November 28, 1999
Fez Reveals Morocco's Soul
By MARLISE SIMONS
The sights, sounds and smells of this medina, perhaps the most complete medieval Arab city, take a visitor back 1,000 years
EHOLD the city of Fez as it
looked in the year 1000.
Nestled in a high valley, it was
resplendent with its domes and
minarets. Smoke rose from pottery kilns and public bath houses. There was
the banging of the metalworkers, the whirr
of the weavers, the wailing of the muezzins
as they called for prayers and drowned out
the shouts of the beggars and traders.
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Abdelhack Senna/Agence France-Presse, for The New York Times |
A door at the shrine of Moulay Idress II in Fez, which attracts pilgrims from across North and West Africa.
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Along the narrow alleys, smells oozed
from the wood-stoked bread ovens, from the
pots of lamb stew and from the hair of the
mules, lugging their loads. Down by the
river, where the tanners worked, an overwhelming fetor surged from the pigeon
dung and the fermented chaff that they used
to treat goat and camel hides.
There were some quiet spots, to be sure:
the spaces around the sacred fountains and
the halls of the mosque-university, which
was famous for its wise men, with students
flocking here from afar.
That was Fez 10 centuries ago. Remarkably, it is a description that remains valid
today. The city's astonishing chemistry of
the medina is still intact.
Over the ages, Fez has sprawled outward,
far beyond the great walls that secured it,
and in the alleys, the mules now also lug
plastic buckets and television sets. Still, the
old Fez survives, battered and declining, but
by many accounts the most complete medieval city of the Arab world.
Now Morocco's third largest city, Fez is
no longer the capital, but it still lays claim to
being the country's cultural, intellectual and
religious heart. Its medina is the most complex, with more ancient monuments, more
mosques, Koranic schools, inns and souks
than any Moroccan city.
The beauty of its
woodcarvings, tiles and pottery remain unmatched. Other towns may be selling a rich
choice of crafts, but chances are that many
come from Fez -- and better still, in this
city, you can watch the artisans make them.
Moroccans say that Marrakesh, Rabat
and Casablanca live in the present, but that
Fez lives in the past. It comes as no surprise.
European chroniclers of the Middle
Ages wrote with awe of the city that for
several centuries was the most civilized
Western outpost of the Semitic world. Its
scholars introduced astronomy and medicine to the West via Spain when it was under
Moorish rule.
Historians of the time said
that Plato and Aristotle first reached Western Europe in Arabic translations, from
Fez.
I wanted to find out why some insiders
spoke of Fez as an addiction, why they
called it not a place, but a state of mind.
Driss Laraichi, a guide and more than that,
a skilled historian and poet, said that discovering Fez would take patience, but that even
an outsider could catch a glimpse of its soul.
One fine place to start, Driss said, was the
Hotel Les Merinides. It rises above the
northern edge of the city, near the tombs of
the Merinid rulers. Though ugly and modern, the hotel has a great terrace overlooking the city, with a stone map from 1935,
which by local standards is contemporary.
The medina, which is where you want to
be, is too tightly packed to offer perspective.
But from the terrace, the old city reveals
itself as an amphitheater, embraced by
enormous walls. Opposite the main city
gates, the hillsides are studded with the
stones of age-old cemeteries and near them,
crowned with white domes, the larger tombs
of the city's numerous holy men.
There is
the sense of observing a North African
Jerusalem.
From above, you can pick out the main
mosques, the royal palace, the medersas or
colleges, the old Jewish quarter and Fez's
holiest building, the revered shrine of Moulay Idriss II. Forget the buildings for a
moment to hear a fragment of history that
is indispensable: the story of this holy man
is part of the creation of Islamic Morocco. It
was his father, Moulay Idriss I who arrived
here around 787, possibly from Baghdad, to
convert the region's Berber tribes. It is said
that he was a great grandson of the prophet
Muhammad.
Idriss I founded Fez, which
became the core of Arabic Morocco.
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Abdelhack Senna/Agence France-Presse, for The New York Times |
Craftsmen carrying a copper cauldron for cooking tagines.
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The way into the medina passes through a
bab, one of its great gates.
It can take hours
to cross this great maze of more than 600
acres (about three-quarters the size of Central Park), packed with some 250,000 people.
But the rewards are instant, for here an
intricate and grand human engine is in
perpetual motion.
Under the lattice mats that filter the sun
are street stalls selling goats' feet, entrails,
fresh cheese, quinces and piles and piles of
mint. Workshops the size of walk-in closets
hold tailors, woodcarvers, engravers,
weavers, embroiderers, calligraphers and
just about any other trade.
Professions usually cluster in the same
alley.
Here and there, weighers offer the
services of their large iron scales. You are
pressed against walls and stalls as porters
and mule drivers shout, demanding the
right of way.
Going deeper inside the labyrinth, Driss
led the way into an even earlier world, a
place of alchemists. There were men with
bellows firing the hearths for the copper
workers. A stream of blood gushed down one
passage. It turned out to be the alley of the
dyers who had just finished dunking big
skeins of silk and wool into a deep wine color
and were now emptying their vats.
We stopped at a cord maker, an acquaintance of Driss. His workshop was just a
small wooden platform, three feet off the
ground. He sat crosslegged and was tying
strands of silk around his big toe. Then he
turned and plaited these with extraordinary
patience till they became cords for prayer
beads or braids for a kaftan. He told Driss
he had done this since he was 10; he was
now 60. On a good day he could make
roughly $5.
Above his head, next to a diploma with his
name, Mohamed ben Ali Amrani, he had put
up a sign in English: "No photographs." I
asked him why.
"I am here as God's guest on earth," he
said. "The tourists were taking pictures
without even asking, as if I was an animal."
The heart of the medina and its most
important site is the great Karaouine
Mosque, which is also the nation's oldest and
one of its largest. A wealthy woman, Fatima
Alfehri, who fled from Tunisia, founded it in
859. And it was here, where the mosque with
its great library expanded into a center of
learning, well before the universities of Bologna and Oxford, that the city's intellectual
fame blossomed.
Non-Muslims may not enter this enormous building, whose 16 naves are said to
accommodate 20,000 people. But from the
alley that winds around it, they can glimpse
past its mighty doors and see its courtyards,
fountains and part of its halls.
Nearby, the shrine of Moulay Idriss II
attracts pilgrims from all over the country
and from across North and West Africa.
Again, we could look only through the open
gates at the stirring sight of supplicants
arriving at the tomb, some blind or crippled,
holding candles, delivering messages, some
prostrate in prayer, some asleep on the floor
of the mosque. From a side alley, a biblical
image suddenly appeared: a man striding
slowly with a lamb draped around his shoulders.
"A sacrifice," Driss whispered, and beckoned me to follow him. The man knocked at
a small side door. As it opened, it briefly
revealed a bloodied tile floor with other
animals -- the slaughterhouse of the
mosque, where supplicants left their gifts.
You can spend days in the medina because even the prepared mind cannot absorb all its scenes and the many tales
that make up its history. There are
numerous medieval foundouks -- the
old caravansaries or inns -- that are
now fraying bazaars and warehouses. There are the finely decorated medersas, or theological colleges,
where young men have been staying
since the Middle Ages.
The newly opened Nejjarine Museum of Wood and Carpentry, once
an 18th-century foundouk, is now
beautifully restored. Apart from its
interesting collection, it shows the
sophistication of a Fassi mansion,
with its inner courtyard, its décor of
intricate stucco, the finely carved
panels of cedar and the mosaics and
layouts of tiles.
The museum also offers one of the
medina's few points of rest, a lovely
rooftop cafe, with a view of the puzzle around you. In the Mellah, the old
Jewish quarter, the Aban Danan synagogue, dating from the 17th century
and newly restored, has a handsome
cedar ceiling and handmade green
and white tiles. The Royal Palace, on
one side of the Mellah, is strictly off
limits, but it is worth roaming
around the elegant public square.
The second day, my guide in the
medina was Fatima El Majdoubi,
who offered a different perspective.
She showed me a hammam, a public
bath for women, a sure way to delve
into the local life. This place of tepid
and hot steam rooms was filled with
the neighborhood's women and children. Upon request, hefty attendants
rub you down with brown soap and
administer sturdy massages. (Take
towels.)
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Abdelhack Senna/Agence France-Presse, for The New York Times |
Medieval vats at the tannery in Fez.
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Fatima also decoded the spice
market. It is spread out on a pretty
square, before the Maristan, built in
1268. A plaque on its wall states that
it probably served "as a model for
the first psychiatric hospital in the
Western world, opened in Valencia,
Spain, in 1410." Until the hospital
closed half a century ago, Fatima
said, musicians regularly came to
play to calm the patients. A soothing
thought, to be wrapped in music.
Outside, the stalls were loaded
with pumice, kohl and tablets of ghasoul, a shampoo made of ground
stone mixed with rose essence. We
saw the spices for Morocco's extraordinary cuisine, for its tagines,
or stews, and that great Fassi delicacy, the pastilla, or pigeon pie with
almonds. Cinnamon bark is a key
ingredient, and, so the story goes,
harem women rubbed it on their
bodies before visiting their master.
I have drawn some modest conclusions from this first visit to Fez: one
is to waste no time on the nouvelle
ville, the "modern" quarter that the
French built early this century. It is
a noisy jumble of fatigued cement,
car exhaust, cafes, hotels and villas
for the well to do. Another recommendation is to absorb as many layers as possible of the rich medina
first and set aside separate time for
shopping, perhaps at the potters' cooperatives on the edge of town, or the
Centre Artisanal, where prices are
fixed, unless you enjoy the ritual
haggling that is required in the souk.
A lovely place to end the day is on
the bar terrace of the Hotel Palais
Jamai, a 19th-century mansion set
above the medina.
There, you can
watch the evening settle over the
medieval roofs and hear the chorus
of muezzins calling for prayer.
Even in a short time, the magnetism of Fez becomes clear: Fez is
not worried about being relevant to
the modern world, or to visitors. The
old city has its rhythms of work, food
and prayer, of doors opening and
closing. It is a way of life that, as in
Venice, happens on foot.
The medina works because it exists for the local residents and Moroccans elsewhere who rely on the
city's craftsmen. The tourist is tolerated, barely noticed. The medina is
absorbed in its age-old work.
Into the medina, and the past
Getting There and Around
Royal Air Maroc, (800) 344-6726,
flies from Paris to Fez on Monday
and Friday and from Casablanca
daily. Taxis will take you anywhere
except into the medina; they will
drop you at or near a main gate. The
medina's network of alleyways can
only be explored on foot.
Hotels will arrange for a qualified
guide. Rates generally run about $25
a day or $15 a half day, at the rate of
9.7 dirham to the dollar.
Where to Stay
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Abdelhack Senna/Agence France-Presse, for The New York Times |
The Hotel Palais Jamai overlooks the medina from just inside its walls.
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Hotel Palais Jamai, Bab el Guissa,
just within the city walls, is a refurbished 19th-century palace, luxuriously appointed with local carvings
and tile work, with a pool, garden and
Moroccan restaurant.
It has 135
rooms, with doubles from $210 to
$240; (212-5) 63 43 31.
The new and comfortable Jnane
Palace, Avenue Ahmed Chaouki, in
the new part of Fez, has 243 rooms, a
pool and a large garden.
A double
costs $185; (212-5) 65 22 30.
Hotel Zalagh, 10 Rue Mohamed
Diouri, also in the new part of town,
is modern and rather plain, with 149
rooms. It has a pool, small garden
and a good view.
Doubles are $95;
(212-5) 62 55 31.
Hotel Ibis, Avenue des Almohades,
is modern but built in traditional Moroccan style. It has 125 smallish
rooms, a pool and a garden Doubles
$35; (212-5) 65 19 02.
Where to Eat
The following restaurants all serve
the classical selection of Moroccan
tagines (or stews), couscous, pastilla
or pigeon pie.
Dinner ranges from
$30 to $50 a person, including a floor
show, but not including wine, which
can run from $10 to $30.
Palais la Medina, 8 Derb Chamia
Bourajjoue Rcif, (212-5) 71 14 37.
Al Fassia, in the Hotel Palais Jamai, Bab el Guissa, (212-5) 63 43 31.
Restaurant Al Fordaous, Bab el
Guissa, (212-5) 63 43 43.
Anmbra, Route d'Imouzer, (212-5)
54 16 87.
What to See and Do
Batha Museum of Arts and Crafts,
Place du Batha, exhibits a fine range
of the region's pottery, carpets, calligraphy, embroidery and other
crafts. It is open daily from 9 a.m. to
noon and 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. Closed all
day Tuesday and Friday morning;
(212-5) 63 33 32.
Museum of Arms, Borj Nord, displays weapons from different centuries. Open daily 9 a.m. to noon and
2:30 to 6:30 p.m. Closed all day Tuesday and Friday morning; (212-5) 64
52 41.
Nejjarine Museum of Wood and
Carpentry, Place Nejjarine, Medina,
shows off Fez's renowned wood-carving tradition in fine antiques, including furniture, liturgical thrones
and everyday objects.
It is open daily
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; (212-5) 74 05 80.
