Tamnougalt is a

kasbah A kasbah (, also ; ar, قَـصَـبَـة, qaṣaba, lit=fortress, , Maghrebi Arabic: ), also spelled qasba, qasaba, or casbah, is a fortress, most commonly the citadel or fortified quarter of a city. It is also equivalent to the term ''alca ...

and date palm oasis in the

Atlas Mountains The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range in the Maghreb in North Africa. It separates the Sahara Desert from the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean; the name "Atlantic" is derived from the mountain range. It stretches around through Moroc ...

, and located in the

Draa River :''Dra is also the abbreviation for the constellation Draco.'' The Draa ( ber, Asif en Dra, ⴰⵙⵉⴼ ⴻⵏ ⴷⵔⴰ, ary, واد درعة, wad dərʿa; also spelled Dra or Drâa, in older sources mostly Darha or Dara) is Morocco's longes ...

valley in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria ...

, some 75 kilometers south of

Ouarzazate Ouarzazate (; ar, ورزازات, Warzāzāt, ; ary, وارزازات, Wārzāzāt; shi, label=Berber, ⵡⴰⵔⵣⴰⵣⴰⵜ, Warzazat), nicknamed ''the door of the desert'', is a city and capital of Ouarzazate Province in the region of Drâ ...

. The village is close to

Agdz Agdz, also spelled Agdez ( ber, ⴰⴳⴷⵣ, ar, أگدز) is a Moroccan town in the Drâa-Tafilalet region, in the Atlas Mountains with a population of about 10,000. It is located at around . Agdz lies at the feet of Djebel Kissane and along ...

and has a famous kasbah. The Jbel Kissane rises to the north dominating the landscape. It is the former capital of the Mezguita region and residence of former caïds. Its name means 'meeting point' in

Tachelhit , now more usually known as Tashelhit , is a Berber language spoken in southwestern Morocco. The endonym is , and in recent English publications the name of the language is often rendered ''Tashelhit'', ''Tashelhiyt'' or ''Tashlhiyt''. In Morocc ...

. Each year, in the first week of October the Moussem Ellama is held, a cultural and religious festival for all villages in the neighbourhood.Edith Kohlbach, ''Reisehandbuch Marokko'', Edith-Kohlbach-Reisebücher, 2006, p. 438

History

The history of Tamnougalt is connected with that of the oasis Mezguita of which it was the capital. When it was built is unknown. Tamnougalt was possibly a garrison in the Saadian epoch. Its political and economic role began with the coming of the caid of Taleb El Hassan. He was made caid by the

Alaouite The Alawi dynasty ( ar, سلالة العلويين الفيلاليين, translit=sulālat al-ʿalawiyyīn al-fīlāliyyīn) – also rendered in English as Alaouite, Alawid, or Alawite – is the current Moroccan royal family and reigning d ...

sultan in the 18th century. His sons succeeded in keeping the reign over their territory (as far as the Dades and the Ksar Ait Hammou ou Saïd) until the independence of Morocco. In 1874 the caid of Mezguita was driven out of the territory of Ouarzazat by a new caid of a family of

Telouet Telouet Kasbah ( Berber: ⵉⵖⵔⵎ ⵏ ⵜⵍⵡⴰⵜ; ar, قصبة تلوات; french: Casbah de Télouet) is a Kasbah along the former route of the caravans from the Sahara over the Atlas Mountains to Marrakech. The kasbah was the seat of ...

, the Glaoua Mohammed Ibibt. The Glaoua were to play a big role in the Draa region. In 1884

Charles de Foucauld Charles Eugène de Foucauld de Pontbriand, Viscount of Foucauld (15 September 1858 – 1 December 1916) was a French soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnographer, Catholic priest and hermit who lived among the Tuareg people in the Sahara in Alg ...

visited Tamnougalt and observed that "it was the capital of the district, governed by the hereditary caid Abderrahman ben el Hassan" and that "it was exclusively inhabited by Draoua, like the whole Draa valley." In 1907, Si Mohammed, caid of Tamnougalt offered his troops of Mezguita to defend the sultan Moulay Hafid against his brother. In the twenties of the 20th century relations between the Glaoua and the Mezguita became more and more strained because of the struggle for the power over the Draa. For this purpose

T'hami El Glaoui Thami El Glaoui ( ar, التهامي الكلاوي; 1879–23 January 1956) was the Pasha of Marrakesh from 1912 to 1956. His family name was el Mezouari, from a title given an ancestor by Ismail Ibn Sharif in 1700, while El Glaoui refers to his ...

held a 'harka' to Tamnougalt in 1919. His cousin Hammou, the military leader of the family took Ksar Ait Hammou ou Saïd in the region of the Sedderat as his residence and began his advance on Tamnougalt. In 1923 he played the powerful Arab tribe of the Oulad Yahia against the Mezguita and in 1924 he finally decided to attack the village himself. With more than 5000 men and a

Krupp The Krupp family (see pronunciation), a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, is notable for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG (Friedrich Krupp ...

cannon which the Glaoua had received from the sultan after the passage of sultan Hassan I by Tizni n

in 1894. Hassan laid a siege on the village for 17 days. Finally they agreed to a pact.

References

External links

*Jacques Gandini, "Agdz et l'histoire des caïds des Mezguita

(retrieved 20-01-2019) {{Coord, 30, 40, 48, N, 6, 23, 17, W, type:city_source:kolossus-ptwiki, display=title Kasbahs in Morocco Populated places in Zagora Province