Tafilalt or
Tafilet is a region and the most important oasis of the
MoroccanMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
SaharaThe Sahara , , "The Greatest Desert") is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,000,000 square kilometres , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the United States or the continent of Europe. The desert stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean...
; it is also considered one of the largest
oasisIn geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...
in the world, the oasis is entirely located along the
Ziz RiverThe Ziz River is a river in the south of Morocco and Algeria. It has its source in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco and flows 282 kilometers into the Sahara Desert in Algeria...
. The oasis is ten days' journey south of Fez, across the
Atlas MountainsThe Atlas Mountains are a mountain range across a northern stretch of Africa extending about 2,500 km through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The highest peak is Jbel Toubkal, with an elevation of in southwestern Morocco. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines...
. It is celebrated for its large and luscious
datePhoenix dactylifera , commonly known as the Date Palm, is a palm in the genus Phoenix, extensively cultivated for its edible sweet fruit...
s, to the successful cultivation of which, soon after the arrival of an ancestor (
Al Hassan Addakhill-Hesn d-Dakhl was an alleged direct ancestor to Mulay ˤLi Shrif, founder of the Alaouite Dynasty, which is the current Moroccan royal family. He was taken to Morocco from the town of Yanbu in the Hejaz at the end of the 13th century by the inhabitants of Tafilalt to be their Imām...
) of the reigning dynasty of Morocco (the
Alaouite DynastyThe Alaouite Dynasty is the name of the current Moroccan royal family. The name Alaouite comes from the ‘Alī of its founder Moulay Ali Cherif who became Sultan of Tafilalt in 1631. His son Mulay r-Rshid was able to unite and pacify the country...
) around 1250, this dynasty owes its rise to power.
Since 1648 it has been the custom of Moroccan
sultanSultan is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. Originally it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", or "rulership", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power"...
s to despatch superfluous sons and daughters to Tafilalt.
Tafilalt or
Tafilet is a region and the most important oasis of the
MoroccanMorocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 32 million and an area just under . Its capital is Rabat, and its largest city is Casablanca. Morocco has a coast on the Atlantic Ocean that reaches past the Strait of Gibraltar into the...
SaharaThe Sahara , , "The Greatest Desert") is the world's largest hot desert. At over 9,000,000 square kilometres , it covers most of Northern Africa, making it almost as large as the United States or the continent of Europe. The desert stretches from the Red Sea, including parts of the Mediterranean...
; it is also considered one of the largest
oasisIn geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...
in the world, the oasis is entirely located along the
Ziz RiverThe Ziz River is a river in the south of Morocco and Algeria. It has its source in the Middle Atlas Mountains of Morocco and flows 282 kilometers into the Sahara Desert in Algeria...
. The oasis is ten days' journey south of Fez, across the
Atlas MountainsThe Atlas Mountains are a mountain range across a northern stretch of Africa extending about 2,500 km through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The highest peak is Jbel Toubkal, with an elevation of in southwestern Morocco. The Atlas ranges separate the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines...
. It is celebrated for its large and luscious
datePhoenix dactylifera , commonly known as the Date Palm, is a palm in the genus Phoenix, extensively cultivated for its edible sweet fruit...
s, to the successful cultivation of which, soon after the arrival of an ancestor (
Al Hassan Addakhill-Hesn d-Dakhl was an alleged direct ancestor to Mulay ˤLi Shrif, founder of the Alaouite Dynasty, which is the current Moroccan royal family. He was taken to Morocco from the town of Yanbu in the Hejaz at the end of the 13th century by the inhabitants of Tafilalt to be their Imām...
) of the reigning dynasty of Morocco (the
Alaouite DynastyThe Alaouite Dynasty is the name of the current Moroccan royal family. The name Alaouite comes from the ‘Alī of its founder Moulay Ali Cherif who became Sultan of Tafilalt in 1631. His son Mulay r-Rshid was able to unite and pacify the country...
) around 1250, this dynasty owes its rise to power.
Since 1648 it has been the custom of Moroccan
sultanSultan is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. Originally it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", or "rulership", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power"...
s to despatch superfluous sons and daughters to Tafilalt. The inhabitants occupy fortified villages (
KsarA Ksar is a term describing a Berber village consisting of generally attached houses, often having collective granaries and other structures widespread among the oasis populations of the Maghreb Ksars are sometimes situated in mountain locations to make defense easier; they often are entirely...
). In Ifli, the central portion, formerly existed the town of
SijilmasaSijilmasa was a mediaeval trade entrepôt at the Western edge of the Maghreb in what is now Morocco. The ruins of the city lie along the river Ziz in the Tafilalt oasis near the town of Rissani. The city's colorful history was marked by several successive invasions by Amazigh dynasties during the...
, founded by
MiknasaThe Miknasa were a Berber tribe in Morocco and western Algeria.The Miknasa Berbers originated in Tripolitania and southern Tunisia, but migrated westwards into central Morocco and western Algeria in pre-Islamic times. The modern Moroccan city of Meknes bears witness to their presence.After defeat...
BerbersBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke various Berber languages, which together form a branch of the...
in 757. It was on the direct caravan route from the
NigerThe Niger River is the principal river of western Africa, extending about . Its drainage basin is in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea...
to
TangierTangier or Tangiers [
pronounce] is a city of northern Morocco with a population of about 700,000...
, and attained a considerable degree of prosperity. It was destroyed, but its ruins still extend five miles along the river bank.
The name Tafilalt is a Berber name meaning "the Country of the Hilali", as its inhabitants are called, because they were descended from the Arabian tribe of
Banu HilalThe Banu Hilal were a confederation of bedouin tribes that migrated from Upper Egypt into North Africa in the 11th century, having been sent by the Fatimids to punish the Zirids for abandoning Shiism. Other authors suggest that the tribes left the grasslands on the upper Nile because of...
, who settled here .
Medieval Traveler Ibn Batuta visited Sijilmasa (near Tafilalt) in the fourteenth century on his journey from Fez to "the country of the blacks".
The first European to visit Tafilalt in the modern era was René Caillié (1828), the next
Gerhard RohlfsGerhard Rohlfs was a German linguist. He taught Romance languages and literature at the universities of Tübingen and Munich in Germany. He was described as an "archeologist of words"....
(1864). A later visit to the oasis by WB Harris is described in his book
Tafilet (London, 1895).
""The oasis is ten days' (historic, by animal) or one day's (modern, by motor vehicle) journey south of Fez, across the Atlas.""
External links