Lalla Mimouna () is a town in

Kenitra Province Kenitra (, , , ) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is a port on the Sebou River with a population of 507,736 as of 2024. It is one of the three main cities of the Rabat-Salé-Kénitra region and the capital of the similarly named Kénitra P ...

Rabat-Salé-Kénitra Rabat-Salé-Kénitra () is one of twelve administrative regions of Morocco. It is situated in north-western Morocco and has a population of 5,132,639 (2024 census). The capital is Rabat. History Rabat-Salé-Kenitra was formed in September 201 ...

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

. At the 2004 census, it had a population of 12,994.

Etymology

The town gets its name from a famous

saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...

of the Gharb region. The saint Lalla Mimouna (Mimouna is a name historically given to black slaves) also known as Lalla Mimouna Tagnaout ("Black Mimouna" in

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

) was associated with another saint Moulay Bousselham who gave his name to the nearby town of Moulay Bousselham. According to one tradition. she was a beautiful woman from

Saguia el-Hamra Saguia el-Hamra ( , ) is the northern geographic region of Western Sahara. It was, with Río de Oro, one of the two territories that formed the Spanish province of Spanish Sahara after 1969. Its name comes from a waterway that goes through the ca ...

whose beauty could cause the temptation of men. To solve this issue, she prayed to God to transform her into a black woman.

References

Populated places in Kénitra Province Rural communes of Rabat-Salé-Kénitra {{RabatSaléKénitra-geo-stub