Casablanca
Medinas: Morocco’s Hidden Cities
explores the shadows of ancient
Moroccan walled cities in painterly
images by French photographer Jean-
Marc Tingaud, with illuminating
commentary by Tahar Ben Jelloun.across Morocco because of its zawiya (shrine to a marabout ). Just being
in the vicinity of a marabout (saint) is said to confer baraka (a state of
grace). Zawiya Nassiriyya in Tamegroute is reputed to cure the ill and eliminate stress, and the
zawiya of Sidi Moussa in the Aït Bougomez Valley is said to increase the fertility of female
visitors (consider yourself warned).
To boost your baraka you can visit the Tamegroute and Aït
Bougomez zawiyas as well as the zawiya of Moulay Ali ash-
Sharif in Rissani, which is now open to non-Muslims. Most
zawiyas are closed to non-Muslims – including the famous
Zawiya Moulay Idriss II in Fez, and all seven of Marrakesh’s
zawiyas – but you can often recognise a zawiya by its ceramic
green-tiled roof and air of calm even outside its walls. In rural
areas, a marabout ’s shrine (often confusingly referred to as a
marabout rather than zawiya ) is typically a simple mudbrick base topped with a whitewashed
dome – though in the Ourika Valley village of Tafza you can see a rare red-stone example.