Fodor's Expert Review Habs Qara

Closed at the time of writing, the green-tiled pavilion of Koubbat as-Sufara is where Moulay Ismail received ambassadors from abroad; the stairs to the right of the entrance lead down to the Habs Qara, immense subterranean slave quarters, built by an imprisoned Portuguese architect to earn his freedom. Here up to 60,000 enslaved people (of whom 40,000 were reportedly Christian prisoners of war) were shackled to the wall and forced to labor on the sultan's building projects.