Morocco
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… this chronicle of male, military orthodoxy is charmingly juxtaposed by the story of the first Almoravid Queen of Marrakech, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah.
It was the proud boast of his reign that the roads were safe enough for a woman or a Jew to travel across the breadth of the country without being troubled. This unaccustomed order was only achieved by an authoritarian regime backed by a standing army of 150, 000 Negro slaves.
The sun lit the sands up with a fast changing palet of pinks, mauves and purples. The exceptional clarity of that morning light also revealed to us the snow-covered peaks of the High Atlas mountains. It was even more astonishing than the night sky.
Death is greeted with frenzied ululations from female relatives and friends though men are traditionally supposed to hold back from passionate expressions of grief.
Every tour of Roman Morocco should start at Tangier, the three thousand year old trading city that commands the one generous bay on the southern shore of the Straits of Gibraltar.
It is as if the Saracens have at last advanced north from their 732 defeat at Poitiers-Tours and stamped their first architectural mark on Paris.
It is all the more disturbing, therefore, that George Stubbs of all people should have become obsessed by the image of a lion attacking a horse.
It takes a lifetime to enter this world of charms and cures.
Fez is, however, undeniably difficult to get to know. It has none of that African space, easy charm and languor of Marrakech. It is by contrast a place of narrow alleys, high walls and dark shadows
A defiant and hauntingly long guttural wail of emotional rapture - an Arabic hymn to God’s love - held the crowd as spell bound as her sisters had.
I first came to the Tissa festival by mistake, escaping from a series of misadventures in the Riff mountains.
People fall for Marrakech for a myriad of reasons. The hidden palaces, the street musicians, shopping in the great covered souk, the dry heat that extends well into the winter months and the palpable sense of bustling glamour.
With each new revelation of complexity, my love affair with the ruins has deepened.
The Sallee Rovers did not just restrict their operations to the capture of shipping but took the war into the lands of the enemy; landing raiding parties that returned with captives.
It is after the sunset call to prayer that the place begins to glow with a mounting pitch of animation
It was shopping that first inclined me towards an interest in Islam, though it must be said that the lupine line of hassling touts that in the old days awaited the visitor immediately outside the old Tangier dock gates did their best to keep the secret well-springs of their faith well hidden.
It is after the sunset call to prayer that the place begins to glow with a mounting pitch of animation
It was shopping that first inclined me towards an interest in Islam, though it must be said that the lupine line of hassling touts that in the old days awaited the visitor immediately outside the old Tangier dock gates did their best to keep the secret well-springs of their faith well hidden.
Do remember to hoard your spare change to give to beggars. Or as the Prophet said if you wish for a favor from God, at least favor the poor with a kind word.
On June 17th 1578 the young King Dom Sebastian of Portugal attended a service in the cathedral, where he was presented with a new standard embroidered with an imperial crown. For it was assumed that the dignity of the Kingdom of Portugal would ascend ever higher and he would become the first Christian Emperor of Morocco.
It is not enough for a traveller in North Africa, to sit in the shaded Cafe de Paris, be it in Tunis, Tangier, Algiers or Marrakech and just sip a coffee beside the street theatre of a Maghrebi dusk. You should, in the pecking order of these things, have both an open packet of local cigarettes and a battered travel book at your elbow.