Oujda, the Oriental beauty
BEARING the traces of a long history, the city of Oujda is a very old land of settlement and passage. Because of its strategic position, the city has always been coveted and has had a turbulent history. It was destroyed and then rebuilt several times due to the continual wars that ravaged the region.
However, the city, where very diverse communities have lived, has also inherited an exceptional cultural diversity. A breathtaking historical density that does not however reflect its modest heritage which dates back to its foundation in 994, by Ziri Ibn Attia. The chief of the Maghrawa tribe established his court there, entrusted by the Umayyad caliphs of Cordoba with the command of the two Maghrebs. Ziri Ben Attia decided to settle in the center of the country he was to administer. He therefore made the choice to create a capital near the source of Sidi Yahia and the mountains of Beni-Snassen that could possibly serve as a refuge. The city remains for eighty years the seat of the Zenet dynasty.
Little by little, it gained importance thanks to its status as a bridge on two major trade routes: the north-south route from the sea to Sijilmassa, and the west-east route from Fez to the Orient. The strategic location of the city would expose it to several destructive invasions during its history.
In the year 1068, in his “(Kitāb al-Masālik wa-al-Mamālik (Book of Roads and Kingdoms)”, the Andalusian geographer and historian described the city as a city of particular importance, divided into two agglomerations, surrounded by high walls: “Oujda is made up of two cities, surrounded by walls, one of which was built after the year 440 (1048-1049) by Yala, son of Bologguin and member of the Ourtaghnin tribe. The new town, containing several bazaars, is inhabited by merchants. The mosque, located outside the two cities, stands near a river in the middle of the gardens.
Oujda is surrounded by forests and orchards, the food there is of good quality and the climate is very healthy. The inhabitants are easily distinguished by the freshness of their complexion and the softness of their skin. Pastures are excellent and also enjoyed by solipeds and ruminants. Just one of their sheep can provide up to two hundred ounces of fat”.
In 1081, Youssef Ibn Tachfine seized the city which later passed into the hands of the Almohads who erected a new fortification there. The Merinids and the Abd El Ouadit dynasties were violently fighting over the city. Because of the rivalry between these two powers, Oujda was destroyed in 1271 by the Merinid sultan Abou Yaacoub Elmarini. The city was rebuilt by his son Abou Yaacoub Youssef in 1295 and surrounded by new ramparts, with a casbah, a palace, baths, and a mosque. In 1314, the city was under Zianid domination and resisted an attack led by the Merinid sultan Abû Saïd Uthmân ben Yaqub.
From the fifteenth century onwards, Oujda was the subject of the rivalry between the Cherifians of Morocco and the Ottoman Empire; the city changed hands several times and was only definitively attached to Morocco at the end of the seventeenth century. Today, the medina of Oujda shelters some beautiful remains of this turbulent history. The city has several monuments including many palaces, “the most remarkable being those of Dar Al Makhzen and Dar Al Bacha”.
Among the gates of the medina, the one that remains the most remarkable is that of Bab Sidi Abdelwahab with its ogival shape flanked by two bastions above which the makhzen had the severed heads of the rebels hung, hence its name “The Heads Gate”.
By crossing this gate, which is 10 centuries old, one reaches hammam El Bali, the oldest public bath of the Kingdom, whose Andalusian architecture still remains preserved, then reaches the “three fountains” with colored earthenware decorated with a small green tiled roof, leaning against the outer wall of the Haddada Mosque. This is followed by a visit to the Merinid Medersa, a school considered a masterpiece of Merinid art, just five years younger than the famous Medersa Bou Inania in Fez
A.Bo
- 11 lectures
