Fez History

Fez History

Fez has been at the heart of Morocco's Arabic and Islamic development since shortly after the arrival of the first religious refugees from the Middle East in AD 788. Built in the Fez River's fertile basin -- the Oued Fez, also known as Oued el-Yawahir, the River of Pearls -- Fez el Bali (literally, Fez the Old) was founded in AD 808 by Moulay Idriss II, son of Morocco's founder, Moulay Idriss I. The medina is divided into two quarters on either side of the Fez River. The Andalusian Quarter originally housed refugees from Moorish Spain, who had begun to flee the Christian Reconquest; the Kairaouine Quarter originally housed refugees from Kairaouine, Tunisia, who fled westward in search of a purer form of Islamic worship. Always the more important of the two demographically and commercially, the Kairaouine Quarter was especially expanded under the Merenid dynasty, during Fez's 14th-century golden age. Fez el Djedid (New Fez) was founded in 1276 by the Merenid rulers, who needed extra space for their palaces as well as a sense of distance from the population itself. The original and the most imperial of Morocco's Imperial Cities, Fez was the nation's capital in the 9th, 12th-14th, and 16th centuries. The Ville Nouvelle was built by the French after they established their protectorate in 1912.