HISTORIC SITEHISTORIC SITEGetting There & Away
Grands taxis to Setti Fatma leave frequently from Bab er-Rob in Marrakesh (Dh35) and you
may also find less-frequent minibuses to Ourika Valley destinations (Dh15 to Dh25). Most
grands taxis will drop you anywhere along the Route d’Ourika, but return taxis and minibuses
are easiest to find in Setti Fatma, Tnine and Aghbalou. Transport returns when full.
AGHMAT
Drivers speeding past Aghmat (aka Rhmat, Ghmat or Jemaa Rhmat) 31km from Marrakesh en
route to Setti Fatma are missing a key turning point in Moroccan history – and naturally, there
was a woman involved. This town was an Idrissid dynastic capitol from AD 828 to 1058, when
it was conquered by Almoravids. One of Aghmat’s leading citizens was killed in the fray, leaving
his brilliant, wealthy widow Zeinab en-Nafzawiyyat free to marry Almoravid leader Abu Bakr.
When Abu Bakr was recalled to the Sahara to settle disputes, he divorced Zeinab so that she
could remarry his cousin, Yusuf bin Tachfin. With Zeinab’s financing and counsel, Yusuf bin
Tachfin proved unstoppable, founding Marrakesh and expanding the Almoravid empire to the
doorstep of Barcelona.
Once Almoravids moved to Marrakesh, Aghmat became a place of exile for political
dissidents, including Andalusian poet-king Al-Mutamid ibn Abbad. Poetry outweighed politics in
the end, and Al-Mutamid was allowed an honourable burial with his wife and children. Arts
continue to prevail in Aghmat: in June the town hosts performers from Belgium to Burkina Faso
for Awaln’art (www.awalnart.com) , an international festival of street artists.
Sights & Activities
Visitors can glimpse Aghmat’s former glories just behind the town’s main marketplace, where
Aghmat’s Friday souq is held.
Urban Foundations
Excavations about 200m to the left off the main road began in 2010, co-financed by the state
and (oddly enough) McDonald’s, revealing ancient urban foundations, including a hammam,
mosque, marketplace and irrigation. As long as the dog sleeping on the ruins remains
uninterested in watchdog duty, history buffs can look around archaeological areas that aren’t
roped off for safety.
Mausoleum
Al-Mutamid’s tomb is marked with an Almoravid-style domed mausoleum, signed right off the
main road after the commune building, inside a garden enclosure 200m along on the left. The
dissident’s tomb was the site of a 1950 protest against French occupation that was violently
suppressed by Pasha Glaoui – an inciting incident in Morocco’s independence movement. As
Al-Mutamid famously wrote in his poem ‘Death’ (with Dulcie Smith’s 1931 translation):
Dead are the princes and the potentates
And none shall wake them.
Tell them who triumph at my death that Death
Shall overtake them.