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Qantara - Qasaba of Mahdiyya
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Qasaba of Mahdiyya

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Qasaba of Mahdiyya

  • Name : Qasaba of Mahdiyya
  • Place : on the mouth of the Wadi Sebu on the Atlantic coast 12km from Kenitra, Morocco
  • Construction date/period : Sixteenth to seventeenth centuries
  • Construction materials : Stone, brick, cob, wood, marble, tiles, and iron
  • Architectural pattern : Decorations: carved stone, architectural ceramics, and brick corners
  • Dimensions : Approximately 10Ha

The Mahdiyya Qasaba was built on a rocky spur overlooking a valley, and the site benefits from the many natural resources (a large forest) of the Gharb plain, which gave the site great strategic importance. Its military architecture was the result of both interchange and confrontations, and attests to continuous cultural exchanges from both sides of the Mediterranean.

Thymiateria, which was one of the first Phoenician settlements founded by Hannon in the fifth century BC on the Atlantic coast, may have been on the site of the al-Mahdiyya. The site was mentioned in tenth century Arab sources under the name al-Ma‘mūra (‘Flourishing’), then as a meeting point between the Almoravid Yūsuf ibn Tāshufīn (reigned 1061–1106) and Ibn ‘Abbād of Andalusia[1] under the Almoravids. In the second half of the twelfth century, the Qasaba of Mahdiyya began its role as a military base. The Almohads established a shipyard there and it provided the base for campaigns to Andalusia. In 1515, the Portuguese occupied the site and erected their ramparts there. At the end of the sixteenth century, it became a centre for European piracy (where Flemish, Dutch, and especially Englishmen operated together) until the Spanish arrived in 1614 and occupied the site naming it San Miguel of Ultramar. It was then taken by the Muslims in 1681 and given the name of Mahdiyya (‘the submissive’).

Enclosed by a wall pierced with two doors, the Qasaba is a combination of Spanish and Islamic buildings. The defensive aspect of the site can be attributed to the Spanish and probably also to the Portuguese[2], whose ramparts follow the terrain’s natural relief. The Alaouite sovereign Mawlāy ’Ismā ‘īl (reigned 1672–1727) modified the wall by reinforcing the south-east facade with bastions and deep trenches, while keeping the three towers on the north-west and south-west facades. Into the wall he built an ashlar monumental door on which is inscribed the name Bāb Jadīd (‘New Gateway’), to distinguish it from the one known as ‘Salé’, built by the Spanish. The governor’s home was a palace with a finely decorated carved stone door. It’s laid out in the traditional Muslim way: with a courtyard paved in small ceramic tiles, surrounded by four rooms that are reached through a door with a muqarnas arches crowned with screen walls that also have poly-lobed arches.

While most of the remains of the Mahdiyya Qasaba go back no farther than the seventeenth century, it is a prototype of Moroccan Spanish defensive fortifications and an archetypal example of reused qasabas that were transformed after capture.

NOTE

[1]. مؤلف مجهول. الحلل الموشية في تلخيص الأخبار المراكشية، دار الرشاد الحديثة، الدار البيضاء، 1979، ص. 54

[2] The archaeological digs to date haven’t yet revealed the location of the Portuguese ramparts cited in Arab and European sources.

REFERENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coindreau, R., La Casbah de Mehdya, Rabat, La porte, 1946.

El Khatib-Boujibar, N., « La kasbah de Mehdya », in Maisons du Maroc, n° 6, Casablanca, 1996.

Lévi-Provençal, E., « al-Mahdiyya », in Encyclopédie de l'Islam, t. V, nouvelle édition, Leyde, Paris, E. J. Brill, Maisonneuve & Larose, p. 573-582, 1236.

Marçais, G., L'architecture musulmane d'Occident, Paris : Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1954, p. 409-410.

Montagne, R., « Note sur la casbah de Mehdya », in Hespéris, n°1, 1921, p. 93-99.




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