| History & Patrimony |
| Fez, presentation of the city |
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| The oldest imperial city, Fez (1 million inhabitants) is the symbolic heart and the cultural capital of Morocco. |
Cradle of a millennium monarchy, Fez was also for a long time the political capital of the Sherifs Empire.
It is in 789, that Idriss Ist, founder of the first imperial dynasty of the country, establishes a small Berber city on the right bank of the wadi. In 809, his son Idriss II, raised in his turn, on the other side of the river, a genuine Muslim city, with its royal palace, its mosque, its channels and its walls.
In 817, fleeing from Cordoba, 8000 Muslim Andalusian families driven |
out by the Omeyades, settled in Fez; a little later, Arabs from Kairouan (Tunisia) came also to seek refuge in there. Jews were also established in great number. All these populations brought their religious, cultural and architectural inheritance, creating thus the bases of the greatness of the city.
With the arrival of the Almoravides in 1070, which reigned 80 years on the city, it was the beginning of the golden age: the two cities joined together in the same enclosure and became the second city of the country, after Marrakesh (founded by them at the same period).
With the Almohades in the XIIth and XIIIth century, Fez became a large religious and intellectual city (the Karaouine mosque and university).
Under the Merinides, in the XIVth century, Fez becomes on the head of a vast empire and reached its apogee (with the flowering of sumptuous residences, mosques, and medersas hosting the students attracted by the reputation of the university).
Then, after a certain decline under the reign of the Saadians (which opted for Marrakesh as a capital) and of the Alaouites (which forsook the city for Meknes), the sultans came back to reside in it in order to maintain their authority over the North of the country.
In the XIXth century, the city preserved an immense prestige and its old Karaouine University shines on the Muslim world (it continues to provide to the Government with many of its executives). The tradesmen from Fez acquired a great reputation and constituted an influential businesses middle-class.
However, with the arrival of the XX century, overpowered by economic and political difficulties (Fez, readily revolted, is often in conflict with the sultan), dissatisfaction is general, the revolt is everywhere and the authority is overflowed. In 1911, Fez is invested by Berber tribes and the sultan has to call upon the French troops to save his throne; the following year, the treaty of Fez will be signed and little after the arrival of Lyautey, the new sultan leaves the millennium city for Rabat: Fez is no longer the capital of Morocco. |
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