MEDERSA BEN YOUSSEF

No matter how much you know about Islamic art, you might miss the breath of this marvel. Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful monuments of Marrakech, the Ben Youssef medersa has long been considered the most sumptuous Koranic school in the Arab world. When entering this large enclosure, through a door with heavy bronze leaves, it is impossible not to be impressed. Founded in the middle of the 14th century by the Marinid Sultan Abu El-Hassan, at the same time as those of Fez, Meknes, Salé and Taza, the Ben Youssef Medersa was at the time only a small school of theology. Around 1565, the Saadian prince Moulay Abdallah had it rebuilt and embellished, thus transforming what was an unimportant building into a building whose fame would spread over the mountains and into neighbouring countries. The capitals of the prayer hall as well as the carved cedar lintel of the entrance door relate the reconstruction of the medersa by the Saadians: " I was built for science and prayer by the Prince of the Believers, the descendant of the seal of the prophets, Abdullah, the most glorious of the Caliphs. Pray for him, O you who pass through my door, that his highest hopes may be fulfilled. »

At the end of the 1960s, the disused medersa was closed to the faithful and the public. It is only since 1982 that restoration work allowed travellers to discover this masterpiece of Moroccan art. Its architecture, of Marinid and Andalusian inspiration, is revealed in all its majesty when the sun shines on this venerable place of study and prayer. The decoration of the rooms is a harmonious blend of marble and cedar wood, stucco and mosaic. The entrance is through a narrow corridor of mosaics and beams. The inner courtyard is a vast and deep rectangle, paved with marble and adorned in the centre with a large ablution basin, extremely sober. On either side of the courtyard, two ambulatory galleries with massive pillars support carved cedar lintels. The walls, 15 m high, are covered on their lower part with a frieze of green, red and blue earthenware zelliges and stucco, while the upper part of the walls is covered with chiselled plaster. At the end of the courtyard, in the axis of the entrance, the prayer room is protected from secular eyes by one of the most beautifully worked portals in Morocco. Divided into three parts by two rows of fine columns, the prayer room is topped by a pyramid-shaped dome made of cedar wood. On the dome, twenty-four small semicircular windows are screened with openwork stucco, allowing the sun's rays to penetrate. The mihrab is decorated with verses from the Qur'an carved in plaster. On the ground floor and first floor are the 132 rooms reserved for students of the medersa. Sometimes they follow one another in succession, sometimes through narrow corridors. A real maze! At one time, the school had up to 900 pupils crammed into these small cells overlooking either the central courtyard or the seven interior patios bordered by wooden balustrades and supported by massive pillars. It is in these rooms that students live, study, sleep and eat. When you visit them, you can't help but be transported back in time and moved to be so close to the intimacy of these students from another time.