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Access regulation in Islamic urbanism: the case of medieval Fès Said Ennahidab a Assistant Professor at al-Akhawayn University, Ifrane b Research Fellow at the Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine, Rabat, Morocco

To cite this Article Ennahid, Said(2002) 'Access regulation in Islamic urbanism: the case of medieval Fès', The Journal of North African Studies, 7: 3, 119 — 134 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/13629380208718477 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629380208718477

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SAID ENNAHID

Islamic urbanism is characterised by a clear-cut separation between the public and private domains. This demarcation permeates both the architectural and social structures of the Islamic urban society. In this article, four hierarchical levels of settlement will be studied: 1) the courtyard house, 2) the house compound, 3) the quarter, and 4) the city. Each hierarchical level of settlement will be examined in terms of the social, ethnic or occupational group that resides in it, and the structural manifestations of access regulation. Medieval Fes offers an excellent case study of this type of investigation. It was the object of numerous studies by archaeologists, historians, ethnographers, and architects. Furthermore the city epitomises the Islamic prescriptions of access regulation in an urban setting.

One of the defining features of Islamic societies is the social and architectural demarcation between the public and the private spheres. Islamic urbanism reflects the social and religious prescriptions of insuring that each member of society enjoys full rights to a secure and inviolable private space. A full account of these social and religious prescriptions is beyond the scope of this study and, instead, it will analyse the various settlement units within the Islamic urban society in order to determine the structural mechanisms designed to respond to these prescriptions. In other words, it will investigate how access is regulated in Islamic urbanism and discuss the implications of such regulation on society and on the architecture and urbanism of the Islamic city.

Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 Medieval Fes offers an excellent case study for this type of investigation. The urban history of the city is well known from a number of historiographical, ethnographic, archaeological, and architectural studies. The urban structure of medieval Fes also epitomises the almost sacred requirement of Islamic urbanism to ensure a secure and inviolable private space for its citizens. In this study, access regulation will be analysed at four hierarchical levels of settlement within an urban setting:

Said Ennahid is Assistant Professor at al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane and Research Fellow at the Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine in Rabat, Morocco.

The Journal of North African Studies, Vol.7, No.3 (Autumn 2002) pp.119-134 PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON 120 THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES 1. the courtyard house, 2. the house compound, 3. the quarter, and 4. the city.

Each hierarchical level of settlement will be examined in terms of the social, ethnic or occupational group that resides in it, and the structural manifestations of access regulation.

The Courtyard House

Sa maison, un bon Fassi doit Vavoir dans la Medina, dans cette masse de houtes demeures accolees les unes awe autres comme autant de cellules dans un gateau de miel, et ou les rues etroites se frayent un passage par de multiples detours, entrent, comme elles peuvent, sous des routes et des tunnels, pour s 'arreter a tout moment devant un mur infrachissable. Heureux qui possede la sa demeure (...) car le bonheur pendant la vie, e'est d'habiter la Medina. Jerome and Jean Tharaud, Fez ou les bourgeois de VIslam (1930)

The courtyard house is the smallest unit of settlement within the Islamic urban structure. It is occupied by a nuclear family composed of a husband, his wife and their children. One of the Arabic words for this type of dwellings is sakan. And it is not a coincidence that this term shares the same etymological root with the Arabic word sakina meaning peacefulness and tranquillity. The Muslim dwelling is thus the ultimate haven for privacy and security. Several passages from the Quran and several Prophetic Traditions clearly set the rules for the proper Muslim behaviour in terms of access to private space. For example: 'Believers, do not enter the dwellings of other

Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 men until you have asked their owner's permission and wished them peace.' (The Light 24:27). Even more specific prescriptions, in fact a detailed code of behaviour, were decreed as to access to and conduct within the most important house in Islam, the house of the Prophet in Medina:

Believers, do not enter the houses of the Prophet for a meal without waiting for the proper time, unless you are given leave. But if you are invited, enter; and when you have eaten, disperse. Do not engage in familiar talk, for this would annoy the Prophet and he would be ashamed to bid you go; but of the truth God is not ashamed. If you ask his wives for anything, speak to them from behind a curtain. This is more chaste for your hearts and their hearts. (The Confederate Tribes 33:53). ISLAMIC URBANISM IN MEDIEVAL FES 121 However, the prescriptions found in the Quran and the Traditions of the Prophet were only meant to provide the spirit of the law that needed to be elaborated on through Islamic jurisprudence. In other words, the Quran and the Sunna (the normative behaviour of the Prophet) did not outline the specifics of how space was to be regulated and negotiated in Islamic society. In the course of Islamic history, Muslim judges and jurists were faced with numerous grievances for which there were no provisions in the primary sources of the shari'a (the Quran and the Sunna). Urban growth and the need for more and more valuable building space was a direct cause for many cases of litigation among urbanites. The following examples illustrate how Islamic Law resolved some of the questions related to the organisation of space while providing every guarantee to ensure that a person's privacy was maintained intact. Islamic Law forbids one to open his door or window facing his neighbour's house, thus forcing the latter to make extra arrangements to secure his privacy. The entrance door of a house has to deviate at least one metre from the facing entrance door of one's neighbour so as not to have direct view of the latter's corridor. If a window must be opened for lighting and/or ventilation, it has to be placed above the line of vision to prevent any indiscreet view into the neighbour's house.1 The structural implications of such provisions resulted in a domestic space that is both hermetically secluded and almost completely introverted.

FIGURE 1 A SCHEMATIC VIEW OF A BENT-AXIS ENTRYWAY Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 Central courtyard 122 THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES Beside the entrance door, there is rarely any opening onto the street with the exception of the occasional mashambiyya (a grille of lattice woodwork). The courtyard functions as the primary source of lighting and ventilation to the domestic unit. Being an essentially introverted space, the Islamic house does not reveal its secrets and charms to outsiders. In fact, the exterior of Islamic houses is totally deceiving with its high and blank walls which form the dark and tortuous alleyways so characteristic of the medina of Fes. At the level of the individual house the main architectural feature used to regulate access to the interior is the bent-axis corridor (Figure 1). This angled entrance ensured that no direct view onto the house was possible. The bent-axis entryway opens onto one of the corners of the central courtyard around which open all the main rooms in the house. The bent-axis entryway and the central courtyard are the most characteristic features of Maghribi and, arguably, all Islamic domestic architecture. These features are 'religiously' maintained regardless of the constraints of building space since we found them even in houses of very small size.2 However, both features are not purely Islamic innovations. They are found in earlier architectural traditions, such as Greco-Roman domestic architecture in North Africa. Mantoz states that the bent-axis corridor is not a Roman creation but rather a Greek or even a possible oriental creation.3 While in Greek houses the bent-axis entryway is a common feature, Roman houses found in Italy rarely show this architectural feature so widespread in North African architecture. Roman houses open into the atrium that can be seen without obstruction from the outside. It is not clear as to when and how this architectural feature was adopted by North African architects. Golvin and Marcais attribute an oriental (western Asia, Mesopotamia, and Persia) origin to the bent-axis entryway.4 Golvin correctly points out that it is unlikely that the adoption of the bent-axis entryway in North Africa was a Greek influence since the Greek presence in the area was too sporadic to leave such a lasting mark. Finally, the bent-axis entryway is not an exclusively domestic feature in North African architecture. It is also found Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 in military architecture in the form of the avant-corps? The central courtyard or the Moroccan wast ad-ddr is also a feature that was adopted from pre-existing architectural traditions.6 The Roman atrium and its precursor the Greek peristyle bear a striking similarity to the central courtyard of the Islamic house and it is very likely that they were used as a blueprint by Muslim architects. Beside its role of providing the Muslim family with a space that is architecturally open and socially restricted, the central courtyard also responds to specific climatic conditions. In areas with a very short rainy season and a long, hot, and dry summer, the courtyard is an efficient cooling and ventilation device.7 It retains cool air trapped at night and releases it during the day when it is most needed. A small FIGURE 2 MEDIEVAL AL-BASRA A HOUSE COMPLEX WITH THREE ROOMS AND A BENT-AXIS ENTRYWAY

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Source: Benco 2002 (note 10) p.334. 124 THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES courtyard is preferred to a large one since the former continues to be in the shade for a longer period of time during the day; it helps to retain a lower temperature inside the house. The same principle applies to the layout and width of the streets and alleyways of the medina. They are kept narrow and winding with high walls to protect the houses from dust-laden winds and to reduce the time during which the exterior walls are exposed to direct sunlight and to prevent the wind from chasing out the cool air trapped at night.8 The layout of the houses themselves as blocks of aggregated domestic units helps reduce to the minimum the time during which the exterior walls are exposed to direct sunlight. The anatomy of domestic space in medieval Fes is well documented and detailed descriptions of several houses in the city exist. In the description of al-'Umari (1349 AD), the central courtyard holds a prominent place in the layout of the house: 'suivant un plan uniforme: deux salles se faisant vis-a- vis, dressees sur des piliers de pierre ou de brique; des chambres surplombant la cour de la maison; devant elles, des vasques, dans lesquelles l'eau court; puis cette eau sort dans un bassin situe au milieu de la cour.'9 The earliest examples of the bent-axis entryway are documented primarily through archaeological evidence. Excavations at the Idrisid city of al-Basra (9th—11th centuries AD) uncovered a large domestic unit, which is considered to be one of the oldest Islamic houses in Morocco (Figure 2).10 One important feature of this house is a bent-axis corridor which extends at least six metres beyond the bending point, becoming narrower in width. The traces of three holes halfway down the corridor might have marked the location of the main entrance to the house. It is somewhat intriguing that all the rooms in this house are interconnected by a series of corridors instead of opening onto a central courtyard as is the norm in the Islamic house." Excavations at medieval Qsar es Seghir (twelfth to fifteenth centuries) uncovered 18 well preserved Islamic houses.12 Almost invariably, all the excavated domestic units follow the classic layout of the Islamic house with

Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 a bent-axis entryway, rooms arranged around the central courtyard, and utility rooms (kitchen, storage room, latrines) arranged along the street side of the courtyard (Figure 3). Only house size, building material and decorative techniques show some variability.13 There is a striking similarity - in plan and elevation - between a number of Islamic houses excavated at Qsar es-Seghir and houses in Fes known from documentary evidence, such as al-'Umari's description cited above.14

The House Compound The aggregation of several courtyard houses forms the house compound, the second architectural unit in the hierarchy of settlements within the Islamic FIGURE 3 MEDIEVAL QSAR ES-SEGHIR PLAN OF HOUSE 200 _JL

1

LIVING UVTNG ROOM STREET Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010

ENTRY

\.. ;•• STREET y

Source: Redman 1986, Qsares-Seqhir (note 8). 126 THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES city. The house compound is occupied by members of an extended family headed by a patriarch. As with the courtyard house, the layout of the house compound is meant to regulate access and ensure maximum privacy to its occupants. At times, this was achieved at the expense of public space, which was consciously encroached on.15 The house compound forms a closed architectural complex composed of several individual domestic units sharing a common entry way (Figure 4). This starts from the street and forms a cul-de-sac. The location of a gate at the street results in the cul-de-sac becoming an extra private space used exclusively by the occupants of the house compound. In Fes, the cul-de-sac is an integral component of the quarter structure. In just one single quarter of the medina (the Garniz quarter) there are no less that 15 cul-de-sacs (Figure 5). Furthermore, spatial analysis of this quarter shows that access to two-thirds of its domestic units is regulated via cul-de-sacs; when an alternative point of access is available, the occupants invariably use the one that opens onto the cul-de-sac.'6 Without understanding the social structure of the Islamic family unit and the nature of the kinship relations within the house compound, it is easy to dismiss the profusion of cul-de-sacs in Islamic medinas as a result of ad hoc building practices. This is especially the case for a number of early twentieth century western scholars and travellers whose reference model was the Roman or Greek city with its well-defined orthogonal plan.

FIGURE 4 A SCHEMATIC VIEW OF A CUL-DE-SAC Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 ISLAMIC URBANISM IN MEDIEVAL FES 127 FIGURE 5 MEDINA OF FES PLAN OF THE GARNIZ QUARTER Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010

Source: Revaultef a/. 1992 (note 16). 128 THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES The Quarter The Islamic city lacks an orthogonal plan which consequently makes it difficult to delimit quarter boundaries. This is especially the case of the medina of Fes where the rigid prescriptions of access regulation actually define the very essence of a residential quarter. A 'real quarter', according to Le Tourneau, is the sum of all the cul-de-sacs and small streets that branch off a main artery or lead to one.17 As opposed to western cities where it is usually the street that marks the boundary between two quarters, in Fes such a boundary is very elusive, especially to outsiders; quarter boundaries are made of a dividing line (ligne de partage) that cuts through the house compounds instead of running around them.18 For example, two domestic units that abut onto each other do not necessarily belong to the same quarter if they open onto different streets. The quarter is made of a number of house compounds with a common ethnic, tribal or religious affiliation. One of the quarters of the medina of Fes (the al-makhfiyya quarter) formed an enclave of 86 households affiliated to five kin-related groups.19 In his influential study on the foundation of the city of Fes, Levi-Provencal pointed out that the earliest quarters corresponded to 'ethnic divisions' including the Sanhadja, the Lawata, the Masmuda, and the Ashnikhan.20 Each quarter formed a closed microcosm enjoying self-sufficiency in terms of its basic social, economic and administrative needs. The main public facilities, such as a mosque (for prayer and for teaching children the Quran and the basics of religion), a few shops selling basic household items, an oven and a fountain are located within the perimeter of the quarter. In the medina of Fes, the Jews had their own separate quarter called the mellah.2' According to the fourteenth century Ibn Abi Zar', Idriss II gave permission to the Jews who came to the newly-founded city of Fes to build their own quarter close to the northern section of the city walls in exchange for an annual poll tax of 30,000 dinars.22 Interestingly, Le Tourneau recorded Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 the toponym oifunduk-l-Ihudi (the warehouse of the Jew), the name of one of the quarters in the neighbourhood of Bab Gisa, the northern gate of the city.23 Under the Marinids, due to growing insecurity, the Jewish population of Fes was relocated to another quarter near the king's palace in the newly built Fes-Jdid.24 The Jewish quarter consisted primarily of merchants and artisans.25 The Jews of medieval Fes enjoyed a great deal of religious freedom and financial and administrative autonomy. They had their own police and tribunal. Obviously, the jurisdiction of these institutions did not extend beyond the periphery of the mellah.26 The layout of the Jewish quarter did not respond to the same social and religious requirements as its Islamic ISLAMIC URBANISM IN MEDIEVAL FES 129 counterpart. In fact, the main concern for many inhabitants was simply to find a viable building space. In other words, the Jewish population was too big for the space it was assigned. According to Le Tourneau, 8000 Jews were living in Fes at the beginning of the twentieth century.27 This is a large population size for a site of about six hectares28 (18 inhabitants per household in 1936). Most space was used for building and only a tiny portion was left for streets and alleyways. Domestic units were several storeys high with windows opening onto the street. To use Le Tourneau's words, the rule was to gain in height and density what was lacking in surface area.29 To understand the layout of the Jewish quarter one has to search for variables other than religious and social prohibitions, such as the historical circumstances surrounding the settlement and later relocation of the Jewish community in Fes, and the nature of the social and political status of this community within a pre-dominantly Islamic city.

The City The city constitutes the highest hierarchical unit of settlement in Islamic urbanism. Access to the city is controlled at the central level (prince, governor, or military official). In order to build a city wall complete with parapet, watchtowers and a surrounding ditch (as in, for example, the city of Baghdad), a central authority is needed to mobilise the necessary workforce, to supervise the construction, and to maintain and control such an elaborate access regulation apparatus.30 Access regulation, however, can also be discussed in terms of private and public space, as well as in terms of the layout of the city's road system. The strict rules regulating access to the different settlement units resulted in large areas of the city becoming restricted or private space, and a complex road system that was both introverted and exclusive. Several scholars have noted the high ratio of private (interior) space to public (exterior) space within the Islamic city.31 A

Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 study of three categories of land use at medieval Qsar es-Seghir (streets/plazas, residential/commercial building, and civic buildings) shows that the upper Islamic levels at this city have proportionately more interior residential space (76 per cent) than the corresponding Portuguese level of the city (70 per cent). Streets and plazas in the Islamic levels occupy less space (21 per cent) compared with Portuguese levels (27 per cent).32 Redman and Anzalone argue that '...although 6 per cent more exterior space in the Portuguese community is a small change compared to the internal variability that existed within each town, the pattern of excavated areas in the Portuguese level consistently having more exterior space than those of the Islamic levels below appears to be meaningful.'33 It is possible that these figures are less dramatic than expected because the Portuguese FIGURE 6 PLAN OF TIMGAD

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Source: Woloch, G Michael transl. Roman Cities by Pierre Grimal.© 1983. Reprinted by permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. ISLAMIC URBANISM IN MEDIEVAL FES 131 occupation at Qsar es-Seghir only partially modified the pre-existing urban structure of the Islamic city. In other words, higher ratios of public to private space are to be found in cities in Portugal contemporary with Qsar es- Seghir. The road system of the Islamic city was not laid out according to a preconceived plan. As stated by Le Tourneau: 'Moslem cities in North Africa were not laid out according to street plans; the location of the streets was determined by the arrangement of the buildings'.34 The Islamic city is in this regard in total contrast to its Roman counterpart. A classic plan of a Roman city is made of a square or a rectangle crossed by two perpendicular axes running north-south and east-west (Figure 6). The north-south and east-west main streets are the cardo and the decumanus respectively. The city gates are located equidistant from the point where the cardo and the decumanus intersect. The overall plan formed a chessboard with secondary streets parallel to the main axes and the settlement units forming the squares of this chessboard.35 The road system in the medina of Fes developed from random circumstances and prior occupation of building space by domestic units.36 With the exception of a few main arteries leading to the centre of the city, streets constitute in essence an extension of the domestic (private) space or a buffer zone around it. Access to domestic units and residential blocks is restricted by the construction of gates at the point of entrance to streets and cul-de-sacs. Once the gates were closed - at night or during periods of unrest - the city would be transformed into a number of enclaves totally shutting out the outside world.37 A schematic view of the road system of the medina of Fes shows a network of streets of descending hierarchical order (Figure 7):

1. Two major traffic arteries (the streets of tdl'a kabira and tdl'a as-sghira) connecting the city's core to its periphery.

Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 2. Main streets or duriib, sing, darb (e.g., darb Garniz) connecting the city's quarters to the main traffic arteries. 3. Secondary streets connecting blocks of house compounds to the main streets. 4. Cul-de-sacs or driba (the smallest unit within the road system) connecting house compounds to secondary streets and to the rest of the road system.

The Garniz quarter in the medina of Fes offers a good illustration of how these constituents were actually laid out within a residential block (Figure 5).38 This quarter is connected to the rest of the city by 132 THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES

FIGURE 7 A SCHEMATIC VIEW OF THE ROAD SYSTEM OF MEDIEVAL FES

Gate

To core

1. a main street (darb Garnfz) measuring about 5 metres at its widest point; it represents the heart of the quarter where all commercial and social activities take place, 2. three secondary streets ranging in width between 1.5 and 3.5 metres, and 3. more than a dozen cul-de-sacs, some of which form true bottle necks of 0.5 to 0.8 metres in width but rarely exceeding 2 metres.39 The absence of wide traffic arteries is not surprising since the use of wheeled vehicles was unknown. The inhabitants of Fes circulated on foot and Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 goods were transported either by using men porters or beasts of burden.40

This study demonstrates clearly that access regulation and the separation between the public sphere and the family sanctum is the 'structuring principle' of Islamic urbanism. Its manifestations are found in every single hierarchical unit of settlement with varying degrees of structural and jurisdictional complexity. More importantly, by identifying the structural mechanisms of access regulation the physical boundaries of social units can be recognised, especially in archaeological contexts lacking orthogonal planning and for which there is little or no documentary evidence. ISLAMIC URBANISM IN MEDIEVAL FES 133 Conclusion Two points, however, need to be emphasised. Firstly, the focus on access regulation in Islamic urbanism should not be interpreted as a symptom of Muslim xenophobia or indifference towards public life. Each social unit within the Islamic city, although forming a closed microcosm, was actively involved in the communal affairs of the city as a whole. Secondly, emphasis on the structural (architectural) aspects of access regulation should not overshadow other no less significant aspects of boundary demarcation in the Islamic domestic environment. The family sanctum is also protected against supernatural 'intruders', such as the jinn or the evil eye, among other things, through the use of charms and amulets buried under the entrance door and/or pendants (the hand of Fatima or the horse shoe) nailed to it.41 Considering the purely 'emic' nature of this type of boundary demarcation, its identification is much more difficult to recognise archaeologically but is no less fascinating a venture for future research.

NOTES

1. See Robert Brunschvig, 'Urbanism Medieval et Droit Musulman', Revue des Etudes hlamiques (1947) pp.139-141. 2. For example the Marinid house studied by Maslow and Terrasse, 'Une Maison Merinide de Fes', Revue Africaine 79 (1936) p.503; see also Michel Terrasse, 'Recherches Archeologiques d'Epoque Islamique en Afrique du Nord', Comptes Rendues de I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belle-Lettres (1976) pp.606,608. 3. Quoted in Lucien Golvin, 'Notes sur l'Entree en Avant Corps et en Chicane dans l'Architecture Musulmane de l'Afrique de Nord', Annales de I'Institut des Etudes Orientates, Algiers (1958) p.243. 4. Golvin (note 3) p.245; George Marcais, 'Les Origines de la Maison Nord-Africaine', Cahiers des Arts et Techniques de l'Afrique du Nord, 7 (1974) p.45. 5. Golvin (note 3). 6. Marcais (note 4). 7. In Middle Eastern domestic architecture, in addition to the courtyard (with the occasional iwan), one or more wind towers (malqaf) are used as ventilation devices to divert the outside air-flow into the house interior.

Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 8. Charles Redman, Qsar es-Seghir: An Archeological View of Medieval Life (New York: Academic Press 1986) p.78; Said Mouline, La Ville et la Maison Arabo-Musulmanes (Paris: Centre National de Documentation Pedagogique 1982) p.61. 9. Ibn Fadl Allah al-'Umari, Masalik al-Absar fi Mamalik al-Amsar (L'Afrique mains I'Egypte, transl. M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes), (Paris: Bibliotheque des Geographes Arabes 1927) p.138. See also Ibn Abi Zar', (Annales Regum Mauritaniae (al-Anis al-mutrib rawdh al-kirtas), Litteris Academicis Upsaliae, 1843; p.22; Leo Africanus, Description de l'Afrique (Delia descrittione dell'Africa e delle cose notabili che quivi sono, transl. A. Epaulard, Thd. Monod, H. Lhote and R. Mauny), 2 vols., (Paris: Maisonneuve 1956) pp. 183-4. 10. Nancy Benco, The Early Medieval Pottery Industry at Al-Basra, Morocco, British Archaeological Reports International Series 341, Oxford, 1987; Benco, 'Archaeological Investigations at Al-Basra, Morocco', Bulletin d'Archeologie Marocaine Vol.19 (2002) pp.293-340. 11. Benco (note 10) Early Medieval, p.38. 134 THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES

12. Redman (note 8). 13. Redman (note 8) pp.80-2. 14. al-'Umari (note 9) p.138. 15. Paul Wheatley, 'Levels of Space Awareness in the Traditional Islamic City', Ekistics 42/253 (1976) p.369. 16. Michel Dupin and Philippe Revault, 'Elements pour une Lecture Architecturale et Urbaine de la Maison Fasie' in J. Revault, L. Golvin and A. Amahan (eds.), Palais et Demeures de Fes III: Epoque Alawite XIX-XX siecles (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 1992) p.392. 17. Roger Le Tourneau, Fes avant le Protectorat: Etude Economique et Sociale d'une Ville de VOccident Musulman (Rabat: Publications de l'lnstitut des Hautes Etudes Marocaines 1949) p.229. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid, p.228. 20. Evariste Levi-Provencal, Lafondation de Fes (Paris: Larose 1939) p.21; Ibn Abi Zar' (note 9) pp.24-5. 21. Haim Zafrani, 'Mallah', Encyclopedia of Islam Vol.6 (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1991), pp.292-4. 22. Ibn Abi Zar' (note 9) p.24; Levi-Provencal (note 20) pp.23,27. 23. Roger Le Tourneau, Fez in the Age of the Marinides, transl. Besse Alberta Clement (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1961) p.31. 24. Ibid. p.76. 25. S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza 2 vols (Berkeley: University of California Press 1968-78). 26. Le Tourneau (note 17) p.271. 27. Ibid, p.158. 28. Site area was calculated from Le Tourneau (note 17) Figure 8. 29. Ibid, p.102. 30. For information on Islamic fortifications in Morocco and the relationship between city dwellers and hinterland tribesmen, see Patrice Cressier, 'La Fortification Islamique au Maroc: Elements de Bibliographie', Archeologie Islamique 5 (1995) pp.163-96; Riaz Hassan, 'Islam and Urbanization in the Medieval Middle-East', Ekistics 33/195 (1972) pp.108-112; F. Stambouli and A. Zghal, 'Urban Life in Pre-Colonial North Africa', British Journal of Sociology 27 (1976) pp.1-20. 31. Wheatley (note 15 ) p.362; Charles Redman and Ronald D. Anzalone, 'Discovering Architectural Patterning at a Complex Site', American Antiquity 45/2 (1980) p.286. 32. Redman and Anzalone (note 31) p.286. 33. Ibid. 34. Le Tourneau (note 17) p.26. 35. Pierre Grimal, Roman Cities (Les Villes Rotnaines, transl. G. Michael Woloch) (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press 1983) p.ll. 36. Le Tourneau (note 17) p.25.

Downloaded By: [Al Akhawayn University] At: 13:58 2 September 2010 37. Dupin and Revault (note 16) p.390; Le Tourneau (note 17) p.129. 38. Note the location of gates in Figure 5 marked by (x). 39. Dupin and Revault (note 16) p.392. 40. Le Tourneau (note 17) p.25. 41. Timothy Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 1999) pp.88-90,124-8; E. Westermarck, Pagan Survivals in Mohammedan Civilisation (London: Macmillan 1993).