By Khaled Diab

The Kotobiya Mosque

©K. Maes and K. Diab

Part I: No Moor blues

Part III: ‘Little picture’ spoilt by the movies

After a couple of days of idling around in Agadir, we were glad to be sitting on the coach making our way to the commotion of Marrakech, the dusty ‘pearl of Morocco’s south’. On the bus, there were several ‘European Moroccans’ speaking their other language – Norwegian, Dutch, etc. – so that the locals on the bus wouldn’t understand them.

A shift in the colour spectrum told us that we had entered Marrakech. Every single building is painted the city’s trademark ochre red and the old city has an intact wall surrounding it, giving it, despite the traffic, a mysterious medieval feel. I found it impressive that, in Morocco, towns large and small are still enclosed in masonry.

Marrakech’s main square, Djemaa el-Fna, is, on its own, about the size of a village. It is a nocturnal place. As the sun disappears ehind the buildings turning their fading red paintwork into a glowing and warm orange, the plaza bursts into vigorous life, with thousands of people milling and spilling and thrilling in every direction.

We arrived at the square just as the twilight rush was getting into full swing.

With no designated road or pavement, people, cars and motorbikes weave around one another deftly and sometimes death-defyingly. Having finished their work, most people are in chatty spirits, including a group of scooter-mounted young women cruising along at a leisurely pace.

The world-famous Kotobiya Mosque, with its 70-m high cuboid-shaped minaret, stood at the far-end of the square. Although the structure is large, it is not as big or as imposing as we had expected. In fact, the Marrakech skyline, unlike Cairo or Istanbul, is almost bereft minarets. In fact, it is surprisingly low-lying, with no buildings rising above a few storeys. This gives the city an cosy and somewhat ageless feel.

©K. Diab

The daily army of caterers wheeled out their food stands to form an open-air warren of eateries to feed the city’s legions of al fresco diners. To distant eyes, the wafting plumes of fragrant smoke make it look like a raging fire has grabbed hold of the city centre.

One corner of the square was earmarked for fruit and nuts, with stalls piling up their colourful wares as alluringly as possible, while vendors invited passers-by to savour their goods. Men in bizarre sombreros and brightly coloured outfits wondered around offering tourists the chance to capture their image for posterity.

People crowded around dancers and musicians. The snake charmers were a particular hit amongst foreign tourists as was a baffling game of coke bottle fishing. Meanwhile, locals settled down to hear exciting tales of daring-do, valiant saints and prudent wise men told by traditional story-tellers. We wanted to lend the weaver of yarns our ears but the surrounding, compounded by his confounding dialect, meant we often got lost out one or other of the bends in the tale.

The surrounding rooftops, and there are no shortage of rooftop cafes in Marrakech, afford a bird’s eye perspective of the manic motion on the square beneath. It is a good idea, after wandering around, to get away from it all and rise above the occasion with a glass of sweet mint tea.

Photo: K. Maes/ K. Diab

In the labyrinth

Our second day in Marrakech was spent taking in the historic sights and the souq. We tried to track down a number of well-hidden mosques most of which we eventually found in the maze of the market. The Almoravid cistern – one of the few remaining artefacts from that lost period which was not erased by the puritanical and intolerant Almohads – gave an indication of the architectural accomplishment and simple elegance of the age.

Near the cistern is the privately run Marrakech Museum which is housed in a 19^th century riad. In the central hall hangs a giant brass chandelier. We also visited a madrasa which had been poorly renovated and the new plaster was already beginning to crack.

We did some mosque-hopping, but, since Katleen was not allowed into any of them, it became a little tedious. At one mosque where I took a discreet photo of the sun-filled and silence-drenched courtyard, an old and frail-looking man sitting in a corner beckoned me over.

“Are you a Muslim?” he inquired suspiciously.

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

“Where are you from?”

“Egypt.”

Photo: ©K. Diab

He nodded knowingly and then fell silent. I waited for a second to see if he had any interest in continuing the conversation, then I went back outside onto the busy street.

The Saadian cemetery is home to over 100 royal tombs from the Saadian Dynasty, which lasted from the mid-16^th to the mid-17^th century. Each tomb is decorated with colourful and ornate mosaics.

The main chamber, with its ornate wall engravings, complex calligraphy and geometric intricacies evoked memories of the Alhambra in Granada and reminded me of how closely intertwined and related Morocco and nearby Spain actually are, even though their modern vestiges ostensibly belong to two different continents and two different faiths.

We went round the tunnel-like expanse of the cavernous souq inspecting and haggling for various items. Some parts of the market were covered, some were open air, others were in-between, covered as they were with bamboo screens that let in slicing beams of sunlight. We were tempted to invest in a beautiful table with a mosaic design but it was far too heavy to transport home and we didn’t want to have the hassle of making arrangements for its shipping.

Photo: ©K. Diab

Sephardic sights

Morocco has an ancient Jewish population which dates back to at least the dissolution of the Jewish state by the Romans around 70 AD. Jews were long an integral part of the Moroccan social landscape and even unintentionally prepared the Berber mindset to embrace Islam in later centuries.

Since the advent of Islam, Jews in Morocco were, with the exception of the puritanical al-Mohad era with its forced conversions, tolerated and prospered as tribute-paying zhimmis (protected minorities). Spanish and Portuguese Jews – aka Sephardim – began to flee persecution at the end of the 14^th century after a bloodbath in Seville. Following the fall of Granada in 1492, this flow became a flood.

Prior to the creation of Israel, there were nearly 300,000 Jews in Morocco. Then, following the partition of Palestine in 1948, the tide turned when anti-Israeli rioting killed nearly 50 Jews. That same year, 18,000 Jews migrated to the newly created state.

With the growing bitterness of the Israeli-Arab conflict, gradual immigration to Israel continued, until the number of Jews dwindled to an estimated 5-8,000 today. Nevertheless, the Jewish community still enjoys some prominence in Morocco. The king has a Jewish senior adviser, Andre Azoulay, and Jewish schools and synagogues receive government subsidies.

We wanted to see the remnants of this once thriving community. We visited the serene Jewish cemetery in Marrakech, with a Star of David and Hebrew verse on every gravestone. There were three aged Jews – two men in skullcaps and a woman – walking among the dead, and we imagined that they might be Moroccan-Israelis returned to take a trip down memory lane.

While we were taking in the scene, the caretaker of the cemetery came up to welcome us. Seeing our mix and where we were, he assumed we were Jewish. After greeting us and hearing me speak back in Arabic, he asked if we were Jews. We said, no, and he responded that only Jews were allowed in the cemetery.

Cheekily, I asked him if he were a Jew. He said that he wasn’t. “We’ll you’re here and you’re not a Jew,” I pointed out.

“That’s different,” he said defensively, “I’ve been taken care of this place for 30 years.”

I tried to explain to him that we have a cultural and historical interest and we just wanted to have a little look.

Hidden path to the temple

After the cemetery, we decided to visit the synagogue. Our guidebook warned that it was hard to find and that few tourists managed to make their way there – we managed to be one of the few.

Once we arrived in the vicinity of the temple, we began to ask locals who would point us in the right direction. After a while, they started to point us back the way we had come. After a period of toing and froing, we had narrowed the area where it should be to a few hundred metres. Just as we were about to pack in our search, a local by the name of Hamed offered to be our shepherd. Although his behaviour was a little shifty and he had the nervous energy of someone needing their next hashish fix, we decided to tag along as far as the synagogue.

Beit knesset (or house of assembly) is how a synagogue is known in Hebrew and I have often wondered whether kanisa, the Arabic word for church, is related.

Hamed stopped outside a small unmarked wooden door which we would never have found alone. He knocked on it and was let in by a woman in a headscarf who appeared to be a caretaker. He had obviously been here before. As we stood in the open courtyard, he called out to the rabbi who appeared out of one of the apartments on the second floor.

The aged cleric shuffled slowly and blindly towards us and greeted us in soft-spoken French. Rabbi David led us to the synagogue’s prayer hall which was located at the other side of the outdoor courtyard. Inside, he pointed out the various features, including the ark in which the torah is kept and the platform upon which it is read during services.

Being the head of a Jewish flock in modern-day Marrakech seemed to be a lonely affair and I wondered what would happen to this place once this old man died. After his explanation was complete, he pressed a button on his wristwatch and it told him the time in Hebrew. He explained that the synagogue was always in need of funds and that it aided local poor people, mostly Muslims. With only large denomination bills, we asked him if he had change. The blind rabbi retrieved a wad of ten dinar notes and proceeded to count out some change for us.

Part I: No Moor blues

Part III: ‘Little picture’ spoilt by the movies

ã2006 K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the copyright of Khaled Diab.