Andalusian ramparts, and coastal fortifications in the city of Rabat: Sqala, Borj Sirat, Borj Dār

The city of Rabat is surrounded by three large ramparts that relate to the three major phases in its history: the Almohad, Andalusian, and Alaouite walls.

The Andalusian enclosure corresponds to a phase of withdrawal and decadence in the city of Rabat’s history. Constructed by Moorish families[1] fleeing the Spanish Inquisition at the start of the seventeenth century, the reduced enclosure lies on a rectilinear plan. The walls are fortified with a perimeter walk protected by a parapet and punctuated with oblong towers. One of these is round—the Borj Sidi Makhluf, which was named after a saint of Jewish origins—buried nearby—who was patron of boatmen at the time (seventeenth century). This defensive construction enabled the defenders to spot any boat movements in the estuary. The port could be surveyed from the circular platform.

At the end of the eighteenth century, the continental side of the city of Rabat was given a second continuous wall that started at the ocean, took in a part of the Agdal, and ended at the south-east extremity of the Almohad enclosure. This enclosure protected the palace of Mawlāy Sulaymān[2].

The coastal enclosure contains several eighteenth-century buildings. In 1776, Muhammad III ibn ‘Abdāllah[3] built the Sqala, under the orders of the famous English convert Muhammad al-Inglīzī. This defensive construction—influenced by European building techniques—was intended to house artillery pieces. It comprises an elevated platform, often flanked in the corners by watch-towers and canon embrasures. It has a strategic position: on the Atlantic coast several metres from the northern extremity, below the Qasaba of the Udayas, the Sqala dominates the entry of the mouth of the Bou Regreg. It comprises a battery of canons and a vast trapezoidal platform, and it is surrounded on the northern, eastern, and western sides with a parapet pierced with embrasures. To the south, a main door and three lateral doors lead to the interior of a courtyard. Three watch-towers stand in the south-eastern, north-eastern, and north-western corners, whilst the south-west corner houses cells and a trapezoidal room with a cross. This room leads to an underground passage via a stairway. The building is made entirely from dressed stone and rubble masonry.

The famous Muhammad al-Inglīzī was also responsible for Borj Sirat, which stands on a rocky cliff that juts into the ocean for a few metres and contains the Rabat lighthouse. It is an ancient towered fortification whose exact origins remains a mystery. According to an inscription over the entrance door, the construction is dated 1775–1776. The vast trapezium-shaped fort is built from large blocks of dressed stone and has nineteen embrasures, which provided a very effective defence against enemy attacks.

Borj Dār stands in the middle of Rabat’s maritime rampart. It was constructed by the sultan Sidi Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallāh, and is a contemporary of the Sqala, the Qasaba, and Borj Sirat. The inscription crowning the entrance door bears a more recent date: AH 1239/ AD 1823–24, which indicates that the construction was modified under the reign of Mawlāy ‘Abd al-Rahmān.

The architectural style, materials, and construction techniques of these military constructions are similar to the modern maritime fortifications that developed in the West and the East with the invention of firearms. There are noticeable links to Christian, Spanish, and Portuguese defensive architecture and there are several examples of similar constructions of the same era at Anfa and Essaouira under the reign of the sultan Sidi Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallāh (reigned 1757–1790).

[2] Alaouite sovereign of Morocco (reigned 1793–1822).

[3] Alaouite sovereign of Morocco (reigned 1757–1790).