Mouassine is a district within the Medina of Marrakech neighbouring the districts of

Bab Doukkala Bab Doukkala () is the main northwestern gate of the medina (historic walled city) of Marrakesh, Morocco. Description The gate dates back to around 1126 CE when the Almoravid emir Ali ibn Yusuf built the first walls of the city. Doukkala, w ...

, Azbezt, Derb Tizougarine and Riad Aitoun El Kedim. The area contains the

Mouassine Mosque The Mouassine Mosque or al-Muwassin Mosque () is a major neighbourhood mosque (a Friday mosque) in Marrakech, Morocco, dating from the 16th century during the Saadian Dynasty. It shares its name with the Mouassine neighbourhood. History Ba ...

, the Mouassine Fountain (part of the mosque complex), and the

Dar el Bacha Dar el Bacha () is a palace located in the old medina of Marrakesh, Morocco. History Built in 1910, the Dar el Bacha, which means "house of the pasha", was the residence of Thami El Glaoui, who was given the title of pasha (roughly "governor" o ...

Palace. The area acts as one of the main gateways to the souks and is a relatively affluent area of the

medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...

(old city).

Name

Like the name Marrakech which is derived from the

Tamazight The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber communi ...

language to mean the land of God the name for the district of Mouassine is likely to have

origins but the meaning is unclear. In the 1930s the district had a spelling that was closer to the phonetic sound and was written Mwasin. When the city of Marrakech was established in 1061 the district was known as Houmat Abi Abidan but during Marrakech’s renaissance in the 16th century under its Saadian rulers the name changed to Mouassine.

History

Up until the reign of Abdellah El Ghalib

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

were relatively dispersed through the city but the area of Mouassine housed a significant concentration of them and was generally regarded as an ancient Jewish quarter. When Abdallah El Ghalib came to power in 1557 he used the opportunity to re-landscape Marrakech as a symbol of his authority and part of this was to relocate the Jewish community into the new

Mellah A ''mellah'' ( or 'saline area'; and he, מלאח) is a Jewish quarter of a city in Morocco. Starting in the 15th century and especially since the beginning of the 19th century, Jewish communities in Morocco were constrained to live in ''mellah' ...

area. Up until this massive re-landscaping Mouassine was regarded as one of the two ancient Jewish areas. The most famous landmark in Mouassine is the

commissioned by Sultan Abdellah. The construction of the mosque was part of a major redevelopment of the area and was located upon the site of a former Jewish cemetery. The mosque, also known as ''Jami' al-Ashraf'' is part of a larger complex that includes a library, hamman, madrasa and the famous Mouassine Fountain, one of the most famous in the medina. The current configuration of Mouassine thus dates back to the Saadian period, and its redevelopment at this time enticed a relatively large number of bourgeois or aristocratic families to build their residences here. This has resulted in a concentration of structures dating from the Saadian period located in this area, with examples of Saadian-era houses including the

Dar Cherifa Dar Cherifa, historically known as Dar Ijimi, is a late 16th-century house in the Medina quarter, medina (old city) of Marrakesh, Morocco. It is located in the Mouassine, Mouassine neighbourhood and is one of the few well-preserved houses from the ...

(formerly Dar Ijimi), the Dar al-Mas'udiyyin, and the Dar al-Masluhiyyin (known also as Ksour Agafay). Some of these houses today have been converted into cafés, restaurants, and hotels. Also notable is the ''douiria'' (an upper-floor apartment for receiving guests) in what is now the

Mouassine Museum The Mouassine Museum (; ) is a museum in the Mouassine neighbourhood of the historic medina of Marrakesh, Morocco. The museum is housed in a recently restored 16th to 17th-century house which includes an upper-floor apartment known as a ''douiria ...

. This house, recently restored to reveal its original wood and stucco ornamentation, dates back to the Saadian period but also features decorative motifs from the time of Sultan

Moulay Ismail Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif ( ar, مولاي إسماعيل بن الشريف), born around 1645 in Sijilmassa and died on 22 March 1727 at Meknes, was a Sultan of Morocco from 1672–1727, as the second ruler of the Alaouite dynasty. He was the se ...

(1672–1727).

Economy

Mouassine is one of the most upmarket areas of the Medina containing a number of the highest rated riads in the whole of Morocco. Riad Snan 13, Dar Mo’da, Riad Al-Bushra, Riad El-Zohar, and Riad L’Orangerie were all in Trip Advisor’s top 25 in 2014.Trip Advisor Traveller’s Choice Awards http://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Hotels-cInnsBB-g293730 retrieved 11 September 2015/ Additionally there are a number of stores that offer top quality Moroccan produce and export their produce around the world. La Maison du Kaftan Marocain, Maktoub, Kif Kif, and Kulchi all have their home in Mouassine. The area seems to successfully fuse the traditional with the contemporary and remains an important gateway to the souks.

References

{{Coord missing, Morocco Neighborhoods of Marrakesh