The Soul of Morocco

By Seth Sherwood - The New York Times - NYC, NY, U.S.A.

Sunday, April 8, 2007

A strange device, ornate and arcane, looms over the passing mule carts and djellaba-robed masses that daily throng Talaa Kebira, the Broadway of Fez, the 1,200-year-old Moroccan city. Built into the high wall of the 14th-century Bou Inania mosque, just across from a halal butcher and his hanging rows of skinned lambs, 12 finely sculptured windows hover over 13 carved wooden blocks, on which long ago rested 13 brass bowls.

At first glance, the ensemble might be another of the architectural flourishes that adorn Fez’s many stunningly decorated medieval religious institutions. But things in Fez are rarely as simple as they seem. The windows, blocks and bowls are thought to have formed an elaborate clock, powered by running water, that sounded the hours of prayer — though no one knows this for certain.

The mechanism, if there was one, has been lost to time. Its operating principle cannot be fathomed. According to local legend, the enigmatic machine was designed by a magician.

(...)

Fez remains a hidden city. High windowless walls hem narrow passageways adorned with flowing Arabic scripts, impenetrable to the outsider. Many men are hooded, many women veiled. In its hundreds of mosques, barred to non-Muslims, worship proceeds beyond public view. Talismans protect from the unseen world of djinns.

An “enchanted labyrinth sheltered from time,” was the reverent assessment of the writer Paul Bowles, who lived in Tangier.

Fez speaks in symbols. Few places on Earth seem so imbued with buried meanings: in the patterns of hand-knotted carpets; in the tattooed faces of Berber peasant women; in the cosmic swirls of carved plaster in its architecture; in the voices of traditional Sufi and Gnawa singers; in the techniques of expert craftsmen; in the ingredients of its cuisine.

Like a giant ancient text, Fez requires exegesis. To the casual observer, it might appear a frustrating jumble of bodies, animals, indecipherable voices, strange designs.

To the person who has learned its codes and its lore, the crowded confusion begins to make sense. Patterns form. Colors radiate with significance. Geometric shapes convey ideas. Every number contains a charm. Every flavor enfolds a bit of history.

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Enfolding more than 9,000 streets and a million residents within its timeworn ramparts, the labyrinthine medina would inspire even a minotaur to contemplate a career change. A guide, both to its streets and its hidden layers, is de rigueur.

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All day I followed his [Mr. Alami's, the guide] flowing black robe, absorbing wise nuggets about bargaining (“never bargain with a woman; you will always lose”) and the novels of Thomas Hardy (“destiny plays a large role”). Strolling through the spice and produce souks — where severed camels’ heads on hooks announced one shop’s daily special — Mr. Alami revealed the latent properties of orange-blossom water (“good for headaches”), walnut bark (“with saliva, its keeps your teeth white and strengthens the gums”) and myriad other substances.

He admitted that even he gets lost sometimes.

“But the more you get lost, the more you discover,” he said. “That’s the beauty of Fez. There’s a new smell, a new sound, a new thing around every corner.”

From almost every corner, I soon noticed the sounds of handwork — the sawing of wood, the chiseling of stone, the loud click-clack of two-pedal looms. Some 30,000 craftsmen ply their trades in small stores and back-alley workshops.

Their skills are renowned. When the Muslims of Paris built the Paris Mosque, they used artisans from Fez. When Mick Jagger wanted a Moroccan bathroom, he did the same. (In fact, he hired Abdelfettah Seffar.) It’s no wonder that Fez’s two main museums, the Nejjarine Museum and the Dar Batha Museum, are devoted to the region’s remarkable handicrafts.

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As a twinkling blackness settled over the dark, blocky forms of the medina one evening, the muezzin’s nightly cry gave way to other holy music. From a house deep in the zigzagging streets, joyous voices rose into the rafters, paced by rhythmic clapping. Brahim Tidjani, a descendant of the prophet Muhammad and the leader of one of North Africa’s most revered Sufi orders, was leading his long-robed brethren in ritual song.

For the Sufis, Islam’s most mystical followers, Fez has long been a hallowed land. The nooks of the medina are filled with Sufi sanctuaries known as zaouias, where brotherhoods meet, worship and sing. Their musical chants are the soundtracks of Fez, the sonic analog of the city’s deep spirituality.

During such gatherings, “People suddenly get up and dance as if on a wind or in a kind of spiritual intoxication,” Dr. Faouzi Skali, a world-renowned Sufi scholar, told me over mint tea in the lobby of the neo-sultanic Jnane Palace hotel. “It feels like you’re in a great expansion of consciousness, in a clear and intense light, and in a proximity to God.”

In the early 1990s, in response to the Gulf War, Dr. Skali founded the city’s Festival of World Sacred Music as a means of celebrating the world’s diverse cultures and restoring some global harmony.

Held every June, the event has mushroomed into a sort of sacro-palooza, drawing the likes of Turkish dervishes, Japanese drummers, the Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar and the Senegalese pop star Youssou N’Dour (a member of the Tidjani Sufi order). This year, it will celebrate the 800th birthday of the Persian mystic poet Rumi.

This month will also see the launch of another ambitious festival devised by Dr. Skali. The new event is even closer to his own heart, and that of his beloved city: The first annual Festival of Sufi Culture, from April 27 to May 2.

“This is a form of Islam that is very open to other cultures,” he said, explaining his hope to invigorate Sufi faith in Fez and to introduce the movement’s oft-shrouded traditions to an international audience.

“If people can visit a medersa and listen in several languages to discussions of Sufi poetry, calligraphy and music, they will have understood something about the soul of Islam,” Dr. Skali said as his tea steamed fragrantly into the air. “And the soul of Fez.”

[picture: The entrance to the 14th-century Bou Inania school and mosque, which like much of Fez is a place of legend and mystery. Photo by Ed Alcock for The New York Times]