Fez is an ancient city. By browsing, you can easily get carried away throughout its history, thanks to its many mosques, madrasahs, fondouks, fountains and ablution facilities, historic gardens and ramparts, fortified gates, Mellah and synagogues, factories, mausoleums, palaces and riads, squares and souks. From Idrissid to the Alawites, Andalusian Jews, all the dynasties and all peoples have left their mark on the city. In recent years many buildings have been restored, as madrasa El- Attarine Madrasah Bou -Inania ( fourteenth century), the Magana ( a single hydraulic clock in the world) and the library of the mosque Quaraouiyine. The latter has very few manuscripts by famous scholars like Ibn Rushd ( Averroes ) and Ibn Khaldun. Called "green buildings " Batha Palace Gardens, built in the nineteenth century by the Alawite Sultan Moulay Hassan I and that of Riad Moqri dating from the early twentieth century found their vegetation. Today the medina is the main center of attraction. Centers of contemporary cultures are lacking. However, some cultural centers and galleries are emerging : the Municipal Cultural Centre Agdal (near Florence Place ) has an auditorium and an exhibition gallery, Mohammed Kacimi Gallery.
The medina is a dynamic space. This is not only a historical center reserved for bazaars and tourists, it is also an important economic center. Fez is one of the most important economic cities United, including the second industrial city and yet a large part of its economic activities is concentrated in the medina. These are essentially art industries. It may, chiseled copper, silverware, ceramics, silk weaving and embroidery quote as main branch of the craft carpentry with sculpture and painting on wood wrought iron. All these trades are held in tiny workshops or in shops where artisans use, mostly dated equipment. Regarding the corporation ceramicists, we find that many workshops do more efforts on making their enamels and care to be taken during cooking. On the one hand, the formula pilot workshop adopted in time by the administration, enabled craftsmen to maintain their skills and improve their production and, secondly, the extent of royal commissions recent decades has resulted in the prosperity of certain sectors, including crafts architectural decoration.
The medina of Fez was built on land where water from several sources and branches of a regular river ( Oued Fez ), in a situation of intersection between different destinations north-south and east-west. Abound This strategic position allows the site to control the mouth of the corridor Taza, forced between the Atlantic plains west passage and the rest of the Maghreb or the East to the east.
The first nucleus of the city known as Fez al Bali, was founded by Idris 1st in 172H / 789 AD on the right bank of the Oued Fez at the location of said district Andalusians. This name comes from the first settlement of the city, in addition to Aboriginal families receiving Andalusian refugees after the famous riot in the suburb of Cordoba occurred in August 817-818.
In 908-9, the son of Idris I founded a new city on the left bank of the Oued Fez, exactly opposite the Andalusian district , location of district Kairouan . This name comes , for its part, the arrival originating in this city in lfriqya ( now Tunisia ) families. The city was surrounded by a wall pierced with six gates and a mosque . In the city opposite, Idriss He also built an enclosure, a mosque , a palace and a market.
In 857, a woman named Fatima al Fihriya built in the district on the left bank Karaouyine mosque became the largest sanctuary in the city. It will be enlarged by the Almoravid Yusuf ibn Tachefin (1060-1106) who took the city in 1069, just as it unifies the city originally divided into two neighborhoods, destroyed the walls that separated the two and creates a revival of economic life by building foundouqs ( inns ), bathroom and mills.
In 1143, after a siege of nine months, Fez is occupied by the Almohads ( 1130-1269 ). Behind its walls, the city organizes : Marrakech as it has its places of worship, trade, its water supply, its corporations, its aristocracy, etc. ..
With Marinids who conquered the middle of Xlllth century, Fez became the capital of Morocco and knows its golden age . Their first great ruler, Abu Youssef Yacoub (1258-1286) founded Fez Jdid ( la Neuve ) in 1276, immediately west of the city, strengthens a powerful speaker, the dowry of a large mosque, neighborhoods residential, palaces ( missing ) gardens. The Fourteenth Century, a Jewish neighborhood, the first Mellah in Morocco, came to add to the new foundation. But Marinids ahead especially as builders madrasas, these features Colleges size and decor, rivaling beauty and symmetry organized around a patio porch more or less wide whose center is occupied by a basin a basin.
To protect the growing Jewish population, the Sultan Moulay Yacoub installs the Jews in the new city he built Eljdid Fes, in the shadow of his palace. Fez becomes an important center of Jewish learning and a nursery rabbis. This situation is slowly deteriorating and in 1391 during a wave of persecution that fell on the Jews of Spain, most refugees will prefer Algeria Morocco. The first area reserved for Jews is based in Fez at that time in a reserved trade in salt or the name given zone: Mellah.
The largest Jewish quarter in Morocco is that of Fez, which was the first separate dailleurs Jewish Quarter history of Morocco and date of 1438. At this time of fanaticism encouraged by the Almohad dynasty, Sultan, eager to protect the Jewish population of the city, built for them an area reserved for Fes el Jadid near the royal palace. The origin of the word Mellah is not clear: the location of the Jewish quarter was located on a salt land, so uncultured. According to another interpretation, apparently more plausible, the Jews were responsible for the unappealing task of salt the decapitated heads of protesters and other rebels against the regime before which are exposed on the market place ... Whatever the origin of this name, it quickly spread to all the Jewish neighborhoods of the cities of Morocco.
MUSEUM BATHA
Royal palace for audience raised by Moulay Hassan 1st and completed in 1897 under Moulay Abdelaziz. This building, rehabilitated since 1915 art and traditions that offers exposures to Fassi art museum, part of the Riyadh-type houses (house garden) which experienced a great flowering in Fez in the late nineteenth century. and early twentieth century.
This museum "native arts", so called at the time of its creation, admirable features traditional art from Fez collections: wood carvings, brassware, zellij, forged or carved plaster irons, decorative materials within the scope of Art: embroidery, carpets, jewelery and coins compete interest.
But the highlight of the museum is in the pottery room. The most beautiful Moroccan ceramics are due to Fassi art. Specialized in this technique since the 10th century, craftsmen invented the famous "Blue Fez" obtained from cobalt. Background or white enamel accented colors, stylized floral motifs are emerging as learned as harmonious interlacing.
A must see: astrolabes, these astronomical instruments perfected by Arabs scholars as mysterious as fetishes and as beautiful as jewelry.
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