Mouassine
Historic medina quarter with a carved cedar fountain built over a former Jewish cemetery.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Mouassine in Marrakesh's medina starts with a sultan who could level a neighborhood but not, it turns out, win every argument. It traces how the Saadian ruler Abdallah al-Ghalib seized the city in 1557, forced the Jewish community from this quarter to the newly built Mellah, and raised a mosque, school and fountain on the cleared ground. You'll hear about the carved cedar fountain's double life, giving drinking water to passersby and troughs for pack animals hauling market goods. Look up at the mosque's unusually short minaret before you move on.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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Fuente de Mouassine
Sixteenth-century public fountain with carved cedar canopy, marble basin and troughs, built as an act of Saadian royal charity.
Bab Doukkala Mosque
Saadian-era mosque and religious complex commissioned by a queen, with a carved minaret and courtyard fountain.
Mellah
Walled historic quarter of narrow lanes, communal bakeries, a mikveh, and a centuries-old cemetery.
Ben Youssef Mosque
Almoravid-founded congregational mosque rebuilt in the early nineteenth century, its green-tiled minaret marking the old medina skyline.
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