E4
E5
B5
B6
F4
E5
F523 British Embassy
24 Dutch Embassy
25 French Consulate
26 French Embassy
27 Italian Embassy
28 Tunisian Embassy
29 US EmbassyHistory
The fertile plains inland from Rabat drew settlers to the area as far back as the 8th century BC.
Both the Phoenicians and the Romans set up trading posts in the estuary of the Oued Bou
Regreg river in Sala, today’s Chellah. The Roman settlement, Sala Colonia, lasted long after
the empire’s fall and eventually became the seat of an independent Berber kingdom. The
Zenata Berbers built a ribat, a fortress-monastery after which the city takes its name, on the
present site of Rabat’s kasbah. As the new town of Salé (created in the 10th century) began to
prosper on the north bank of the river, the city of Chellah fell into decline.
The arrival of the Almohads in the 12th century saw the ribat rebuilt as a kasbah, a strategic
jumping-off point for campaigns in Spain, where the dynasty successfully brought Andalusia
back under Muslim rule. Under Yacoub al-Mansour (the Victorious), Rabat enjoyed a brief
heyday as an imperial capital, Ribat al-Fatah (Victory Fortress). Al-Mansour had extensive
walls built, added the enormous Bab Oudaïa to the kasbah and began work on the Hassan
Mosque, intended to be the greatest mosque in all of the Islamic West, if not in all of the
Islamic world.
Al-Mansour’s death in 1199 brought an end to these grandiose schemes, leaving the great
Hassan Mosque incomplete. The city soon lost all significance and it wasn’t until the 17th
century that Rabat’s fortunes began to change.
As Muslim refugees arrived from Christian Spain, so did a band of Christian renegades,
Moorish pirates, freebooters and multinational adventurers. Rabat and Salé became safe
havens for corsairs – merciless pirates whom English chroniclers called the Sallee Rovers. At
one point they even created their own pirate state, the Republic of Bou Regreg. These corsairs
roved as far as the coast of North America seeking Spanish gold, and to Cornwall in southern
England to capture Christian slave labour. The first Alawite sultans attempted to curtail their
looting sprees, but no sultan ever really exercised control over them. Corsairs continued
attacking European shipping until well into the 19th century.
Meanwhile, Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah briefly made Rabat his capital at the end of the
18th century, but the city soon fell back into obscurity. In 1912 France strategically abandoned
the hornet’s nest of political intrigue and unrest in the traditional capitals of Fez and Marrakesh
and instead shifted power to coastal Rabat, where supply and defence were more easily
achieved. Since then, the city has remained the seat of government and official home of the
king.