Zaynab: Queen of Marrakech
Marrakech is both citadel of the Sultan and city of shopkeepers. Two great monuments, standing in close proximity at its centre express this. The stone minaret of the Koutoubia dominates the urban horizon like a watchtower of faith. Beside it sprawls the Jemma el Fna, one of the world’s most vibrant and unplanned public spaces, from which open the entrances to Marrakech’s labyrinthine covered souk-market.
For Marrakech is at one and the same time the historic capital of a succession of Muslim empires and a triumphantly vivacious African marketplace echoing to the sound of drumbeats. It is a walled entrepot, welcoming all traders, all visitors, yet maintains this other, even older identity as a place of command. It was the headquarters of three different Empires, which in their various heydays ruled from the banks of the Niger to the snow-capped Pyrenees, and from the 1,500-mile Atlantic shore right across to the Saharan frontiers of Egypt.
The city came into the world fully armed, rising at the command of one man, a city of tents pitched above a strategic bend in the bank of the Tensift river-bed in 1059. It was the northernmost advanced base of a jihad empire then being forged by blue-veiled Berber knights operating out of the depths of the Western Sahara. The Ribat, the secret desert headquarters of this league of holy Muslim warriors, has never been found. After twenty years of desert warfare this army had seized control over all the oasis and trade routes of the western Sahara. They became known as Al-Murabitun (the men of the Ribat) which would later be mangled by English writers into the ‘Almoravids’. They recruited ardent young men from the Berber tribes of the Sahara, but the backbone of the movement was the Lamtuna tribe, spiritually guided by Ibn Yasin, a zealous young Muslim scholar. Marrakech in this first foundation was conceived as a centre of Islamic orthodoxy and militancy, deliberately set apart from the three market towns that long dominated trade in this fertile region. For though the city is surrounded by arid steppe, just to the south stretches the Haouz, a vast oasis of orchards watered by streams draining the slopes of the High Atlas mountains.
The Ksar el Hajar, the tower of stone, rose above this garrison city to keep a watch, for there was already an implacable enemy on the northern horizon. The Almoravids were determined to destroy the Berghouata confederacy, governed (or so they claimed) by a heretical Berber Koran. The Bergouata proved the most determined and resilient enemy that the Almoravids ever faced. Ibn Yasin was himself killed in the first invasion, and in the aftermath of this disaster Almoravid authority buckled under multiple revolts. The Almoravids only survived through the determined leadership of two great warriors of the Lamtuna tribe: Abu Bakr (who campaigned in the Sahara) and his trusted nephew, Youssef ben Tachfine, who became the military commander of the north. From his Marrakech base Youssef ben Tachfine went on to subdue all of Morocco, to conquer western Algeria and then crossed the straits to give aid to the principalities of Muslim Spain which he would annex. His son Ali went onto conquer Portugal and the Balearic islands. The dates and names and titles of this founding dynasty are firmly linked to a precise chronology hammered into their coinage. The gold dinars of the Almoravids were respected all over the world, minted from the pure gold of West Africa. They ruled as Emirs of the Furthest West (Maghreb el Aksa) on behalf of the Sunni Caliph in distant Baghdad.
But this chronicle of male, military orthodoxy is charmingly juxtaposed by the story of the first Almoravid Queen of Marrakech, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah. She was clever and adaptable, the daughter of a merchant from Kairouan (now in Tunisia) called Ishaq. Kairouan was the preeminent citadel of Arab power in North Africa, though her surname derived from Nafzawa stands aside from this orthodox heritage. The Nafzawa were a Berber tribe in control of the oasis cities of southern Tunisia, embedded in the Saharan trade routes and partisans of a schismatic version of early Islam. Zaynab was first married to the sheikh of the Ourika valley (the most fertile and well-watered in all the High Atlas), then after his death to Luqut the Emir of Aghmat (the richest of the three market towns before the foundation of Marrakech). The successive deaths of her two rich husbands greatly increased Zaynab’s wealth. She was pursued with offers of marriage but waited until she met a man completely worthy of her respect, which proved to be the aforementioned Abu Bakr, commander of the Almoravid army. But first she wanted to prove to Abu Bakr that she wasn’t a gold digger. So she took him, blindfolded, to a cavern, where the vast wealth that she had inherited from her father and her two dead husbands was stored, augmented by her own brilliance as a trader. “All this is yours,” she declared, but continued to keep the cave’s location a secret.
Two years later, Abu Bakr knew it was his duty to rescue the military situation in the far south, and divorced Zaynab, so that she was free to marry his nephew and second-in-command, Youssef ben Tachfine. Abu Bakr knew that the hard life in the deep Sahara was unsuited to Zaynab, and that she would prove useful as a political adviser to Youssef ben Tachfine. Zaynab waited the three months specified by Islamic law, to prove that she was not pregnant with child by Abu Bakr, then married Youssef. She became his chief of intelligence and proved such an accomplished diplomat that it began to be whispered that she was a magician who (like King Solomon before her) could communicate with the jinn (the spirit world). Her intimate knowledge of both men certainly allowed for the smooth division of power between uncle and nephew. Abu Bakr was always acknowledged as paramount Emir, on both the gold coinage and in the Friday sermons in the great mosques. But when he came on a tour of inspection to Marrakech, Zaynab made sure that he was honoured for three days in utter magnificence and showered with so many munificent presents, that, in the tactful words of Zaynab, “he should be short of nothing in his desert home.”
This amicable division of power endured until the day of Abu Bakr’s death in 1087. Youssef ben Tachfine then reigned as sole Emir until 1106, after which he was succeeded by Ali, his son. Inspired by Zaynab, Ali ben Youssef fortified and adorned the city of Marrakech with public fountains, gorgeous mosques and secret walled gardens fed by the first khettaras, underground aqueducts.
The story of Zaynab first appeared (in writing) in the 12th century, after the Almoravid dynasty had been swept from power. Zaynab’s grandson, Emir Ishaq (and his cousin, Princess Fannu) died defending the walls of Marrakech to the last, in 1147. The new masters of Marrakech, the Almohad Caliphs, although they were also Berbers from southern Morocco, tried to destroy everything associated with the previous dynasty. Fortunately two things - a minbar (the steps from which the sermon is given on Fridays) and an ablution fountain (Koubba el Ba’adiyn) - survived to testify to the extraordinary beauty and grace of this lost Almoravid heritage. A hundred years later, the Almohads were themselves destroyed by the Merenid Sultans who ruled Morocco from the northern city of Fez for 250 years. Marrakech dwindled to the status of second city. It was reborn as the capital under the Saadians (1510-1659), who once again ruled over an immense Saharan empire from Marrakech. The Medersa ben Youssef, the Saadian Tombs and the El Bedi palace all allow us a glimpse of the magnificence of this era.
The Alaouite Sultans emerged as rulers after Morocco had dissolved into anarchy over the 17th century. They rule to this day. They are Shereefs (descended from the family of the Prophet Muhammad) and governed as much by consent and the delicate art of inclusive diplomacy as by direct military authority. Their court was mobile, so Marrakech became one of their four imperial cities alongside Rabat, Fez and Meknes. The Alaouites had to fight for the survival of their country, first against Portugese and Spanish Crusaders (and the English in Tangier), later against the predatory ambitions of the French.
In the eyes of his people, the Sultan had five great tasks. First and foremost he had to protect the faith and the Kingdom from invaders. He had to administer swift justice and to police the roads and the markets. A good sovereign would also endow public fountains with fresh water and nourish learning amongst the literate Islamic scholars in the great cities. And like every good Muslim, he knew that it was his duty to protect orphans and widows, to feed the poor in times of hunger and to protect travellers and merchants.