By the time our bus delivered us to our hotel in Marrakesh, on the evening of November 14, 2017, it was already too late, and we were too exhausted, to do anything except eat dinner and retire to our rooms. Our schedule for the following day, November 15, was quite full and left us no free time to go exploring on our own, except late that night. There was also a little time for free-lance discovery on the morning of November 16, after visiting the Jardin Majorelle. I took advantage of these brief opportunities, but they were limited mostly to scenes of the immediate area around our hotel and a few candid street shots from the bus while en route to and from the hotel. Although I shot these photos toward the end of our stay in Marrakesh, they are more suitable for an introduction than a conclusion, so – following a brief preface on the history and character of the city – I’ll begin with them and save the epic adventures of the following two days for the next few posts.
Marrakesh, now the fourth-largest city in Morocco, was founded around 1070 by the Almoravids, a Berber dynasty seeking to reform Islam. With Marrakesh as their capital, they expanded north and created an empire which eventually embraced not only most of the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) but also al-Andalus, the Muslim-ruled territory in Iberia. For a time they brought to a halt the Christian reconquest of the peninsula, but their hegemony did not last long. Their decline began in the early 12th century and eventually they were overthrown by a rival Berber group, the Almohads, who captured Marrakesh in 1147 and went on to take over the Almoravid dominions in both the Maghreb and the Iberian peninsula.
Marrakesh grew rapidly under both the Almoravids and the Almohads and established itself as a cultural, religious, and trading center for the Maghreb. In the thirteenth century, the Almohads were in turn overthrown by another Berber dynasty, the Marinids, who made their capital at Fes. This led to a period of relative decline for Marrakesh, though it remained important.
In the 16th century Marrakesh regained its status as capital with the rise to power of the Saadian dynasty, which initiated a renaissance in the city by renovating the monuments left by its predecessors and building new ones of its own.
In the 17th century, a new dynasty, the Alawis, came to power and took Marrakesh in 1668. Although the Alawi rulers frequently moved their capital from one city to another – Fes, Meknes and Rabat as well as Marrakesh – and finally settled on Rabat, Marrakesh continued to thrive.
In the 19th century, France established an empire in North Africa, conquering Algeria outright and imposing a protectorate upon Tunisia. The French also had their eyes on Morocco, as did the Spanish, who established spheres of influence in far northern and southern Morocco, while the French focused on the areas in between, which included Fes and Marrakesh. Hassan I, the Sultan of Morocco from 1873 to 1894, undertook serious military and administrative reforms and was thereby fairly successful in resisting foreign encroachments, but the situation changed after his death. His son and successor, Moulay Abd al-Aziz, was only 16 and thus came under the aegis of Hassan’s Grand Wazir, Aḥmad bin Mūsa bin Aḥmad al-Sharqī al-Bukhārī, known as Ba Ahmed, who secured the succession of Abd al-Aziz and ruled more or less capably until he himself died in 1900. Ba Ahmed’s father, who was also Grand Wazir, began the Palais Bahia in Marrakesh, but it was mostly Ba Ahmed himself who was responsible for its construction. I’ll have more to say about this in my next post.
After Ba Ahmed’s death in 1900, Abd al-Aziz assumed full control of the government but quickly found himself in a deteriorating situation, having to contend both with accelerating foreign encroachments and serious domestic unrest. Increasing disorder eventually led to full-scale military invasion. Abd al-Aziz was replaced in 1908 by his elder brother Abd al-Hafid, previously viceroy of Marrakesh, but he proved no more able to manage the situation. With the Treaty of Fes in 1912 France turned its sphere of influence into a formal protectorate, and Spain quickly followed suit. Abd al-Hafid was in turn replaced as sultan by another son of Hassan I, Yusef ben Hassan, who however was little more than a figurehead; the French Resident-General, the same General Hubert Lyautey who had led the French invasion forces, had total control over foreign policy and primary control over internal affairs, with the Sultan retaining some authority in the domestic sphere, especially over religious matters.
Moroccan resistance to foreign domination did not cease with the establishment of the protectorates; it continued to fester and erupt in various places and forms, until finally, after World War II, with colonialism on the retreat everywhere, the Kingdom of Morocco regained its full sovereignty. Since then, the country has established strong ties with the outside world, both Islamic and Western, and the government has promoted tourism enthusiastically – an effort which has especially benefited Marrakesh, now the #1 tourist destination in Morocco.
It was immediately evident upon our arrival why Marrakesh is nicknamed the “Red City.” Both old and new structures are overwhelmingly tinted in various shades of rose-red. There is no mystery as to why: the city is situated in a region rich in materials of high iron oxide content, such as red sandstone, which have a strong reddish tint, and these locally sourced substances impart their earthy tones to the structures in which they are used, as they have been for many centuries.
The builders of the Marrakesh city walls used a technique called pisé, a type of rammed-earth construction in which a mixture of earth, water and other materials is compacted within a framework of wooden boards. It is an ancient, durable and sustainable form of construction particularly suited to dry climates, and has been used in Marrakesh down to modern times. A similar type of construction has been extensively used here in America – it is called adobe.
Our hotel, called Le Meridien N’Fis, was situated not far outside the old walls, on Boulevard Mohammed VI near the corner of Rue Moulay Rachid, about 3 km south-west of the Marrakesh Medina. Across the boulevard was a major ultra-modern mall, the Menara, and south of Moulay Rachid were two large parks. It was hard to get a good photo of the hotel because of the vegetation surrounding it, which blocked the view. I couldn’t seem to find a vantage point that didn’t have a large palm tree blocking the view.
On our second evening in Marrakesh, not being ready to fall asleep yet, I went for an after-dinner walk in the hotel vicinity with my Canon EOS-6D and took some pictures of the area. I was surprised to find that after dark this part of Marrakesh felt more like a city in the southwestern USA at Christmas time than an Islamic country in Africa. The Menara Mall across the boulevard from the hotel reminded me in particular of malls in Los Angeles or Las Vegas. To enhance the holiday atmosphere, the street lights were festooned with something that looked like Christmas decorations.
The parks south of the hotel sprouted light sculptures in a form that appeared to mimic Christmas trees. I doubt whether the local inhabitants thought of them as such, but they nevertheless made a comforting contribution to the ambience of the place.
This brief pictorial introduction to Marrakesh highlights the modern aspect of the city; in the next post, we’ll begin to delve into the remarkable legacy of its past.