemic but our will remains intact, and we look forward to being part of this great Moroccan family. Thérèse and Daniel Le Scoarnec

Photo credits : Abdellah Azizi / azifoto.com

The post The Franciscan missionary sisters of Mary will no longer be looking after Ouarzazate appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.

Occasionally the epilogue to a beautiful story keeps us in suspense, as though seeking one day to awaken our dormant desires to savour the blessings of the providence that inspired them. The story of the Tazouda dinosaur is one such beautiful story, and it has given the territories of the south-eastern region of Morocco a rare lustre that deserves undiminished recognition.

One eventful day, the village of Tazouda, located a few kilometres from Ouarzazate in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, saw the bones of what was later construed to be the skeleton of the oldest dinosaur ever discovered in Morocco emerge from its dusky soil. The news of this discovery in 1998 and the results of excavation work undertaken between 2001 and 2007 had such an impact on the population that everyone’s imagination – adults and children alike – began to sketch out a future consistent with this mysterious animal’s existence, which, thanks to Hollywood stories, even taken on features of a quasi-character.

The dinosaur from Tazouda is in fact the emissary of numerous potentialities. First and foremost, it is a tremendous lever for the development of both the village and the surrounding area, thanks to its obvious tourist appeal, thus supporting bookings at guest houses and hotels. But it also has the capacity of being a source of knowledge for scientists concerning the history of our Earth, as well as providing schools with a teaching aid. Finally, this dinosaur reinforces Moroccan pride in their heritage.

Dinosaur: the word is derived from two Greek roots – δεινός deinos, meaning terrible and σαύρα sauros, that is to say reptile or lizard.

We knew the region was rich in fossils, we knew of the drawings engraved on rocks by ancient hands, but we did not suspect that the South East, the natural treasure of Morocco with its valleys, its mountains, its oases and its deserts, had also sheltered the hero of the remotest of times, the emblematic figure of those vast epochs before humans ever inhabited the Earth. And yet, nearly 180 million years ago, here in Tazouda, dinosaurs breathed their last on the sandy bed of a loop in the river. Their bodies disappeared and their bones slowly became covered with sediment.

Long afterwards, what remains of them has allowed a reconstruction of the aptly-named Tazoudasaurus naimi.

Morocco at the crossroads of drifting continents

In those distant days, the dinosaurs that populated the lands of what was to become Morocco had nothing to complain about concerning their natural environment. The climate was favourable to them, tropical in nature, i.e. warm and humid. The rocky plateaus of today were covered with lush vegetation, and numerous rivers and streams. The dinosaurs fed on the leaves of trees, such as the Araucaria or the largish cypresses, and on giant ferns.

The Atlas Mountains had not yet been formed. We are in the heart of the geological era known as the Mesozoic, which lasted from 250 to 65 million years ago, a grand period in our history sometimes referred to as the “Middle Life Era”.

The Mesozoic (from the ancient Greek mesos: μέσο, middle and zoon: ζῷον, animal), formerly known as the Middle Era (or Reptile Era), is a geological era in which species of mammals and dinosaurs appear.

Imagine Morocco at the beginning of this Middle Era. All the landmasses had fused together over the previous 200 million years to form a single block, an immense continental mass that we now call Pangea, surrounded by a single ocean.

Morocco finds itself isolated right in the centre of this mass. The climate is dry and arid. Further south, the territories had just been through an ice age of over some 20 million years.  The oscillations between temperatures were extreme.  And for obscure reasons, following the dictates of some invisible clock, this lonely continent slowly begins to dislodge itself. It will twist in the middle, almost splitting into two, and then later into five pieces. The waters of the surrounding ocean penetrate the rocky masses, a marine corridor is formed and from one erosion to the next, from east to west, from what will become Arabia to the lands now forming Central America, a new sea is formed, the Tethys, which, by the narrowing of its two extremities, will later become the Mediterranean Sea. 

Morocco, once lost in the middle of the desert, is once again at the mercy of the waves, and sees its climate change.

The name Pangaea which literally means “all lands”, comes from the ancient Greek πᾶν (pân), “all”, and γαῖα (gaïa), “earth”, which in Latin becomes pangaea.

Morocco, the cradle of all life on Earth

The presence of these large reptiles in Morocco has long been confirmed, by virtue of numerous discoveries, such as that of the first terrestrial vertebrates, amphibians, other more ancient reptiles and the first mammals. Scientists know that Morocco, thanks to its geographic location, is the cradle for all life on Earth.

The bones of the first large sauropod dinosaur were found in 1925 near El Mers, in the eastern Middle Atlas. In 1934, impressive footprints were discovered by French scientists at the Aït Iouaridene site. Between Demnate and Aït Bou Guemez, in the High Atlas, long tracks of footprints have been found, some measuring 115 cm in length and 75 cm in width. These belonged to herbivorous quadrupedal dinosaurs, with other tracks from bipedal and carnivorous dinosaurs which, although smaller, were nevertheless impressive because of their three imposing fingers. These footprints, solidified in the limestone soil once covered in water, attest to an abundance in Morocco, particularly in the regions that would later form the Atlas Mountains.

Michel Monbaron is an expert on the subject and his scientific career is linked to the presence of dinosaurs in Morocco. A Swiss geologist, he has been surveying the steep slopes of the High Atlas since 1976.

In July 1979, near Tilougguit, he was the one who discovered the first bones of the Atlas Giant, a massive dinosaur measuring more than 18 metres in length and 6 metres in height, including 3.5 metres of front and rear limbs. The interest of this discovery lies in the fact that the skeleton is almost complete, with the exception of the tip of the tail. And a rare occurrence is the presence of the animal’s skull bones, which are very fragile and often absent from such excavations. This specimen was named Atlasaurus Imelakei, and to this day represents the largest dinosaur that has ever been discovered, and is the only one found so intact in Morocco.

A few years later, alongside Najat Aquesbi, then head of the Geology Museum at the Moroccan Ministry of Energy and Mines, Professor Philippe Taquet of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris (MNHN), Dale Russell of the Center for the Exploration of the Dinosaurian World (USA) and Ronan Allain, a researcher at the MNHN, Michel Monbaron participated in unearthing the bones at Tazouda village with the intention of dating them as precisely as possible by studying their geological environment. Vegetable debris, consisting of the remains of ferns, cycads and conifers, were also discovered alongside the bones.

It was Michel Monbaron who confirmed the time markers of between 190 and 175 million years ago, i.e. the end of the Lower Jurassic, and thus assigning to one of the remains –  an almost complete jaw – the proud attribute of being the oldest fragment of a sauropod skull currently known in the world.

A discovery with global scientific repercussions

From 2001 to 2007, the excavations undertaken under the direction of Ronan Allain confirmed the importance of the Tazouda site, since nearly 600 dinosaur bones in a very good state of preservation were recorded, including parts of a skull and its mandible bearing 17 teeth. Two dinosaurs were identified, a sauropod herbivore of unknown type named Tazoudasaurus naimi (the bones represent at least ten individuals ranging from juveniles to adults) and a bipedal carnivorous theropod, also of unknown type, which will become known as Berberosaurus liasicus.

Tazoudasaurus Naimi: this name is derived from the name of the locality where it was found, Tazouda, and from sauros, which means lizard in Greek. The word naimi comes from the Arabic word for slender, and refers to the small size of this type of dinosaur.

The uniqueness of this discovery lies in the fact that continental deposits from this period, the Lower Jurassic (between 199 and 176 million years ago), are only found in just a few places on Earth. As a result, very little is known about the history of dinosaurs in this period. The scientific implications of the Tazouda discovery are therefore world-reaching.

Michel Monbaron explains:

This kind of museum with public exhibits at the site of the discoveries is very rare and the one in Tazouda will be the first in Morocco. The building construction so far has been thanks to a large financial donation from two French patrons, Danièle and Armand de Ricqlès. An association has been created to ensure the follow-up of the project. A scientific committee has also been established but the interior of the museum has not yet been completed.

Moussa Masrour, coordinator of the scientific committee of the Tazouda museum, explains that future visitors to the museum will be invited to follow a discovery trail, starting from the site of the excavations with a reconstitution of the discoveries in the form of bone casts. A life-size reproduction of the Tazoudasaurus is envisaged. There will be display cases showing fossils, plus information panels explaining the evolution of species and the habitat of dinosaurs.

Once finished, the Tazouda museum will complement the future Azilal museum, on the other side of the Atlas Mountains, which will present the imposing skeleton of Atlasaurus Imelakei to the public. The opening of the Azilal museum is planned for 2020 and it will be the focal point of the M’Goun Geopark, a vast territory being promoted under the innovative label of “Global Geopark”, a label validated by UNESCO in 2014. The intention is to offer the public a unique presentation of all the mineral, fossil and natural treasures of this region so rich in history.

Linked in this way, the two museums devoted to the dinosaurs of Morocco will shed light on what was once the life trajectory of these great reptiles that disappeared 65 million years ago, at a time when the Atlas Mountains had not yet been formed, and the plains were frequently covered with water and home to an abundant fauna and flora.

The region of south-east Morocco is indeed full of traces of our planet’s great past and, for international palaeontology, prevails as an important reservoir of discoveries. Moussa Masrour cites the Fezouata area in the vicinity of Zagora, where the remains of an exceptional Ordovician fauna can be observed, also with world scale referencing, or the Kem Kem site, which contains a wide variety of fossils such as those of dinosaurs, spinosaurs, crocodiles and turtles, or the Agdz region with its stromatolites.

The urgent need to make this cultural jewel shine on Tazouda

The completion of the museum in honour of the Tazoudasaurus naimi has been postponed several times, once from 2011 and again from 2015, and since then no clear date has been revealed. But the future seems full of promise: the person in charge of the project, Mr. Lhouceine Maaouni, Provincial Director of Energy and Mines in Ouarzazate and the new President of the Tazouda Association, confirmed that, despite the series of delays, the project has been resurrected, notably at the impetus of the Governor of Ouarzazate Province, Mr. Abderzak El Manssouri, a fervent supporter of plans to construct museums.

It is to be hoped that those in charge of the Drâa Tafilalet Regional Council will finally open their eyes to the riches that Nature, and thereby Providence, has offered to the region they are responsible for, and that they will follow the example of their counterparts in the Béni Mellal-Khénifra region, who have shown vision and admirable accomplishments in setting up the M’Goun Geopark; a tremendous driving force for the development and growth of the country.

Everything is in place for the opening of this cultural jewel to the public, waiting to shine on the territory of Tazouda village, to the benefit of its population who have great hopes, and rightly so, for what will become the flagship tourist attraction in the province of Ouarzazate as well as being the pride of the Drâa Tafilalet region, and of the whole of Morocco.

The day will come when the dinosaur of Tazouda truly will emerge from its slumber and receive the honours it deserves.

The post A dinosaur slumbering in South East Morocco appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.

Legend or historical fact? The once-hidden presence of a Christian princess within the walls of the Aït Ben Haddou ksar is supported by tangible evidence that cannot be ignored. Southeast-morocco.com conducted its own investigation to determine whether the most visited site in southeastern Morocco—an iconic showcase of traditional Amazigh earthen architecture—may, in fact, have roots that reach far deeper into history than commonly believed.

In 1883 the French explorer Charles de Foucauld is travelling all over Morocco to explore uncharted territories beyond the massive Atlas Mountains, in the very part of the country rebelling against the authority of successive sultans and thus called the bled es sība, which means the land of anarchy. On October 18, he writes down in his travel journal his joy of finally discovering a grove of palm trees on the edge of the village of Tikirt, where he is about to stop and rest after a long tiring walk.

Charles de Foucauld has just crossed the Telouet pass, one of the rare points through this veritable mineral partition, that cuts Morocco in two.

In order to venture into this insecure area, where solely the law of the Amazigh tribes prevails, he has donned the clothing of a Jewish traveller, and his guide, Rabbi Mordecai Aby Serour d’Akka, accompanies him, bringing with him his long experience of exploration which, in particular, allows him to enter the Berber villages unheeded, thanks to their Jewish communities. Indeed, at the end of the 19th century, it seemed to Charles de Foucauld more judicious to travel under the guise of a people who, although both accepted and discredited, had been present in these lands since ancient times. This way he was unlikely to attract attention, rather than in the style of a European, who would necessarily be perceived as a Christian; that is, as a possible enemy.

He takes advantage of this stay in Tikirt, where he resides for a week, to get a closer look at the ruins of an ancient citadel, in a place called Tasgedlt located a few kilometres away, and around which, in his own words, “a thousand-year-old legend is woven”. The account he writes in his notebook makes it easy to imagine how the story could have been related to him, in such a way as to arouse the curiosity of any witness:

Having walked the few kilometres up to the village of Tasgedlt, he observes, from afar, the remains of what can be assumed to be a fortress, distinguishable through its towers, and that stretches all along the sides of a hill. The place is scattered with other ruins of further buildings.

He takes the time to sketch the whole, as well as the most prominent part in the shape of a wide front door. Even today, what remains of the building, and the imposing width of the surrounding walls, suggests the importance of the place and gives credence to the idea that this place must have indeed once been the residence of someone of great nobility.

In search of the lost princesses

Charles de Foucauld admits, however, to having little faith in the reality of this beautiful legend. He explains that the account given to him by the villagers of Tikirt establishes that the arrival of Muslim armies from the 7th century onwards brought about the downfall of this Christian monarchy and caused the precipitous departure of the princesses. He also opines that the ruins must have been the remains of old kasbahs built by any one of the sultans. Each of these three places where, according to the legend, the sisters are said to have settled, bear similarities to each other.

However, his conclusion contradicts his own observation that these large territories have always been beyond the control of any sultan. Above all, it clashes with the amplitude of this legend which has carried the tale of these princesses for centuries, and which is based on other factual observations that the explorer strangely did not make in his time.

It is in fact within the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, located a few kilometres from the Tasgedlt’ ruins, that, in the maze of narrow streets, there is a disturbing element that reinforces the glow of this legend. An oral tradition in this village indeed reports that a very old well, located between the two surrounding walls that once protected the village and its granary, bears the name of Anou n’Tarmouyte; in other words the Christian’s well.

Better yet, when divulging a little more about this strange name, the elders of the ksar community enjoy telling their own version of the story. According to them, King Ouâd would have indeed existed in very distant times, but he had had four daughters, not three. This fourth, named Aïssatou, had taken over power upon the death of her father and is said to have settled precisely in that place known today as the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou.

So, they say, it was she who had the well dug, and indeed, when the Muslim troops arrived, she would have been forced to flee to escape the warrior attacks and would have left the village through its north gate in order to head towards Telouet, in the hope of reaching the other side of the Atlas Mountains.

Today, a ruined tower overhangs this old well. But in the past, this tower was part of the northern gate of the ksar through which Princess Aïssatou ran away, and this ruin is nowadays known as L’Borj n’Tarmouyte, which means the Christian’s tower.

Morocco, a place of an intermingling of confessions and traditions

Located on the banks of the Ounila river, the fortified village, igherm in the Amazigh language, Aït Ben Haddou, has been world famous ever since its UNESCO classification as a world heritage site in 1987. Its singular silhouette stands as the symbol of Amazigh architecture in Morocco, and ultimately of Morocco as a whole. The village of Aït Ben Haddou was once a staging point for the large camel caravans of the trans-Saharan trade, but, nevertheless, Charles de Foucauld and his guide passed by without stopping. The explorer thus missed out on the story of Aïssatou, the fourth Christian princess.

The legend and its narrative which still linger in the memories of the elders remind us that in Morocco, before the 7th century and the arrival of the first troops of General Oqba Ibn Nafi al-Fihri from the Arabian Peninsula, the Amazigh population, the native population of these territories, had, over a period of nearly a thousand years, already welcomed many communities from the East bearing Phoenician, Jewish, Roman or Christian culture.

And what about these intermingling populations that have blended all these faiths and traditions? How far could this learned mixture have extended? On what fertile or even arid lands was it able to flourish as a community, principality or kingdom?

The homelessness of the oppressed as the primary vehicle for spreading the faith

The last words uttered by Jesus of Nazareth, as reported in the Gospel according to St. Mark, might suggest that the expansion of Christianity is, above all, based on ideological voluntarism:

Reality, as so often, is more complex. After his death, the disciples and faithful followers of Jesus, commonly called the Galileans, constitute just one more group among an undoubtedly dominant but later fragmented Judaism, which found itself in a crisis as to its meaning. However, during the initial process of Christianization, their migration very quickly began following their expulsion from Jerusalem in the 35s A.D after the lynching of one of these Jews’ first charismatic figures. This was, the so-called Stephen, who has since been regarded as the first of the Christian martyrs.

These first exiles will quickly settle in nearby regions, such as Antioch or Cyprus, Phoenicia or Damascus, to constitute the first centres of what would slowly become a new religion.

In the year 70 AD, the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Roman armies under Nero’s leadership sets in motion a long-lasting dynamic scattering of the Jewish people, mixing all faiths.

The emergence of African Christianity

These exiled populations arriving in the territories of North West Africa is self-evident, particularly because of the attraction of Carthage, today’s Tunisia, a city under Roman occupation since its destruction in 146 BC., and where a large Jewish community had already been living. As history tells us, twelve Christians, as the martyrs of Scilli, were executed in Carthage during the year 180 by order of the proconsul of Africa. Barely fifty years later, a Christian community will be consolidated to the point where, in the 240s AD, the bishop of Carthage, their leader, could establish a council bringing together nearly a hundred other bishops from the surrounding Christian communities.

Bishop : The word comes from the Greek Eπίσκοπος / episkopos which literally means “supervisor”, that is to say moderator, responsible for a community. Source: Wikipedia

Carthage will thus become a focal point of Christianity in Africa from which emerge important personalities, all of them Berbers converted to the new Christian faith, such as Tertullian, Cyprian or Augustine of Hippo, who will go down in history as Saint Augustine.

At the end of the 2nd century, the writer and philosopher Tertullian testifies in one of his books that the expansion of Christians was energetic. He addresses the Roman authorities as follows:

Christianity is thus known for having first established itself in the already Romanized cities of the former Berber kingdom of Mauretania, better known as the Moorish Kingdom, under various sovereigns such as Bocchus, Juba II or Ptolemy. This was the case in Tangier (Tingis) or in Volubilis, in Asilah (Zilis), Ceuta (Septem), Larache (Lixus), Tétouan (Tamuden-sis) or Salé (Salensis).

But it was still under the threat of violence that the dispersal of the new believers increased and caused some of them to leave risk areas such as large cities in order to take refuge further inland, to be exact beyond the High Atlas Mountains. The fierce persecution of African Christians at the beginning of the 4th century, under the authority of the Roman emperor Diocletian, must thus have caused innumerable exoduses.

The Amazigh kingdoms as a place of refuge for Christianity

It will take until the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine in the year 313 that a lull could allow the new religion to expand more tranquilly over the following decades. But this last period of persecution by the power of Rome also resulted in the emergence of a divergent ideological current within fledgling Christendom, which reached a significant following among the poorest and least educated communities, principally in vast rural areas.

This current, called Donatism, was opposed to the new alliance that was being established between Christianity and the Roman Empire. Its followers and thinkers sought to define a vision of faith more anchored in what they call the Holy Spirit, that is, the flow of the spirit of God among humans. This current will end up being considered as heretical and will be strongly opposed. But by then, it will have diffused a vision of the Christian religion strongly linked to the worship of the saints and the martyrs. This is not to forget the ease with which the Amazigh tribes welcomed Sufism a few centuries later and, in rural Morocco, allowed the establishment of a popular tradition dedicated to the glory of the saints illustrated by the emergence and the increase of the zaouias.

Zaouïa : is a Muslim religious building which constitutes the center around which a Sufi brotherhood is structured. By extension, it often refers to the brotherhood itself. Source: Wikipedia

The scenario of chaos resumed with the invasion of the Vandals from Europe in 430. This period of great violence lasted almost a century and saw the emergence of another version of Christianity, called Arianism, which once again brought about a new cycle of persecution, confiscation of property, destruction of places of worship and forced conversion. Again and again, the consequence of this was a new exodus for Christians loyal to their original faith. Once again this exodus was into the interior territories of the country, where various Berber kingdoms and principalities had emerged fiercely resistant to all successive invaders.

All these excluded and persecuted peoples had to find benevolent havens of peace in these Amazigh territories. The heads of these kingdoms, often Christian, carried Roman titles for a long time, as did the sovereign Masuna within the Kingdom of the Moors and the Romans, and who was designated as the Rex gentium Maurorum and Romanorum.

At the end of the 5th century, the kingdom of Altava took over from the Kingdom of the Moors and Romans and brought to life a Christian Berber culture in the territories of the former province of Mauretania Caesarean. Today this corresponds central and western Algeria and part of north-eastern Morocco.

The melodiousness of their existence resonates until today

The establishment and influence of Christianity in North Africa is therefore a reality throughout the first centuries of the first millennium. It is more than likely that its spread was beyond urban sites towards interior territories where the powers of the moment didn’t wield any authority. The confessional confrontation with the paganism widespread among the indigenous Amazigh populations must certainly have created friction, but important theological or religious bridges must also have facilitated conversions to Christianity.

We also know that the arrival of Islam to the shores of the Atlantic coast in the 7th century did not result in the immediate disappearance of the presence of Christianity. The complete erasure will take place five centuries later under the authority of the Almohad dynasties, at the same time as the disappearance of other currents, such as Shiism and Kharijism, throughout the Maghreb.

Despite the absence of historical sources that can attest to this today, it is therefore more than likely that the territories of south-eastern Morocco were able to welcome a Christian kingdom.

The existence of Doula, Zelfa, Stouka and Aïssatou, the four princesses’ daughters of the King of Ouâd, is therefore just as probable, as is their reign over the lands today united and named the rural Moroccan commune of Aït Zineb.

The persistence of their memory today among the inhabitants of the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, just as at the time of the explorer Charles de Foucault, reinforces the possibility of this reality and mainly because the melody of their first names still resonates in the name of the places that once hosted them.

Where Doula Bent Ouâd had settled, in the fortress of Tasgedlt visited by Charles de Foucauld, the douar today bears the name of Tadoula, the prefix “Ta” indicating the feminine form of a name in the Amazigh language. Today, the douar where Stouka Bent Ouâd is supposed to have been living is named Taskoukt.

And the Ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, which once was the home of Princess Aïssatou, has for centuries been named after its official founders, the Aït Aïssa family.

A final clue sheds light on the legend in a most masterly fashion, so as to validate it forever: Aïssa is the Arabic translation of the name of Jesus.

Version française : Il était une fois au Sud Est du Maroc, quatre princesses chrétiennes …

The post Once upon a time in the ksar of Aït Ben Haddou, four Christian princesses … appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.

At the time of its inception, the Marinid dynasty governed Morocco, then recognized by the enchanting epithet Maghreb Al-Aqsa, the Distant West. This Zenata Berber-origin dynasty earned renown for adorning Morocco with medersas, these Quranic schools. It was under their reign that what historians term the cycle of zaouïas began in Morocco. Through the proliferation of these religious institutions across all territories of Morocco, it signaled the decline of the political authority’s monopoly over religious authority, and conversely, the ascent of zaouïas to a legitimate political function.

The Marinid Sultanate was a Berber Muslim empire from the mid-13th to the 15th century which controlled present-day Morocco and, intermittently, other parts of North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia) and of the southern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) around Gibraltar.

The zaouia of Tamegroute, like many others in Morocco, cannot be solely confined to its religious and mystical character, as it played a significant role in the Drâa Valley and subsequently inspired the establishment of numerous other zaouias bearing the same name throughout Morocco. The spiritual dimension of its identity thus early on complemented itself with a temporal dimension characterized by power, influence, and authority—attributes that are distinctly terrestrial, clearly materialistic, and fundamentally human.

In 1883, the French explorer Charles de Foucauld became the first to venture into the depths of Morocco, documenting in his work “Reconnaissance au Maroc” his impressions upon encountering the zaouia:

The Naciria Zaouia, now a national cultural heritage, is the result of a tumultuous human adventure whose narrative, woven with conflicts of interest, ambitions, and passionate pursuits of the protagonists, as well as the capricious play of circumstances, resembles the classic and almost romantic framework found in all epic tales that fill the history books of our humanity.

The birth of a zaouia on the caravan route

It was in 1575 that a man named Abou Hafs Omar Ben Ahmed El Ansari settled in Tamegroute to establish the zaouia later known as Zaouïa Naciria.

His journey to reach there was only a kilometer, as he hailed from a neighboring ksar where his ancestor, Sheikh Ibrahim Ben Mohamed Ben Ahmed El Ansari, had already established a zaouia called Zaouïa Sidi En-Nass two hundred years earlier, which translates to the zaouia of the Lord of the people, paying homage to the Prophet. Another French explorer who reached Tamegroute in 1904, the Marquis de Segonzac, described this sheikh in his mission report titled “In the Heart of the Atlas” as a hermit whose sole intention was to live unknown.

No one knows why Abou Hafs Omar decided to establish his own zaouia instead of continuing his religious journey in the footsteps of his ancestors. Marcel Robin in 1918 offers the following explanation in his exploration report:

It is worth noting that the zaouia Sidi En-Nass was indeed nestled in a ksar hidden amidst the palm trees, an environment that best suited its mystical intention, whereas Tamegroute was already at that time a thriving village situated on the caravan route from sub-Saharan Africa to the major cities in the North. The ambition of a new zaouia could not have found a better setting to take flight than in such a place of convergence for people and wealth.

It’s crucial to bear in mind that this period is truly the golden age of zaouias. The Drâa Valley was teeming with local brotherhoods, each organizing itself with its own zaouia: the Zaouia of Tagmadarte, that of Tanmslat, the Zaouia Essalhya of Tagounite, or that of Tamnougalte.

The initiative of Abou Hafs Omar Ben Ahmed El Ansari proves successful: the zaouia takes shape in Tamegroute and gains the expected respect. Upon his death, his pious daughter, Lalla Mimouna, assumes the responsibility of managing affairs within the nascent zaouia, overseeing the collection of revenues and organizing social activities that, at that time, involved accommodating and providing sustenance to students, known as Tolbas, as well as guests of the zaouia such as pilgrims, passing travelers, traders, and all the destitute or sick individuals who found refuge and security within the sacred walls of the zaouia.

Beside Lalla Mimouna, a man named Sidi Abdallah Ben Houceine El Qebab, also known as Erraqi due to his family origins on the banks of the Euphrates in present-day Iraq, is appointed as the spiritual master of the zaouia of Tamegroute. He himself hails from the zaouia of Sidi Ennas, but his journey in Sufi initiation, along with the teachings received directly from Sheikh Al Ghazi of Sijilmassa, has bestowed upon him a distinctive aura of sanctity. Marcel Robin’s account narrates that

Ahmed Ben Ibrahim El Ansari, faithful to the teachings of his master, lived a life of piety and detachment from the material pleasures of life. In doing so, he reinforced the spiritual influence of the humble zaouia of Tamegroute, one among many, but whose fame and power would suddenly reach a definitive milestone through the intervention of his next master, coming from elsewhere.

M’hammad Ben Nacer, the key figure in the destiny of the zaouia.

It was thirty years earlier, in 1603, that M’hammad Ben Nacer was born in the Casbah of Aghlane, in the palm grove of Ternata near Zagora, itself located in the Drâa Valley. His father, Mohamed, also led another modest zaouia and was a revered man due to his claim of Sharifian descent, meaning his genealogical lineage with the Prophet through a chain of ancestry connecting him to Jaafar Ibn Abī Tālib, the brother of Ali, the fourth caliph, and son of Abou Talib, the paternal uncle of the Prophet. The family legend recounts that the name Nacer was bestowed by Jaafar himself.

The young M’hammad receives from his father the initial principles of religious education, and he continues his learning at the mosque of the ksar of Tissergate. At the end of this training period, he attains the title of faqih, signifying that he is regarded as a jurist, well-versed in the rules of Sharia.

M’hammad then takes his first position as a Quranic school teacher in Eldjorfa in the Dadès Valley. He later returns to his native village to teach at his father’s zaouia and is appointed as the imam, meaning the speaker of the holy book, and a teacher in the main mosque. At the age of 26, he has already established a reputation as a meticulous scholar throughout the Drâa Valley. He has significantly expanded his theological knowledge and understanding of Muslim jurisprudence.

However, the journey of this young imam is just beginning. M’hammad indeed feels a fervent desire to assert himself, and his first choice, in the logical continuation of his path, is to deepen his practice of Sufism. As tradition dictates, he embarks on a quest for a master who can teach him and enable him to become part of a maraboutic lineage. He decides to join the zaouia of Tamegroute, just a little downstream from his village along the Oued Drâa. He knew that in these places were the figures holding the most powerful spiritual auras of the moment: the sheikh of the emerging zaouia from Mesopotamia, Sidi Abdallah Ben Houceine El Qebab, and his disciple, Sidi Ahmed Ben Ibrahim El Ansari, the son of Lalla Mimouna.

Thus, in 1631, a young imam and aspiring Sufi left his small zaouia in Aghlane to settle in Tamegroute. Ten years later, despite his reputation, the sheikh of Tamegroute was assassinated during a pilgrimage return to Sijilmassa.

At this decisive moment in its history, the zaouia of Tamegroute had to choose a worthy successor for this title. It happened that only M’hammad Ben Nacer, then thirty-eight years old, had the profile of a charismatic leader. He had quickly become the favorite disciple of the master of the zaouia who, according to tradition, designated him as his successor at the head of the brotherhood by entrusting him with the responsibility of taking care of his children and his wife, Hafsa Al Ansari, meaning to take her as a spouse, after his death.

The grafting of surnames was about to take place, and the zaouia of Tamegroute would erase the name Al Ansari to become the Zaouïa Naciria.

This episode is narrated to us by a 17th-century Moroccan historian, Mohamed El Saghir El Ifrini, who bases his account on the statements of Hosein Ibn Nàcer, the Sheikh of the Zaouia of Aghlane and brother of M’hammad Ben Nacer. The reality is undoubtedly more complex, and the assumption of the official leadership of the zaouia proved to be more challenging than anticipated, only becoming effective five years after the death of Sheikh Ahmed Ben Ibrahim El Ansari.

Despite the last wishes of the deceased sheikh, M’hammad Ben Nacer indeed faced opposition from some members of the zaouia who were reluctant to see a foreigner become the master in their house. Jacques Berque recounts in his work Al-Yousi that a violent offensive by the El Ansari clan was launched against the zaouia, which was in the process of coming under the authority of the Ben Nacer. Faced with this hostility, M’hammad made the decision to return to his original zaouia in the village of Aghlane, taking the widow Hafsa with him.

The official history, narrated through the words of the brother, justifies this withdrawal by citing the statements of Sheikh Ahmed Ben Ibrahim El Ansari himself, attempting thereby to erase the affront of such unflattering oppositions to his prestige:

M’hammad Ben Nacer returned to Tamegroute with his head held high, adorned with the marks of his ordeal and dreams. Later, he married the widow Hafsa, thus uniting their names for eternity. However, it took another dream, dreamt by Hafsa, for her to set aside her own reservations and finally accept this marriage.

This profound transformation of the zaouia’s identity, thanks to M’hammad Ben Nacer’s rise to power, followed the usual script of all these human dramas that sometimes serve as the crucible for great individual destinies. Here in Tamegroute, all the ingredients were brought together: the right place where the ambition of an exceptional character settles, a marriage that allows inscription into a respected lineage, adversity in attaining power and a retreat before a victorious return, premonitory dreams, a miraculous healing, and a charismatic personality capable of combining piety and knowledge in one individual.

The zaouia of Tamegroute will now be known as Zaouïa Naciria, the headquarters of the Naciryyne brotherhood. And this title has been passed down to all its descendants until today.

This foundational pattern would later be complemented by strategic alliances with Berber tribes that controlled various parts of the Southeastern territories, a region not yet subjected to the central authority of the Sultan. The future Sheikh M’hammad Ben Nacer, along with his successors, would establish both distant and respectful relations with the Sultans, allowing them over the centuries to serve as intermediaries between central power and the tribes. It would happen that harkas, chérifian military expeditions in the South of Morocco, were accompanied by a naqib naciri, one of the sheikhs of the numerous Naciria zaouias, serving as a political advisor to the expedition leader for negotiating with the tribes.

Sheikh M’hammad Ben Nacer transformed his zaouia into a radiant center of Sufi culture. In the 17th century, one of his successors, Ahmed Naciri, established a library within the Zaouïa Naciria. Consequently, the Zaouïa Naciria became a beacon of light not only in Morocco but also in Africa, attracting scholars, religious scholars, and students in search of knowledge who were drawn to the precious works gathered there. The hamlet of Tamegroute became a crossroads for commercial caravans, and the zaouia developed its connections and influences in the region.

Sidi M’hammad Ben Nacer successfully underwent the transformation, leaving a lasting legacy of his name and his zaouia. Upon his death in 1674, he was laid to rest near the entrance of the Zaouïa Naciria, in a mausoleum now known as the Garden of the Sheikhs, paying homage to the line of wise Sufi leaders who, through generations, wove the history of Morocco.

Sources :
– La zaouïa de Tamegroute – Marcel Dodin – Archives berbères – 1918
– Au coeur de l’Atlas – Marquis de Ségonzac – 1904
– Sainteté, pouvoir et société : Tamgrout aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles – Abdallah Hammoudi – 1980

The post The Naciria zaouia of Tamegroute, exploration of its genesis appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.

Their presence, long perceived as something self-evident, gradually faded away, leaving behind abandoned synagogues, deserted mellahs and scattered stories suspended between memory and oblivion.

The reasons for their departure were many. Political changes, economic upheavals and new aspirations led to a mass exile towards Israel, Europe and North America. Yet despite the distance, this diaspora has kept an unbreakable bond with its native land, where the echoes of its passage can still be heard.

To rediscover this history is to lift the veil on a little-known facet of Moroccan heritage, and to understand how this legacy continues to shape the identity of the south-east of the country.

Version française

Three centuries later, the founding of Carthage, in present-day Tunisia, intensified these migratory movements. The Greek myths surrounding the giant Atlas, together with the irresistible attraction of the ocean, would forever magnetise both sides of Africa.

Then came the Romans, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, the Arabs. Over the centuries, the lands of north-western Africa became a crossroads of passions and ambitions, an eldorado for every kind of project, a crucible of constant cultural mixing and the workshop of the slow, laborious construction of a country: Morocco.

Very early on, scattered within these human tides, Jewish communities settled here and there, following their wanderings with no other aim than to find a place where they could stop and build a life, often after fleeing another land.

They then took part in the life of their host territories, joining their hands, hearts and intelligence to the labour of the other communities already present, and of those that would join them later. Together, generation after generation, they helped weave the plural identity of what would become Morocco.

The making of a mosaic people

The first waves of Jewish immigration are believed to have arrived aboard Phoenician ships, on the coasts near the mouth of the Oued Noun, in the region of Guelmim in southern Morocco. From there, different groups gradually moved inland, especially towards the valleys of the Drâa, the Tafilalet and the Dadès, and towards the High Atlas.

One legend tells that King Solomon sent Jewish explorers to the Drâa region in the 10th century BC in search of gold. It is also said that some groups may have reached the area directly by crossing the continent at the time of the first destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 586 BC, following the mass deportation of the surviving Hebrews to Babylon.

Historically, the only concrete proof of the ancient Jewish presence in Morocco dates back to the 2nd century BC. It consists of funerary objects found in the ruins of the Roman site of Volubilis, bearing inscriptions in Hebrew and Greek.

Until the arrival of Arab tribes from the 7th century onwards, more than a thousand years passed during which Jewish, Berber and sub-Saharan communities shaped a coherent social and cultural space together. Judaism, Christianity and paganism all found expression there, depending on the period, the various local powers and the foreign occupying forces, such as the Romans, the Vandals and the Byzantines.

The growing influence of Islam naturally changed the situation. It protected Jewish communities from the major Roman or Byzantine persecutions by placing them under the status of dhimmi. This social position, discriminatory in practice, nevertheless guaranteed them a real and more bearable form of protection, one that could even become more flexible depending on the mindset of successive sultans, and above all of local chiefs.

While the Almohad period plunged Jews back into persecution, the other sultanates allowed a communal symbiosis to develop between Jewish, Arab and Berber components. This was even stronger in rural areas, where these human groups, brought together, came to form one and the same community. Each retained its cultural singularity, but over time many of these cultures mixed and were transformed.

The German historian, Shlomo D. Goitein, was able to state:

In Morocco, a common destiny was being forged between these communities, without intention, and even without awareness. It rested both on the unprecedented accumulation of a shared past and on the tragic upheavals of history and of individual lives.

Thus, in the 17th century, Morocco became a land of exile for the three communities together — Berber, Arab and Jewish — then driven out of Andalusia. This forged a certain closeness between them around the nostalgic memory of the Iberian eldorado, and helped enrich their common culture.

The Drâa Valley, a cradle of settlement and influence

Because of its geographical position, south-eastern Morocco was one of the privileged territories for the settlement of Jewish communities. Their presence was so significant that the only documentary sources shedding light on the history of this region before the arrival of Arab tribes are said to be Hebrew manuscripts dating from the 12th century.

These accounts mention the arrival, around the 5th century BC, of nomadic Jews travelling in camel caravans, and their settlement at the site of Taourirt N’Tidri — the hill of Tidri — near present-day Zagora. Even today, stone and rammed-earth remains can still be seen there, bearing witness to the ancient Jewish presence.

From Tidri, Jews spread to other neighbouring localities such as Beni Sbih and Beni Hayyoun, Amzrou south of Zagora, Asselim N’Ougdz, Tamnougalte, Tazroute, Tagmadarte and Mhamid El-Ghizlane.

Within the flow of these same mythical accounts, mention is also made of the founding of the town of Tamegroute by Jews, as the capital of a Jewish kingdom of the Drâa. This kingdom is said to have dominated the region from the 7th century until the end of the 11th century, when the arrival of the Muslim Berber tribes, the Sanhajas of the Almoravid sultanates, plunged Jewish communities back into a cycle of persecution and definitively deprived them of any possibility of exercising authority over the territories.

Tamegroute stood out for its urban character and, above all, for its cultural influence. Hebrew learning enjoyed great renown there throughout southern Morocco. The Talmudic scholar Moïse Abraham Halevy Ed-Draoui remains the emblematic figure of this period in the 10th century.

The Dadès Valley, the Ziz and the whole Tafilalet

Important Jewish settlements were also established in the Dadès Valley, notably at Tiylite, a few kilometres from present-day Kelaa M’Gouna.

A 12th-century work entitled Kitâb Al Istibṣar, written by an anonymous Arab geographer, refers to Tiylite as a madina, meaning a town. It describes it as a place through which caravans passed, equipped with a fortress, garrisons and the presence of a wali, or governor.

Tiylite was indeed a point of convergence for populations from neighbouring regions, as shown by the list of families buried in its Jewish cemetery: Ait Ouzzine, Ait Tazarine, Ait Ofilal, Imeghrane, Ait Hnana, Ait Icho, Ait Messoud, Ait David.

The Todgha and Dadès valleys also welcomed large Jewish communities from Andalusia after its reconquest by the Spanish Catholic monarchy. The ksar of Asfalou thus became a major place of residence for the Jews of Todgha, followed by the ksar of Tinghir, Taourirte and Ait Ourjdal.

The importance of the Jews in Todgha is explicitly carried in a local Amazigh popular song:

In the Tafilalet, around the Ziz basin, many Jewish settlements prospered. They experienced major economic and social growth with the founding of the city of Sijilmassa by the Zenata Berbers. After the decline of this radiant city in the 14th century, Jews continued their destiny in other ksour, such as the ksar of Tabouâssamte, Almamoun, Alfouqani, as well as the ksour of Beni Moussa and Moucheqlal.

Read also : Sijilmassa, the mythical city that shone the true heart of the Maghreb

The Tafilalet is also the native region of great Jewish rabbis such as Rabbi Ya’akov Abehssera, born in Rissani in 1889, Rabbi Moul Tria and Rabbi Moul Sedra.

The names of Jewish families still echo in local collective memory: Benchetrit, Benitah, Bensemhoun, Dahan, Illouz, Mamane, Nezri, Teboul Hazout, Bensaid, Zenou, Amoyal, as well as the Benhamou and Azeroual families in Boudnib.

Once the establishment of mellahs became the norm in Morocco’s major cities from the 19th century onwards, the towns and villages of south-eastern Morocco also created these areas reserved for Jewish communities. Some of them gained considerable renown, such as those of Rissani, Erfoud and Demnate.

Ouarzazate, too, was home to significant Jewish populations, notably in the villages of Telmasla, in the Kasbah of Taourirte, in Tamassinte, Imini and Tikirt. Rabbi Yihia Ben Baroukh Cohen Azogh rests in Tifoultoute. Agouim also hosts the tomb of Rabbi David Ou Moshé, born in Jerusalem. The village of Tazenakhte was especially renowned for the presence, in its synagogue, of an important theological document known as the Sefer Tislit, or the Scroll of Tislit.

A symbiosis between Jewish and Muslim communities

Jews and Muslims therefore shared a common existence within an equally common destiny. This fusion gave rise to a mixed culture, Judeo-Berber-Arab in character, in which many elements of identity were shared, such as the veneration of saints and ritual ceremonies around their tombs. On the Muslim side, this was the Moussem; on the Jewish side, the Hiloula. Often, the two communities venerated the same saints under different names.

Thus, in the Drâa region, Jews and Muslims celebrated a pilgrimage to the tomb of the same saint in Tidri, known as Isaac Akkouim by Jews and Sidi Moussa by Muslims. In Demnate, another saint named Haroun Ben Cohen was also venerated by local Muslims under the name Bou Lbarakat, meaning “the one who grants blessings.”

This cultural harmony between Jews and Muslims is also illustrated by family names, since only a small minority of Moroccan Jewish surnames have Hebrew or Aramaic roots. Most Jewish names reveal a local Berber, Arab or sub-Saharan connotation, or refer to a profession, a tribal affiliation or a geographical origin.

Jewish know-how in the service of the common good

While Jews in the great imperial cities often played important political and economic roles with the sultans, as influential advisers, financial managers or diplomatic agents, their role in the territories of the south-east was crucial to the development of localities and the organisation of their economies.

The prosperity of trans-Saharan trade rested largely on their involvement, thanks to their ancestral knowledge of the desert and of nomadic life. This know-how, together with their command of local languages, allowed them to open routes between remote regions, enabling their artisans to take part in weekly souks: blacksmiths, goldsmiths, gunsmiths, locksmiths, tailors, shoemakers, makers of saddles and babouches, carpets and blankets.

A perfect example is given by Rabbi Mardochée Aby Serour of Akka, who accompanied the French explorer Charles de Foucauld during his reconnaissance journey through Morocco in 1883.

Around the year 1070, the Andalusian geographer Al-Bakri described the Jews present in Sijilmassa as specialists in masonry and architecture. Throughout south-eastern Morocco, they were indeed the builders of many kasbahs and ksour, and the engineers of many agricultural facilities, especially those related to irrigation.

But it was in trade that Jews naturally acquired lasting skill and reputation. A popular saying illustrates this beautifully:

An uprooting marked by heartbreak

The 20th century would bring profound upheavals to the communal fabric that had been woven over the centuries between the Jewish and Muslim communities of Morocco.

On the one hand, the French Protectorate encouraged the rural exodus of Jewish families towards the major cities, drawn by access to Western modernity and no doubt by a hope of emancipation. On the other hand, France supported the development of modernised education based on the secular model of the French system.

The Alliance Israélite Universelle, a French organisation, thus offered mass schooling to young Jewish girls and boys, including those from the poorest families, and therefore also in rural Morocco.

The second half of the 20th century, from Morocco’s independence onwards and in the context of the various conflicts between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries, saw the departure from Morocco of the immense majority of Jews, even though they had become Moroccan citizens.

Mrs Fadma, originally from Ouarzazate, who died during the Covid-19 lockdown at the age of around 120, recalled those moments of separation with regret:

The eclipse of Jewish communities from Morocco’s national narrative

More than two thousand years later, the traces of the Jewish communities in south-eastern Morocco are gradually disappearing. They can still be found in the names of certain villages, in family names, in popular legends and in local customs.

Although oral tradition still manages to preserve some memories of all these shared communities of life between Berber, Arab and Jewish populations, time may erase them forever if nothing is done to highlight and preserve them, further eclipsing the Jewish share in Morocco’s national story.

The history of this participation of Jewish communities in the construction of Morocco remains little known, especially among younger Moroccan generations. Some initiatives have emerged in certain major Moroccan cities to counter this historical amnesia and restore all its colours to the collective story. Here in south-eastern Morocco, however, as with so many other facets of this region’s rich mosaic of memory, nothing has yet been done.

The testimony of a Moroccan Jewish woman who left for Israel expresses a clear wish:

The mystery of this Jew, Moroccan forever, remains intact

In the end, once the pilgrimages have passed and all memories have faded, there will remain the indelible scar of the heartbreak caused by the mass exodus of the Jewish community.

The heartbreak of entire families torn away from a land that had become native to them — and even more than that, a land of origin.

The heartbreak of being removed from a country that had become theirs.

And finally, the heartbreak felt by all those who watched leave the men and women with whom, despite everything, despite periods of persecution, constraints and humiliations, they had shared, over the centuries, the experience of having become Moroccan.

The history of Jews in Morocco thus unfolds across a very long path where light and shadow intertwine, faithfully reflecting the journey of our shared humanity. Yet one singular fact can be observed, and every testimony confirms it: the Moroccan Jew, whether from the south-east, from other rural regions or from the great cities, has left. But wherever he may be in the world — in Israel, in Europe, in Canada or anywhere else — he keeps his Moroccan component present and alive within him.

Between the suffering and the beauty of his existence in Morocco, the mystery of the Jew, forever Moroccan, remains intact.

This mystery undoubtedly sheds light on the past of all Moroccans and of all Moroccan territories. It could also illuminate their future, if the awakening of memory could be understood as the illumination, in all its colours, of the great and beautiful history of Morocco — a kingdom then fully proud of its plural identity.

The post The lost destiny of the Jews of South-Eastern Morocco appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.

This article begins with that simple question. It invites us to look again at North African history from a different angle, and to understand how the Berber — or Amazigh — identity, long neglected or underestimated, could have become a powerful source of cultural unity across the region.

From the ancient origins of the Berbers to their living legacy in languages, traditions and ways of life, this is a return to the source: a way to see how shared memory can help shape the future of the Maghreb.

Version française

Had this simple phrase echoed in the minds of Moroccan schoolchildren throughout their years at school — as “our ancestors, the Gauls” once did for French children — the face of Morocco might have been changed.

And if, alongside them, young Algerians, Tunisians, Libyans and so many others across North Africa had learned the same refrain — our ancestors, the Berbers — the face of the world itself might have been different.

Imagine this small tune passing through the minds of children, generation after generation. The peoples of the Maghreb might today have understood themselves, naturally and historically, as belonging to one shared national and cultural space.

Better still, the North African origin of anyone living or travelling in Europe might have been immediately understood as part of a Berber identity. More than any visa, it could have become a true passport — a way of moving freely through the world.

Of course, this is fiction. Today, it belongs only to the realm of impossible utopia.

The populations of the southern Mediterranean were, from a very early stage, exposed to inevitable mixtures with peoples coming from every horizon. Some territories, because of their position, became crossroads more than others. Morocco, at the junction of two continents, is one of them.

Here, the cultural traces left by successive waves of human movement were engraved more deeply than elsewhere.

The identity of peoples, between alchemy and narrative

In reality, the process through which countries build their identity has little to do with the genealogy of peoples. It is often more a matter of dialectic than of history.

The aim is not only to tell the history of a people, but to construct its narrative. The strict historicity of such identity narratives is often secondary.

In the end, it is almost always a kind of alchemy. Human diversities are melted together, fused and recomposed until they emerge as a third, synthetic unity — the unity that allows a nation, at a given moment in its history, to become a body and to exist.

This is the very process through which Morocco, in the preamble to its 2011 Constitution, stated that its unity, forged by the convergence of its Arab-Islamic, Amazigh and Saharan-Hassani components, had been nourished and enriched by its African, Andalusian, Hebrew and Mediterranean tributaries.

Everywhere, in a once-shared past, there is the Berber

Whatever narrative is being built, whatever human diversities are being brought into alliance, the makers of national identity always work with elementary materials, with primal components.

And everywhere in northern Africa, in a past once shared by all, there is the Berber.

Wherever one stands between the eastern and western edges of Africa, there has always been this same human substratum, born of a deep past common to all the territories concerned.

This is a factual reality. It is indelible, despite the many attempts to erase it over the centuries. It remains undeniable, despite the ambiguity carried by this enigmatic name: Berber / Amazigh.

The Berber human presence is now widely recognised as the oldest common denominator linking so many peoples and nations. Yet one fact stands out: these peoples and nations were unable to claim this common ancestor, and therefore unable to share him.

The Berber paradox through time

The mystery attached to the word “Berber” partly explains the difficulties that emerged, century after century, in building a Berber identity capable of gaining broad recognition.

Gabriel Camps, one of the major specialists on the subject, expressed what could be called the Berber paradox with striking clarity:

The historian does not try to resolve the paradox. Faithful to the rigour of his discipline, he notes that the ancient Berbers may not have shared one truly common language, but they did possess …

Read also: Tifinagh: from stone to digital, the living alphabet of the Amazigh world

This writing system, Libyco-Berber, survives today in the Tifinagh alphabet of the Tuareg, the Amazigh community that has preserved some of the deepest foundations of Berber origin.

But very early on, Punic writing, then Latin, and finally Arabic, took over among these peoples. Linguistic Arabisation eventually became socio-cultural Arabisation, to the point that, in some countries, almost entire populations came to say they were Arab, to believe they were Arab, and therefore, in social and cultural terms, to become Arab.

And yet, Gabriel Camps expressed this paradox in particularly striking terms:

The paradox is clear.

Across North Africa, without interruption over time, a powerful mixture took place through successive Punic, Jewish, Roman, Vandal, Byzantine, Arab, Turkish and finally European impulses.

Yet everywhere, a local identity remained alive. It endured despite the accumulation of external contributions. Very early on, this raised a question: what was this Berber presence that could absorb the foreign newcomer while still preserving its own continuity?

This mystery troubled the minds of successive arrivals. It led them, again and again, to make the Berber foreign to the very lands they had just discovered — to imagine him, like themselves, as someone who had come from elsewhere, from some distant place, rather than simply from here.

The Berber, the “other” who had to come from elsewhere

In the 5th century BC, the Greek historian and geographer Herodotus was among the first to describe the peoples living west of Egypt. He called them Libyans, distinguishing between those who lived as nomads by the sea and those who were farmers, settled in houses among mountainous and wooded landscapes — clearly the regions of the Atlas — whom he called the Maxyes.

Several centuries later, his Roman counterpart Sallust refined this portrait of the indigenous populations. The nomadic group would later be associated with the name Gaetulians, while the sedentary group retained the name Libyans. According to Sallust, together they represented the humans present in these territories since prehistoric times: primitive hunter-gatherers whom he described as…

Unsurprisingly, the Roman historian imagined them as having been civilised by peoples from the East — more precisely the Medes and Persians — who were said to have settled there.

Gabriel Camps explains that the term Maxyes is the Greek rendering of Imazighen, the plural of Amazigh, used by indigenous groups to identify themselves as a community.

In this way, all the foreigners who came to the territories between Egypt and the Atlantic Ocean named the local populations according to their own phonetic understanding of this ancient name of identity: Meshwesh for the Egyptians, Mazices or Madices for the Romans, Mazigh for the Arabs.

Camps developed the theory that the appearance, in ancient accounts, of Mede tribes supposedly coming from the East may in fact have resulted from a distortion of the Roman name Madices — that is, the Imazighen encountered locally.

This linguistic distortion would have been driven by a difficulty: the difficulty of imagining that non-Romanised indigenous populations could possess their own cultural and civilisational qualities.

In search of an impossible origin

Imazighen, Maxyes, Madices, Medes… This litany of names designating the Berber would later be synthesised under the generic term Moors, used to describe non-Latinised North Africans.

Yet throughout the centuries, observers continued to give the Berber an ancestry external to the land in which he lived. There remained a persistent tendency to connect this mysterious Berber, although clearly present there, to some distant root.

The Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea argued for a Phoenician origin. Saint Augustine, from his city of Hippo near Carthage, saw Canaanite roots in his compatriots. Another Greek historian, Strabo, saw nothing less than Indians behind the Moors.

Herodotus claimed that the Imazighen were descended from the Trojans, while Plutarch described the great Greek hero Heracles leading Mycenaean communities towards Mauretania Tingitana — northern Morocco — around 1500 BC.

In the 14th century, the famous geographer Ibn Khaldun was even more categorical:

European historians of the 19th century continued this frantic search for Berber origins. Here and there, they gave credit to Oriental or Indian theories, even going so far as to attribute the dolmens and other megalithic monuments discovered in Algeria to Celtic, Gallic — and therefore French — or more broadly Nordic origins.

This “stranger”, indigenous for 9,000 years

Anthropological research paints a very different picture, one detached from free from ideological bias.

Of course, human presence in North Africa, and in the Maghreb in particular, goes back to very ancient times.

It is now accepted that the different human representatives identified in the Maghreb — from the early Homo sapiens of Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, through the Aterian humans of Dar es-Soltane, to the Mechta-Afalou type represented at Afalou Bou Rhummel in Algeria — evolved locally, each in their own period, without needing to be explained by an external origin, and in parallel with other human developments elsewhere in the world.

One must then wait until around 9000 BC for a new human type, coming from the Near East, to settle in large numbers as far as the ocean. This type would be called Proto-Mediterranean and became known through the rise of the Capsian culture.

This newcomer developed along different branches, each carrying specific morphological characteristics. Two major tendencies can be distinguished: on one side, more robust types; on the other, more gracile types, with the whole range, as always, expressed through infinite nuances.

Over the millennia, these Proto-Mediterraneans spread across a large part of the Mediterranean world, from Libya to Italy.

And so Gabriel Camps was able to confirm:

The unfolding of the Berber tree

The Berber thus anchored his genealogical root firmly in the very lands of his development: the Maghreb.

And in the same broad movement as other human groups across the planet, he entered the radical transformations of the Neolithic period, with settled life, agriculture and animal husbandry.

He would continuously receive and assimilate human and cultural contributions from the East, from the Sahara and from the European continent through Spain. Some of these contributions would prove more influential than others, especially the Bedouin migrations of the 11th century, which sealed the Arabisation of the populations.

But in every era, these Maghreb territories and their human communities acted as powerful civilisational crucibles. From them emerged peoples, cultures, kingdoms and, much later, nations.

Across the millennia, this original Berber would thus become an actor in the wider course of human evolution.

He would be the bovidian herder whose presence is found in rock art. He would be the chariot driver of the equidian period, crossing the vast expanses of the Sahara armed with his javelin.

Having become a horseman, he would be the Gaetulian observed by the Roman conquerors, and then the Garamantian nomad, true ancestor of the Tuareg, a proud warrior carrying his long sword.

Before that, he would have been the Libyan described by Herodotus, or the Maxyes.

He would become the Numidian of the great Masaesylian and Massylian kingdoms, with King Massinissa.

Finally, the Berber would cross the centuries under the name of Moor, from the westernmost lands of the continent to Andalusia.

Under the gaze of Ibn Khaldun, the Berber would unfold not as a set of localised peoples, but as a tribal lineage.

He would be the Sanhaja, son of Znag, the camel-driving nomad. He would also be the Zenata, among the first to undergo deep Arabisation.

Both would found major dynasties: the Almoravids, from whom a vast empire would emerge, and the Marinids.

He would also be the Berber of the Masmuda tribe, from which the great Almohad dynasty would flourish — a power whose reach would reunite all the original territories of its Proto-Mediterranean ancestor.

The mosaic of a borderless story

The Berber — the Amazigh of ancient times — would not only unfold through tribes, peoples, cities and kingdoms. He would also give rise to many powerful and radiant figures, whose names would be engraved on the pages of a borderless story, truly shared by all of North Africa.

He would be Sheshonq I, Pharaoh of Egypt in 950 BC and founder of the 22nd Dynasty; the famous King Massinissa, who contributed to Rome’s victory over Carthage in 202 BC; and also Jugurtha, king of Numidia, Juba II, Ptolemy of Mauretania and Masuna, king of the Kingdom of the Moors and Romans at the beginning of the 6th century.

Over the centuries, the Berber would carry countless destinies: that of Dihya, the Zenata Berber queen; that of Tin Hinan, born in Tafilalet and queen of the Tuareg of Hoggar; that of Augustin, bishop of Hippo; Arius, priest of Alexandria; Donatus Magnus, bishop of Africa; Tertullian, Father of the Church of Rome; and Macrinus, Diadumenian, Caracalla and Aemilian, all Roman emperors.

He becomes Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Umayyad general who set out to conquer the Iberian Peninsula in 711. He travels through unknown lands under the name of Ibn Battuta, one of the greatest explorers of the Middle Ages.

He expresses his thirst for freedom under the names of Lalla Fadhma N’Soumer, Abdelkrim el-Khattabi and Assou Oubasslam, military leader of the Moroccan resistance to French colonialism.

He develops all his talents in the figures of Mohand Ou Lhocine, Kabyle poet and mystic; Si Mohand Ou Mhand; Muhammad Awzal; the Algerian writer Kateb Yacine; Mohamed Choukri; Mouloud Mammeri; Jean Amrouche; the singer Idir — and so many others, men and women of every time and every land, crossed and brought together by this unfathomable, unalterable thread of Amazigh origin.

The conclusion is unequivocal: on these lands of North Africa, from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean, the Berber stands at the heart of the history unfolding there. He has been both the ink and the paper of a story without author and without title. And yet his spirit remains present and alive, proud and free, where he settled, took root, and then became a tree of existences, 9,000 years ago.

Read also: The Lost Destiny of the Jews of South-Eastern Morocco

Read also: Tin Hinan, the legendary berber queen of the Tuareg

The post Our ancestors, the Berbers… appeared first on Southeast-morocco.com.