MEDERSA BEN YOUSSEF

Certainly one of the most beautiful monuments in Marrakech, the Ben Youssef Medersa has long been considered the most sumptuous Koranic school in the Arab world. When you enter this large enclosure, through a door with heavy bronze wings, it is impossible not to be impressed. Founded in the middle of the ^14th century by the Marinid Sultan Abu El-Hassan, 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, transforming what was an unimportant building into one whose fame would spread over the mountains and into neighboring countries. The capitals of the prayer hall and the carved cedar lintel of the entrance door bear witness to the Saadian reconstruction of the medersa. At the end of the 1960s, the medersa was closed to the faithful and the public. It is only since 1982 that restoration work allowed travelers 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 mixture 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 decorated in the center of a large basin for ablutions, extremely sober. On either side of the courtyard, two ambulatory galleries with massive pillars support carved cedar lintels. At the end of the courtyard, in the axis of the entrance, the prayer room is protected from profane eyes by one of the most beautiful wrought portals of 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. The mihrab is decorated with verses from the Koran, carved on plaster. On the first floor and on the first floor are the 132 rooms reserved for the students of the medersa. It is a real labyrinth! At one time, the school had up to 900 students crammed into these small cells overlooking either the central courtyard or the seven interior patios. It is in these rooms that the students live, study, sleep and eat. When visiting them, one cannot help but be transported back in time and moved to be so close to the intimacy of these students from another time.