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History & Patrimony

Marrakech, history of the city

Où dormir à Marrakech?

Marrakech, history of the city - 1

Marrakech, history of the city - 2

Founded towards 1070 under the Almoravide dynasty, Marrakech, owes its creation to Abou Baker which chose the site, Youssef Ben Tachefine which transforms a nomads camping into a fortified place called Qsar Al Hajar, and to Ali Ben Youssef which towards 1162 builds a palace and equips the town with public buildings, mosques, oratories, fountains... of a great architectural and decorative richness marked by the Andalusian influence.

Marrakech, history of the city - 3

In 1147, under the impulse of the Almohades and the Calif Abdelmoumen Ben Ali, Marrakech becomes the capital of a vast empire. It is a period of ostentation, Marrakech increases and urbanizes: construction of the royal district of the Kasbah, the Koutoubia great mosque. By this work Marrakech becomes a true imperial city with multiple functions: political and military, intellectual and spiritual, commercial and artisan, vast crossroad of the south in constant relationship with the Sahara,

Andalusia and the Maghreb.

The arrival to power of the Saadian dynasty towards the second half of the XVI century enabled Marrakech to regain its row of capital.
From 1557 to 1574 Abdallah Al Ghalib, the greatest builder of the dynasty undertook the rehabilitation of the water supply systems and built new buildings and districts and deeply refitted the Kasbah which re-emerged from its ruins. Between 1562 and 1573, Ahmed El Mansour builds the fabulous palace El Badia and the dynastic necropolis, the district of the Ben Youssef great mosque and the complexes el Mouassine.

In 1669, the Alaouite sovereign Moulay Rachid makes of Marrakesh one of his residences with Fez, and it is only during the reign of Sidi Mohammed (1757-1790) that Marrakech recovers its vitality and its importance with the construction of new buildings and districts…
The following centuries will bring little modifications to the city which will keep the aspect inherited from the reign of Moulay Abdellah.

In 1912, El Hiba, head of the southern resistance to the French penetration, seizes the city before undertaking his walk towards the North; but to 35 km to the North of Marrakech, his army was demolished by the troops of colonel Mangin: the French took advantage from the complicity of the pasha of Marrakesh (El Glaoui), which starts gathering fortune and power in the shade of the Protectorate... In 1953, El Glaoui will even foment a plot against the future Mohamed V (first king after the independence of Morocco), which will fail.

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