Sijilmasa (MEGT)

Rissani, Morocco

Key dates: 757 (Kharijite foundation); 19th century (gradual abandonment)

The walled oasis city of Sijilmasa marked the southern edge of the Maghrib, what geographer and historian al-Bakrī called “the last civilized place” before braving the long journey (forty days by camel caravan) across the Sahara Desert. Though it may have had pre-Islamic origins, the historical city of Sijilmasa was founded in 757 by a group of Kharijites from the Banū Midrar fleeing religious persecution in Qayrawān. Successive Berber clans would also lay claim to the city, since its key location along the gold trade route meant that it was of great strategic importance for the various political movements and dynasties—the Almoravids, the Almohads, and the Merinids—that played out across medieval Morocco.

Sijilmasa was located south of the Atlas Mountains in the pre-Saharan desert landscape where water was only available as snow runoff coming in small streams from the Atlas; vegetation was sparse, particularly in comparison with the valleys north of the mountains. One of the largest of these runoff streams, the Oued (or wadi) Ziz, flowed southward from the Rteb Canyon, where a low mortared dam known as a sed straightened the direction of the wayward Ziz as it flowed into the Tafilalt Valley. Natural springs originating from the Ziz provided water to a grove of date palms, while a series of smaller canals irrigated plots of barley, almonds, and pomegranates. Even before reaching Sijilmasa, a network of qsars (fortified pisé dwellings that housed extended clan groups) along these canals created a suburban space surrounding the city.

The main canal that flowed directly into the city was known as the Midrariya, after the city’s founding dynasty. Sources suggest that while the city itself was not walled, a large area of the surrounding oasis was, with the lower part built of stone and the upper made of brick. Ibn Battuta notes that there were twelve gates in all, of which eight were iron, but only four monumental stone entrances have been excavated. The Bāb Fez, or Gate of Fez, was on the north side of the city positioned next to the Midrariya, built by the Merinids in the thirteenth century. Inside the Bāb al-Sharq (“East Gate”) stood a market featuring goods from all over the western Islamic world: silk and cotton from Egypt, olive oil from Spain, spices from Zanzibar.

However, the chief economy of Sijilmasa was gold. Brought from the kingdom of Mali across the Sahara and from Sijilmasa out through the rest of the Mediterranean, the gold trade made it one of the region’s most prosperous cities. Al-Yaʿqūbī, in one of the earliest accounts of the city, notes—perhaps exaggerating—that “around [Sijilmasa] there are deposits of gold and silver. It is found like plants and it is said that the wind blows it away.” So much of the precious metal flowed through the city that Maghribi dynasties established a mint there. However, because of the extent of gold trade, the open market was established five kilometers outside the oasis walls across from the Bāb al-Gharb (“West Gate”); known as the Sūq ben Akla, it housed a fort and caravanserai.

The Merinid civil war resulted in the loss of Sijilmasa’s role as a seat of political and commercial power, but the value of the city’s infrastructure and resources in a harsh desert climate meant that it remained inhabited well into the seventeenth century, when it became the power base for the current ruling family of Morocco, the Alaouites. In the eighteenth century, it had become a pilgrimage site to visit the saints associated with the dynasty; but by the nineteenth century, an influx of European trade north of the Atlas diminished the significance of the overland Saharan gold trade and resulted in the gradual abandonment of Sijilmasa.

Sources: Historical, Medieval geographies and histories (al-Yaʿqūbī, “Kitāb al-Buldān”; al-Marrākushī, “Bayān al-Mughrib”; Ibn Khaldun, “Kitāb al-ʿIbār”; al-ʿUmarī, “Masālik al-abṣār fī mamālik al-amṣār”) | Archaeological Analysis, archaeological excavation undertaken by Ronald Messier and James Miller since 1988

-Abbey Stockstill

Resources:

Botanical Features of the Algerian Sahara (Open in Zotero)

Tafilet; the narrative of a journey of exploration in the Atlas mountains and the oases of the north-west Sahara (Open in Zotero)

Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Open in Zotero)

Archeological and Historical Approaches to Complex Societies: The Islamic States of Medieval Morocco (Open in Zotero)

Sijilmassa: The Rise and Fall of a Walled Oasis in Medieval Morocco (Open in Zotero)

The Last Civilized Place: Sijilmasa and Its Saharan Destiny (Open in Zotero)



Originally published at: Stockstill, Abbey. “Sijilmasa.” Middle East Garden Traditions. Dumbarton Oaks, November 18, 2014. https://www.doaks.org/resources/middle-east-garden-traditions/catalogue#b_start=0&c6=North+African+Gardens. Archived at: https://perma.cc/EYG3-A8TV