Once you pass through the arched gate of Boujeloud, with its green and blue mirrors, the minaret of Bounaniya rises out of the dense urban fabric of the medina’s northern neighborhood. While trapped in the bewildering mass of bricks and lime surrounding the gate, you wonder how you will reach this spectacular fourteenth--century minaret. Turning slightly to the right at your first chance of finding a passage to Talaa Kbira, the main thoroughfare, a vibrant market street bestows its sensory gifts: shops smoking with barbecue, sweet smelling incense, the visual display of crafted babouche slippers and multi-colored Moroccan olives.
This sensual reception alerts you to the fact that you are in an unprecedented urban play, where the pedestrian holds sway, and every street is tailored to fit the silhouette of the human body. Suddenly, on reaching a knot in this long serpentine street, your eye is caught by a spot where the shops come to a halt. You find yourself before the ornamentally covered gate of the Bounaniya medersa.
Standing in front of this cooper-plated gate, your eye observes the rays of light permeating the immense courtyard of one of the most beautiful medersas built in Morocco by the Merinid sultans. Climbing up an exquisite staircase, insinuating your body through a latticed wooden second door, your main experience of discovery begins: a grand geometrical void embraces body and soul, transposing them to a heavenly paradise. It is a crystal realm of a thousand diamonds; a universe made out of tiny geometric pieces and motifs. Symmetry, linearity, and unity govern the physical materials, melting their rigidity into a vibrant environment for the spirit.
Why this sudden shift from external disorder to internal order? If the medina, as some maintain, is random and unplanned, what ignited the minds of the craftsmen to create such an interior world of extreme order? Clearly, these same craftsmen were not incapable of designing a whole medina as a circle or a triangle. Rather, something is going on here that we must struggle to understand. This is a considered construction, where the wall, the street, the gate, the neighborhood, and the house form the vocabulary of an unusual language. To decipher its messages and hidden meanings, we must first perceive its intrinsic genius. The medina is a human hive, the intricate neural system of an urban organism.This organism contains multidimensional spaces, whose function is not determined by a pre-established plan. Movement, human contact, and a sustainability shaped by ethical ideals provide the momentum for this unusual urban system. Although the buildings overlap and are densely juxtaposed, the resident or visitor is spared from disturbance in keeping with the important Islamic principal of community foundation: La darara wala dhirar, “do not cause harm or allow harming.” As Fez matured as a city, scholars and judges came to describe the conduct of its inhabitants in terms of “Ahkam ahl Fas,” the rules of the community of Fez. Whenever conflicts arose, these rules provided a reference for court decisions. A community that embraced spiritual and moral values over centuries of practice and self-discipline reached a high stage of cultural development.
In an era of worldwide transformations wrought by leaders like Charlemagne, Basil I the Macedonian, Louis the Pious, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Kenneth I of Scotland, and the Indian ruler Amoghavarsha, Idris II followed in the footsteps of his father in building the first Islamic dynasty in al-Maghrib al-Aqsa (Morocco), and undertook the task of erecting its capital. Leaving the little town of Zerhoun near the Roman city of Volubilis, the younger Idris sought a new geographical location that would meet the needs of his growing community.
The new city should embody the saintly image of a ruler, who was also a sharif, a descendant of the prophet. This symbolic dimension is echoed in Idris’s prayer launching the construction of Fez.
Almighty God, surely You know that in founding this city I have not sought vainglory, or pride, or dissimulation, or renown, or arrogance. Rather, I have sought that therein You would be worshiped, Your Book always recited and Your laws and Your Prophet’s tradition always observed as long as You shall preserve them…
Idris’s supplication resonates throughout time, and its intention has been realized. Fez became a vibrant spiritual environment, whose main anchor has been the Qarawiyin University and its congregational mosque. Built by a pious woman, Fatima al-Fihriya, the university has always remained a source of inspiration and education for the Fez community, and has never surrendered to the will of a ruler. Many saints and pious scholars emerged from its womb. The teachings of the Qarawiyin and the continuous influence of its scholars have molded the spirit of Fez.
The spirit of Fez is a tangible and intangible power of emanation. It is the power of contemplation and meditation. One cannot pass through the alleys of the medina without being caught by its spiritual symbols. Hundreds of minarets serve as neighborhood hubs, numerous shrines witness the presence of saints, Zawiyas introduce paths of Sufism, and madrassas disseminate knowledge. Together these form the spiritual core of the city.
In contrast with other Islamic cities in the Maghreb and near East that were built for military or commercial ends, Fez was constructed for the purpose of disseminating sacred knowledge. Its site was carefully selected for an abundance of springs, rivers, and fertile terrains. Protected by the Atlas mountains from the Saharan climate, oriented toward the Atlantic Ocean, enfolded by a series of hills, and situated in the midst of a vast agricultural territory, Fez, since its birth, has been an ideal site for a sustainable human presence.
According to Ibn Khaldun, Fez provided a balanced environment, a built community, and the economic wealth that led to an urban equilibrium, al-Umran. These are the conditions needed to foster spiritual and mystical practices and teachings. When equilibrium is established between economic wealth and spiritual knowledge, the members of a community are able to achieve a high level of adab, individual and community conduct. Thus, Fez offered an urban context that molded its inhabitants’ suluk, manners. This was achieved not only through the teachings of its scholars and saints, but also by means of its physical layout.You face an alley (derb) that seems to be a suffocating cul-de-sac. But if you carefully watch its impact on human behavior, you will see something amazing. The narrow alley with its austere facades places the human body at its center. There is no escaping human contact in the derbs of Fez, where shoulders touch each other, and where it is unthinkable to pass another person without saying: assalamu alaykum (peace be upon you). There is no place for anonymity. Two enemies cannot reside on the same derb.
This reflects the subtlety of an urban fabric that guides and educates its users, a tool mirroring the adab. Streets in Fez, with their varying widths, have a distinct function beyond their role of connecting neighborhoods and channeling traffic. The width dictates a specific behavior: the more narrow the street, the more one advances into private domains. Walking from a main thoroughfare into a residential neighborhood, the narrowness of the street alerts you to be careful about making noise, infringing on the privacy of others, or disturbing the tranquility of a peaceful corner. The same ideal applies to other activities. There is a clear-cut separation between noisy commercial and artisanal districts and residential ones, where the house is a sacred space, and the life of the family prevails. Each one is a microcosm, sustained by the macrocosm of the entire city. The house is more sacred than the mosque: it is the realm of peacefulness, serenity, calm, and meditation. It is not surprising that the houses of Fez took on the attributes of a paradisical garden, a riyad.
The house is equal to the mosque in its sacredness and holiness. It is a place of worship and mysticism. The creation of the human race started with Adam and Eden, and the house is still the shelter of procreation and nurturing. It is a sacred place for human self-cultivation, a retreat from all the distractions of the city, and a school for all the virtues. The spirit of the house participates in and shapes the spirit of the city.
Choosing the location of a house in Fez was a delicate matter. Following a local saying, al-jar qabla ddar (one should choose a neighbor before choosing a house), the quality of one’s neighbors was important for the establishment of an ideal home. Thus, people in Fez competed to live next to the house of a pious scholar (alim) so that they could receive its good influence and adab for themselves and their children. The spiritual ideal was found not only inside a mosque, but also in daily life in the home.
The pious scholars of the Qarawiyin were part of the community. They were not priests separated from the people, but human beings endowed with deeply admired moral and spiritual knowledge. Their frequent interaction with laymen increased the level of education and moral discipline in the city. The Qarawiyin’s circles of knowledge were open to community members, and they deeply influenced the level of consciousness of Ahl Fas. While walking around the complex of the Qarawiyin, one perceives that the shops are firmly joined to it. Shopkeepers have long competed to be close to the Qarawiyin in order to perform their five daily prayers. Being nearby, they could return immediately to their trade, and had the opportunity to attend the numerous teaching sessions conducted by eminent scholars. In his own way, the Fassi shopkeeper became a graduate of the prestigious Qarawiyin University.
The spirit of Fez was also profoundly shaped by the influence of Moorish art and expertise. The spiritual purpose of Idris could not be realized without living knowledge and tangible crafted symbols created by all the arts practiced in Fez. Andalusian philosophy also had a great impact on shaping the city’s social and cultural fabric. The Almoravid and Almohad dynasties made Morocco the first western Muslim empire that stretched into Europe. The encounter between Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in Muslim Spain had a major impact on shaping of the intellect of both modern Europe and Morocco. The memory of Fez is a universal memory.
Under the Almoravids and Almohads, the art of living and craftsmanship developed its own characteristics distinct from those much further to the east. Intellectual development also took a different path. While the Maghrebi and Andalusian schools sought to use rational argument and intellect in religious and secular matters, the Middle Eastern school pursued the path of absolute religious law.
The western Islamic school was represented by prominent scholars, who had a tremendous impact on the European Renaissance. In the period between the defeat of the Almohads in Spain by the Reconquista in 1212 C.E. until the complete withdrawal of Muslims from Spain in 1492 C.E., Fez was a North African center of cultural exchange. As it espoused the Moorish style of arts and gradually distinguished itself from the traditions of the Middle East, Fez exemplified the cities developed in the periphery of the Muslim world. This periphery proved to be an ideal environment for the integration of different cultural, ethnic, and geographical features. Thanks to contributions from this wider world, Islamic art reached its apogee.
Fez became a great city of Western Islam as early as twelfth century. Written testimonies of that period express admiration for the rapid growth of Fez. The geographer, al-Idrisi, offers an exhaustive description of twelfth-century Fez.
The madina of Fez encompasses a large numbers of houses, palaces, and workshops. Its inhabitants are industrious and their architecture has, as their industry, a sense of nobleness. It is bestowed in abundance with all kinds of crafts: its wheat market is better than any of its neighboring areas, and its production of fruits is substantial . . . Fez is the central point of the western Maghrib. . .
At about the same time, an anonymous writer of a manuscript entitled: al-Istibsar also praises the city:
Fez is the hub of the Maghrib may God save it. It is the capital of the region stretching from the Maghrib to Egypt. . . Fez has currently attained its highest level of urbanization and organization…
Fez became a crossroad of all the arts, trades, and peoples, as caravans connected the Saharan lands with the North of Morocco and with Spain. Fez was the meeting place of two contrasting cultures: the nomadic culture of the Sahara, and the sophisticated urban culture of the North. The encounter of these two realms generated its own energy. Although Fez is an urban site with all the characteristics of a city, its spirit is also Saharan and nomadic. This does not mean that it is under-civilized; just the opposite is true: nomads brought to the city many of their human qualities, including generosity, sincerity, dignity, character, and spirituality.
How does a nomad acquire such qualities? The Sahara has always been a harsh milieu, but it is also a source of many virtues. The vacant sands, open vistas with an infinite horizon, the meeting of the blue sky and the land, and the immense void all cultivate a strong sense of contemplation, meditation, and admiration of life. The nomad is in a permanent mobility, seeking water and vegetation. This mobility makes tangible possessions a burden, and provides little opportunity for nomads to erect palaces or store heavy gold objects. The nomad’s treasure consists of enduring qualities of character and intense spirituality.
How does a nomadic tent become a sophisticated house in Fez? Odd as it sounds, the tent and the Fassi daar share many hidden symbolic elements. When one visits a tribal cluster of tents in the desert, it resembles a cohesive community neighborhood in the medina. The tent shelters a close neighbor and tribal member, while the house is an integral unit of a small neighborhood. The impulse to create urban neighborhoods stems from the nomads’ need to group together to optimize the sources of life. Fez’s residential districts also arise from a tribal instinct. This is shown by the settlement of different tribes or rural communities within specific neighborhoods according to their geographic origin in different parts of Morocco. This need for human closeness and identity are manifested in territorial neighborhoods with a strong sense of belonging.
Nomadic roots penetrate Fez. Intangible nomadic virtues are embodied materially in sophisticated crafts, creating a physical realm that goes beyond a mere wall, door, or arch to form unique poetic and spiritual spaces. The city substitutes for the oasis; the man-made oasis replaces the divinely made one. The green city of Fez became throughout history the sacred oasis of Morocco, a place where all the virtues could be cultivated. The medina of Fez embodies the power of the Sahara.
Just as Fez crystallized the intangible spiritual values of nomadic civilization, it expressed other Islamic values through the tangible crafts of al-Andalus. The spirit of Fez is the spirit of an Islamic civilization that did not deny the genius of other faiths and cultures. The capacity of integrating elements of different cultures without rejecting them as “non-Islamic,” opened unlimited paths to the Muslim. Many examples illustrate this remarkable openness. The Bouinaniya madrassa’s main hall of prayers is supported by Greco-Roman marble pillars. The Corinthian capital was utilized as a highly proportional aesthetic element, regardless of its political or cultural connotations, in order to lend majesty to the sacred hall of a mosque. Thus, the adjective “Islamic” does not have a narrow meaning. What is beautiful is universal.
In the same Madrassa, the central stained-glass arched window above the mihrab provides another example. This window is distinct from the other windows in the hall. It replicates a Shammasya, a pierced stucco arabesque filtering rays of light to the inside. But it also uses a stained-glass technique borrowed from Christian churches, although here calligraphic script containing a Quranic verse replaces the usual icon or figure. The medium is the same, but the spiritual content is altered. At the same time, there is a shared impulse to utilize a window filled with light to adorn a sacred place. The essential point is that innovation needs catalysts to bring ideas to fruition. Emulation is not the same as copying. It involves seeking endless possibilities in the new and extraordinary. The use of a Christian element does not make the mosque a church. Instead it reveals the constantly self-transcending nature of the human spiritual human quest. A window becomes a source of inspiration by using the natural light that shines on all creatures. What makes a church or a mosque a sacred zone is not a window in some form, but rather light, the divine creation.
It is the same with water as with light. The fountain is only a way to honor the divine creation. It is not an end in itself, and when there is no water pouring from its spigots, it appears to be dead. The nomad appreciates water as a lifesaving element. In Fez, water is treated with highest respect in accordance with the Quranic verse: “We have made everything alive out of water.” The fountains in Fez are highly decorated. The public fountain of Mulay Hassan in the Tala’a Kbira shows the way in which a spring of water becomes a visual spectacle for the passerby. Since the tenth century, the medina has been equipped with a sophisticated water distribution network. All types of water are channeled and conducted through the intricate urban fabric: rain water, spring water, river waters, and the water of the sewers. As a medium of spiritual purification, wudu’, water has a particular symbolism in the medina. The energy of water is magnified in Fez through its sloping site, which creates all kinds of flows, streams, and falls. The more movement of water there is, the more greenery flourishes in the central courtyards and gardens of the houses and palaces. Water is hence the hidden spirit of Fez.
To be continued
Text and Photos by Hassan Radoine
© Copyright Hassan Radoine
