Travels Within Morocco: Chefchaouan

Last weekend, after the Prophet’s Birthday, a small group of us went to the city of Chefchaouan, also known as the Blue City. It was absolutely amazing. This city is set in the valley of the Rif Mountains so it is completely surrounded by gorgeous landscapes. It is called the Blue City because many of the walls and buildings in the medina are painted this brilliant shade of blue. For more information on the history of the city itself visit Tiffany’s blog here:Tiffany's Blog. I am going to focus on the travel aspect of our adventure because traveling within Morocco is not always easy and other people may want to learn from our mistakes.

There is no direct train or bus to get from Meknes to Chefchaouan. You can take the train to Fez and then a bus to Chefchaouan, but that requires knowing the bus schedule before you get to Fez. In the US, something like that would probably be posted online, but we’re in Africa. We’re lucky they had a website at all. So to get there, we ended up taking a Grand Taxi. It cost 1,000 Dirhams to take the 4 hours taxi ride to Chefchaouan whether we had 2 people in the taxi or 6. We ended up having 4 people, which worked out well because even though they say there’s room for 6 there’s really only room for 4. This worked out to 250 Dirhams per person, a little expensive by Moroccan standards (roughly $32) but still not bad.

Laura, the ISA director, warned us that when we get out of the taxi we will be bombarded by people offering us “help.” They will say “Oh, my cousin has a hotel, let me show you the way!” or “My brother’s restaurant, it’s very good, very cheap, I will take you.” Then they expect you to pay them for walking you to where ever.  You have to be very forceful with these people when you tell them no or else they will follow you and keep asking. Don, another ISA student, was the only boy with us, which worked out well for us girls, but maybe not so well for him. Most of the people would defer to him to answer their questions and offer him help since he was the man and obviously in charge. After about 10 minutes though, we finally made our point and were left alone.

We briefly stopped for lunch and then made our way to the hotel so we could ditch our bags and look a little less like tourists. Although, when you’re a group of white kids, people just kind of assume. They assume that you are a tourist and that you have money.

We borrowed two guide books from the ISA office, Frommers and Lonely Planet, which were very helpful in finding the right hotel and giving us ideas for what to do in the area. We ended up staying in Hotel Marrakech and I highly recommend it. None of the hotels in Morocco are up to American/Western standards. You kind of have to lower your expectations a bit when traveling in Morocco. So when I say that it was a good hotel, I mean that it had a normal toilet and friendly staff. The main draw to this hotel was that it was decorated to match the city. So everything was blue! The bed covers, the curtains, the walls; all were bright blue. It was very peaceful and relaxing. The guy who runs the hotel was very nice and very understanding of our language barriers. The hotel offers many different room options, the cheapest for us worked out to be one room with one double bed and one twin bed for the three of us girls and one room with one double bed for Don, a total of 508 Dirhams. All four of us split the cost so that it was equal for everyone, 127 Dirhams each(roughly $16 for one night). This came with breakfast, our own bathroom (which does not come standard in all hotels or even all of the rooms in this hotel) and hot water. Our bathroom did have a shower, but it was a little strange. And by a little, I mean a lot. It had seven different shower heads, all at different heights, and when you turned the knob, they all turned on spurting water everywhere. This would be somewhat ok if the shower had its own space, but it doesn’t. It is just on the wall, in between the sink and the toilet, with a drain in the middle of the room. So to take a shower you more or less have to sit on the toilet. We all just decided to skip showering that night because we didn’t want to flood the bathroom. 

Something else to note about Chefchauan, it is the marijuana capital of Morocco. This was something we found out about two hours into our taxi ride by reading the guide books. The Rif Mountain area has a huge cannabis farm industry that supplies most of Europe with its pot. This is where the word reefer comes from, the Rif valley. One of the guide books mentions that anyone who looks “slightly alternative” will be offered hashish and/or marijuana. We turned this into our catch phrase for the weekend, constantly deciding who and what was slightly alternative and who was not. We were offered quite a few times, possibly because “slightly alternative” means young white tourist, and even though we found the offers very humorous (you like some good marijuana???) we declined. The town definitely has a large hippy culture, so if that’s your thing definitely make a stop. But keep in mind that they are generally the same everywhere. You won’t really be getting a taste of Moroccan culture by staying in the hippy areas of Chefchaouan.

The rest of the time in Chefchaouan went pretty smoothly. We found good places to eat, met some very nice people, hiked up a mountain trail, and shopped in the medina. Oh and took lots and lots of pictures (I took about 180 which I thought was a lot until Tiffany told me she had close to 400). It wasn’t until it was time to go home that we ran into travel problems.

You may or may not have heard about the protests in Morocco. They aren’t very big, very violent, or very revolutionary so the media hasn’t really been paying attention. But they still impacted the country. Protests were scheduled for Sunday Feb. 20^th ; the day that we had planned to be traveling back to Meknes. Our plan was to take the bus to Fez, and from Fez we would take the train to Meknes. The bus ride was fine, longer than expected but still fine. We got off the bus in Fez and immediately things go awry. We are approached by two men, who say they work for the bus station, and want to help us get a taxi. We don’t believe them because a. they are not wearing uniforms(although now that I think about it, unless you are the police no one here as uniforms) and b. we were approached by a lot of people in Chefchaouan who wanted to “help.” Turns out these guys were legit though. Because of the protests the trains were not running so we couldn’t get on the train to Meknes. We were also informed that there were lots of people in the streets and as foreigners it would even be dangerous to try to get to the train station. So we were pretty much stuck with whatever help these guys could give us. One of the men, who spoke pretty good English, went outside and organized a taxi ride to Meknes for us. The taxi driver didn’t speak any English so in the end I’m glad this man helped us. We paid a total of 500 Dirhams for the ride 45 minute ride to Meknes. Anyways, lesson learned, do not make travel plans on a national day of protest.

This taxi ride provides the perfect opportunity to introduce you all to certain aspects of Moroccan life; constant government control and bribing the police. All along the highway and any intercity roads there are police stationed. Any one of them can decide at any point in time to make you pull over. They can have any reason at all. Maybe you are a guy and you are driving a female friend home, they will pull you over and ask why you have a woman in your car. I was surprised that our taxi on the way to Chefchaouan made it the entire way without getting stopped. We weren’t so lucky on the way back. Taxis and buses all have different types of licenses that authorize where they are allowed to drive. It turns out that our taxi driver was only authorized to drive in Fez, so we got pulled over as we neared Meknes. They asked him what he was doing, why he was in Meknes, even though they knew he was a taxi driver and that he was probably taking customers to where they needed to go. The police demanded money to let him continue. Our driver paid them 20 Dirhams and was allowed to continue on his way. Bribing the police is so normal that the police expect it. This happens to be one of the things that people were protesting. Government corruption is so bad that it has trickled down all the way to the traffic cops. I can’t even imagine offering a bribe to a police officer in the US let alone having them expect it of me.

The driver, after paying the police, got in the car and started to explain the situation to us. It was at this point that he discovered I could speak a little bit of Arabic. After that he talked to me for a bit, complimented my limited Arabic skills, and asked about our stay in Meknes. Finally after 4 hours of bus ride and 45 minutes of taxi we had made it back to Meknes. We were all so exhausted, all we wanted to do was get home, check our email, and go to bed. Too bad we found out we had no internet as soon as we got there.

It hasn’t been too bad without the internet though. Tiffany and I have both realized how dependent we are on the internet and that it might be good for us to not have unlimited access. We’ve been going to the Marilyn Café which has free wifi and to the ISA office to use the internet. It gets us out of the house for a bit and prevents us from constantly being online.

I know many of you are interested in the crazy revolution trend that is sweeping the Middle East and North Africa. I will be writing about this soon, I just need to work out exactly what I’m going to say. Just to put minds at ease, the situation in Morocco is nowhere near as chaotic, dangerous, or revolutionary as that in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya. The people of Morocco generally like their king and his rule, but they want to make some changes, some constitutional amendments. This is vastly different than wanting to throw out the entire government altogether. Moroccans enjoy a large number of freedoms that the people in those countries do not. The Moroccan government even approved the protests saying that it supports the people’s right to protest peacefully and to voice their opinions.

Hammam: Public Bathing

I went to the Hammam today and it might be my new favorite activity. What is the Hammam you say? The Hammam is a public bath. Before you get all grossed out about communal nudity, read the rest of the post so I can tell you how awesome it is.

Things to bring with you to the Hammam:

·         Towel

·         Clean underwear

·         Scrubber( it is like a mitten, without a thumb, and is very abrasive)

·         Small bucket with a handle

·         Mat

·         Shampoo and conditioner

·         Black soap and henna mixture

·         Regular body soap

·         Razor and shaving cream if needed

You start out in a room with benches all along the walls. This is similar to a locker room, except there are no lockers. There are women at a desk that put your things in a cubby and guard them all for you. This is room number 1. In room number one you strip down completely, for women underwear is optional, but as my friend and I quickly realized, you might as well do without. This is the part that a lot of us Americans might have issues with. Yes you are naked, yes everyone else is naked. You accept it and move on. Focusing on the nakedness, feeling awkward or trying to cover up will only make you stand out more.  After stripping down, you get all your stuff together. You receive a large bucket in Room 1 and all your bathing supplies go inside; scrubber, small bucket, mat, soaps and shampoos. Your clothing goes in whatever bag you brought with you and gets handed to the women behind the desk.  You then carry your towel and your big bucket to Room 2.

For now we are just going to skip Room 2 and walk straight through to the final room. Room 3 feels like a sauna when you walk in. It is hot and steamy and there are naked people all over the place. (side note, the Hammam is segregated by gender of course. There are certain times for men and certain times for women). All along the walls of the room are sets of faucets, low to the ground. Each set has one hot water spout and one cold water spout and they are all about 2 feet apart. You walk in, pick a spot on the wall, run some clean water on the spot and then lay your mat down.  Sit down on the mat, get comfortable, empty all your shower things onto the small ledge that runs around the wall. There is a ledge all along the out edge of the floor as well. The room is like a hill with the top being the center of the floor so that all the water runs down, over the ledge and into drains.

 After you’ve emptied your bucket you begin to fill it with hot water. Using your small bucket, you slowly get your entire body wet, including your hair. All of this is very relaxing and not to be rushed. You’re just supposed to take everything in. There are women all around washing themselves and their children, no one is in a hurry. The next step is mixing your black soap and henna with water to make a paste. The black soap and the henna are amazing. You rub the paste all over your body, covering every inch. It took us about 15 to 20 minutes to get completely rub it in everywhere. Your neighbors will help you cover your back and you are expected to return the favor.  After your covered , you rinse it off with bucketfuls of hot water. Your skin will already feel different, the soap and henna mixture gets into your skin and helps remove the dead cells.

Now comes the really fun part. In the center of the room are two older women. For an extra 25 Dirhams, they will scrub you from head to toe. You lay down on your mat, you head is in the lap of one of the old women, she takes your scrubber and just starts attacking your body. She scrubs absolutely every inch of you. She moves you around, rolls you over, lifts your arms, scrubbing the entire time. This is when we realized underwear wasn’t really necessary because even though we were wearing them, she moves them out of her way. The combination of the black soap and henna and the scrubbing causes your skin to just roll off. Layers and layers of skin, coming off in clumps. Sounds disgusting, I know, but it feels amazing.

After the scrub down, you go back to your spot. You rinse off the dead skin, using cold water this time. You wash and rinse your hair. Use conditioner. Shave if you need to. Once you are all done with whatever hygiene things you need to do, you wash your body one last time with regular body soap. Rinse yourself a few times and now you are ready to go. You can stay and relax for awhile if you like or just grab your towel and head on out to Room 2. Before you leave though, you are supposed to wash the area under your mat; just a quick rinse with new water is fine.

Room 2 has faucets all along the walls, but this time it’s only cold water. This is mostly just the cool down, relaxing room to get you ready to head out into the world again. You don’t stay in here too long, once you’re almost dry, you head back into Room 1. There you get your stuff back, return the large bucket and get dressed. If you need lotion, you put it on in Room 1 before you put your clothes back on.

I have never felt this clean in my life. My skin is so soft and wonderful. I have constantly dry skin, I have to put lotion on like three times a day, but now my skin doesn’t feel dry. It is smooth and soft and clean. If you ever find yourself in Morocco, the Hammam is an absolute must. I am going to go back next week.

The Hammam is all about community and getting clean. This used to be one of the very few reasons women were allowed out of the house. Once a week, they would go to the Hammam and spend 3 to 4 hours just relaxing and talking. It is where they got caught up on all the latest gossip. The Hammam is also where they would pick out wives for their sons. The mothers would spend hours in the Hammam just watching all the young girls, listening to them talk, seeing if they had beautiful bodies and would then pick out the one they liked best to recommend for their son. The mother’s opinion was highly valued because, as a woman she had the opportunity to see what the girls were really like when they had their guard down.  The Hammam is still a community event. There were about 25 other women when I went. Some of them were old, some of them had their children with them, and some of them were my age. Everyone was talking, helping each other bathe and just relaxing. I can’t wait to go again.

Happy Birthday to the Prophet Mohammed!

First, I would like to apologize for the lack of posts this past week. I had hoped to be able to write about the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday which was last Wednesday through Friday, but the whole experience was kind of a let down. I’ll describe what was supposed to happen, but over all it was not what we expected. Saturday two of my roommates, our friend Don and I went to Chefchaouan, the blue city, and it was fantastic! I absolutely loved it. I haven’t been able to post about it though because the internet we have been using in our apartment suddenly disappeared. We believe the wireless connection we had belonged to one of our neighbors and for one reason or another it is no longer there. So I will now have to resort to the students’ café at school, internet cafes, and the ISA office when it is open in order to get internet.

The Prophet’s Birthday: For those of you who don’t know, the Prophet is Prophet Mohammed, the founder of the Islamic religion. He was an illiterate man, who one day walking out in the desert was spoken to by the angel Gabriel who relayed to him the message of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. This makes the Quran miraculous because it is written in a very refined and poetic language and since Mohammed was illiterate he could not have written it on his own. The Islamic calendar is determined by lunar cycles unlike the Christian calendar. The Christian calendar is determined yearly and all dates are decided for the entire year. The Islamic calendar is a little more up-in-the-air you could say. Celebrations, holidays, feast days, and fasts are not able to be determined until a certain phase of the moon has taken place. So all last week we were waiting for the official proclamation from the Imam in Fez saying that the moon has reached the correct point and the Prophet’s Birthday has begun. This finally happened on Wednesday and because of the lunar cycle, it lasted until Friday. This meant no school for those three days, carnivals in the big parks around town, and some major festivities in the medina. Meknes holds a special place in Morocco for the Prophet’s birthday. There is an Islamic saint buried here in Meknes so many people from all over the country travel here to visit his grave, especially during the Prophet’s birthday. Celebrations are mixed between festivities approved by the Islamic religion and those that are more ritualistic, tribal behaviors left over from ancient Berber practices. For instance, trance dancing is one spectacle to see on the Prophet’s birthday. Basically the idea is that these Sufis ( small mystical sect of Islam) go out into the square in front of the mausoleum and begin dancing to a drum/chanting music. The beat of the drums and the movement of their bodies puts them into a trance and they are one with Allah(God). They are then no longer in control of their actions until the trance wears off. During a trance we were warned that they might cut themselves. We were also told not to wear black because when you are in a trance, evil possessive spirits appear to you in black and they must be attacked to prevent possession. I only briefly caught a glimpse of the Sufi trance dancers, but other people in my group got a chance to see them. They did in fact cut their arms while they were dancing which creates this terrifying surreal dance with men in all white robes covered in blood. THIS IS NOT AN APPROVED ISLAMIC TRADITION. It is a tribal behavior that has been added to the local variant on Islam. Another one of these tribal activities that we were warned about was live animal sacrifice in the streets. As in, people who need some sort of divine intervention bring a sheep or a goat to the Sufi trance dancers and they rip it apart while it is still alive. Then everybody feasts on the raw flesh. I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A PRACTICE OF ISLAM. 

My roommates, a few other ISA students, some Moroccan friends, and I went to the medina in the late afternoon to check out all the action. We were told things didn’t get going til around 3 and that’s right about when we got there, but apparently we were late. The medina was so crowded you couldn’t even breathe.  There were people everywhere. Our group had a very hard time staying together in the crowd. There were a few times when the massive crowd literally got stuck and no one could move anywhere. This quickly became a not enjoyable experience, but we were determined to get to the mausoleum and see some trance. We finally get there and there are so many people that we can’t see anything. We move around to some different spots and keep trying to be optimistic, but things aren’t working out. After awhile, the whole thing was just not worth it anymore, there were too many people and we were worn out from fighting through the crowd. I wish I could have seen something, that would have made it all worth it. I’ve tried searching online for pictures of this particular event, but the Sufi trance dancers don’t appreciate having their picture taken and I’ve heard stories about cameras being smashed so that could explain why my search hasn’t been fruitful.  You can see a Turkish version of Sufi Trance here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEadcv79Wto This is an organized stage performance, meaning no blood or animal sacrifice involved. My roommate, Tiffany, also wrote about this. She actually has some photos and video from the day, check it out: Tiffany's Blog. 

On another note, I would like to say thank you for all the amazing words of support I got from my last post. Thank you so much for reading my blog, for writing comments, and for letting me know that there is hope for the future. 

It's either we live together, or we die together.

http://www.seiyaku.com/customs/crosses/crescent.html

Today in my Three Religions, Three Peoples class we discussed a news story that has really moved me. This feeling has been growing from my Arabic language and Middle Eastern history and culture classes at UC, from my internship this past summer with the Cleveland Council on World Affairs, and now from my time here in Morocco. There is a lot of hate in the US towards Arabic people and specifically towards Muslims. Hate has never really been something that I have subscribed to, I feel that it is most often just a waste of energy that could be put towards more positive things. I also feel that most people who hate things or hate other people, do not in fact know all that much about them. I have begun to feel that helping to end some of this hate against the Islamic people might be my mission in life.

So often in the US, the only media coverage about the Middle East or Muslim people is negative. Its about terrorism, wars, oil, and whatever new reason someone has come up with for hating Muslims.We never have any positive stories about the Middle East and I believe that this greatly impacts the views that people have towards Muslims. In order to get a true picture of what is going on, people would have to take the time to research it and most do not have the time or do not want to take the time for whatever reasons. This is where I can help. I am interested in the subject and in general I like looking things up and finding out more. I love to learn and to know facts. So by looking up more information and then talking about it, telling people, blogging, posting on facebook I can maybe make a dent in what people think and believe.

While you are reading this story, I have two questions that I would like you to ponder; What would you do in this situation? Would you be willing to do what these people did?

On December 31, 2010, a car bomb exploded outside of a Coptic church in Egypt. The bomb killed atleast 21 people and injured 24. The bomb was set to attack this group by an extremist Islamic group  for the illegal status of the church building and for the supposed ill treatment of Coptic women who had converted to Islam. The threat of violence had been given back in November.

The Copts are a Christian sect in Egypt. They are the native population of Egypt(think American Indians in the US) and only make up 10% to 20% of the entire population. Getting a license for and building a Coptic church in Egypt is extremely difficult do to discrimination in the legal system and favoritism towards the building of Islamic Mosques. The car bomb created an uprising of religious fighting which is the main goal of terrorism; to divide and creating fighting and fear.

The fighting didn't last long however as many chose solidarity over division. The coptic church celebrates Christmas on January 7. Security had been increased at Coptic churches all around the world, but not in Egypt. The Egyptian government (keep in mind this is pre-revolution) was not really interested in the minortiy. It was having enough problems with the majority. So the people took things into their own hands. Thousands of Muslims, at Coptic churches all around the country, stood as human shields around the churches, physically blocking any harm that could interrupt this sacred mass. They were fighting for safety and for the right to worship as you please. These were everyday Egyptian people who happened to also be Muslim. There were also famous people in the crowds (think Egyptian Hollywood types) who gave some publicity to the event. But the thousands were made up mostly of neighbors, family, friends, co workers, and other community members who were Muslim, but wanted to support their friends who were Copts.

This quote by Cherine Mohamed, a 50 year old Egyptian housewife, pretty much some up the feelings and intent; "I know it might not be safe, yet it's either we live together, or we die together, we are all Egyptians."

Many of us, I know, would be willing to help victims after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. We volunteer, we send aid, we write letters, we sign petitions. But how many of us would stand up and put our own lives at risk to protect a group of people's right to believe in something that we ourselves do not believe in? This wasn't a pretend danger, they weren't just saying that their lives were on the line. The threats had been made and followed through and could continue. How many of us would stand up to be a human shield?

And if you can answer that question, here's another, how come its the Muslims, supposedly the religious group to be feared, hated, ostracized, and avoided that stood up and did this for their Christian neighbors? And in the US when terror strikes, Muslim's suddenly find bricks being thrown threw their windows, their women are harassed, their men are beat up, their children are ostracized at school, some have even died because of the hatred and propaganda. Yet in the Middle East, where many view the religious differences to be the worst, these people can stand up and be prepared to give their lives for someone else. America is supposed to be the land of the free; freedom of religion included. Why are we learning lessons from the Middle East?

News Articles about this story:
http://www.good.is/post/egyptian-muslims-act-as-human-shields-to-protect-coptic-christmass-services/
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/95/3216/Egypt/Attack-on-Egypt-Copts/Egypt-Muslims-to-act-as-human-shields-at-Coptic-Ch.aspx
http://onfaith.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2011/01/egyptian_muslims_act_as_human_shields_for_coptic_christmas_mass.html

Roman Ruins in Morocco: Volubilis

This was a crazy weekend. Yesterday, we went to Volubilis, an ancient roman city, and to Moulay Idriss, the first Islamic city of Morocco. Today we hiked for about 4 hours to the top of a mountain in the Middle Atlas Mountain Range near the vilalges of Ifrane and Azrou. All of this was really sweet, but for right now, I am going to focus on Volubilis.

Who knew there were Roman ruins in Morocco? I certainly did not. Volubilis, dating from around the 3rd century, was built to organize the grain production in Morocco and to control the Berber tribes. The idea was that the people in Morocco would grow all this grain, feed the Roman people in Volubilis, and send the rest back to Rome, all without complaining or getting paid. Imperialism much? Well turns out it didn't work out quite so well, the Romans were never able to fully conquer the Berber populations.

Despite that small setback, Volubilis was a thriving city for a very long time. (think longer than the US has been around, way longer). It was inhabited for atleast 1,000 years, but not entirely by Romans. The Romans had mostly evacuated Morocco by the 6th century, but a group of Volubilis citizens stayed behind and mingled with the tribal people.

This is what is left of the courthouse. 

Through out its long history, parts of the city have been taken down in order to recycle building materials and earthquakes have torn down bits and pieces as well. The most disastrous earthquake was the 1755 Lisbon Earthquake that took down a significant portion of the city. The structures that are left are pieces of community buildings, foundations for wealthy persons homes, and the main street. 

What's left of the temple. Volubilis was built way before the Romans became Christians so this temple was for a god or goddess. Animal sacrifices would have taken place just at the top of the stairs.

The homes are identified by the mosaic floors that are still intact even though the walls are long gone. The houses are built in the typical Roman fashion; one big square with a courtyard in the middle and a hall way surrounding. This architecture would later become a signature style of Morocco in the Riad style buildings.

Close up of a floor mosaic. This mosaic depicts the goddes Diana getting out of her bathtub and being watched by a peeping Tom. She catches him and turns him into a stag and he is then hunted down by his own hunting dogs. Sad day.

The main street of Volubilis is very much still intact and you can almost imagine how grand it used to be. There is a center path of stone, which in fact is covering up the sewer system, quite a modern technology for the Romans. Each side was lined with columns and arches and also had side walks. All this led right up to the triumphant arch which was the formal entrance to the city.

The Epiphany of Taa Marbuta

So this post may not be interesting to everyone, but i really got excited about it today so I'm going to share. This is going to be an odd lesson of Arabic, nothing you'll really be able to use haha just kind of some fun information. It blew my mind in class today.

  Ok so here are some basics. The third letter in the Arabic alphabet is taa. It sounds similar to the english T except instead of the eee sound after the t its an aah sound. taaaa. It looks like this:

Kind of like a smiley face. You start from the right and do the big curve and then you go back and add the two dots.

There is another letter in Arabic that sometimes sounds like taa and sometimes sounds like Alif, the letter A, which sounds like aaahh. This letter is called taa marbuta. It lookes like this:

You start from the right again and cross to the left, then go under to the right, and back up to the left. At the end you add the two dots. This sign is often, but not always, used to determine femininity of a word or a name. 

Now until today, I just thought they were two separate letters, that just sounded the same sometimes. That was until my professor, Dr. A. Zakaryae, completely changed my world.

This is where it might get a little complicated for those of you who do not know Arabic, but just keep reading and I hope you'll understand at the end.  

All Arabic words are derived from a root word, which is usually made up of three letters, sometimes four but not often. For example the letters Kaa taa and Baa, put together make kataba which means to write. Make it maktba and you have library. Kitab is book and Mktab is office. All interrelated words that have the same root. 

The root for marbuta (aka taa marbuta) is rraa baa taa. It looks like this:

Rraa is the curved slash mark on the far right. The hash above it is a fatha and it symbolizes the short vowel ah. The curve with one dot underneath this baa and the last letter is taa which you saw above. 

Rabata in this form means to tie. Now lets see it in the word marbuta:

Mim or the mmm sound is the first letter on the right. The we have rraa and baa in the highlighted square because they are part of the root. After that we have wow which is the uuuu sound. Then Taa which makes a deeper sound, almost like the letter D in english and then the taa marbuta which represents the taa from the root letters. 

taa marbuta is the word that describes the symbol. Marbuta with the root to tie means tied up. So taa marbuta is literally a tied up taa. Which totally makes sense when you look at the symbols! The bottom curve of the taa gets twisted up and knotted at the top and thats why there are two ends that stick out. When its tied up it sounds like ahhh, but it some circumstances it gets untied and sounds like taa. This just completely made my day. I know that not everyone finds this fascinating, but I really enjoy it. You know in kindergarten when you have the videos of the alphabet and the letters walk around and act kind of like people? Like Miss A eats an apple and the letter A suddenly has a mouth and teeth and is eating an apple. Well I just picture taa walking around and tripping on a stone or something and getting all tied up and becoming taa marbuta.

P.S. When I opened the page, I had trouble loading the pictures. I don't know how to fix that, but if you just click the spot where the picture is, it will open up the picture in a new window and it will be bigger as well. 

The Hand of Fatima

Alaina's keychain

The Hand of Fatima, The Hand of Miriam, the Hamsa or the Hamesh. These are all names for the same symbol. This symbol is found on jewelry, wall decorations, and art. The main symbolism is to ward of the evil eye and to provide a protecting hand. There are a few different styles and the symbol is used in both Islamic and Jewish cultures, although it most likely predates both religions.

The Hand of Fatima refers to Fatima, the daughter of Muhammed. This is the name most often used in Islamic cultures. Hamsa means the number 5 in arabic, meaning the 5 fingures on the hand and symbolizing the 5 pillars of Islam. The Hand of Miriam is used in Judaism. Miriam was the sister of Moses and Aaron. Hamesh is 5 in hebrew and is used to symbolize the 5 books of the Torah.

Archeology has suggested that the symbol predates both religions and was originally the symbol of a goddess of an ancient religion. This could explain why both use this symbol, but neither religion officially recognizes it.

The symbol can be depicted as a biologically natural hand as shown above, or with two thumbs, one on each side forming a symmetrical hand. Sometimes an eye is placed in the middle of the palm, reinforcing the idea of protection from the evil eye.

This necklace belongs to Tova, a year long study abroad student here in Morocco. It displays the symmetrical two thumbs version with the eye in the middle.

When we got here, I noticed that lots of people had this symbol. It was on necklaces, key chains, bracelets, and in henna patterns. I find it to be a very beautiful symbol, especially because it unifies the two religions that used to be very close, but because of relatively recent political situations have had a lot of conflict. Many peace activists in the Middle East have adopted the symbol for that reason.

This is my new Hand of Fatima bracelet. My roommates each got one as well but in different colors.

El Alhambra: The Walled City of Granada

We are now in Meknes, Morocco! Tiffany and I have unpacked already, pictures have been posted here and we are settling in. But i need to back track a bit because I left a very important piece of Granada to still be discussed.

The Alhambra. For those of you who know Arabic, you might be confused because al means the so i am in fact saying the the alhambra. Well Europeans do this quite frequently because when they start naming things they usually have not yet learned the language (Rio Grande River). Hambra means red castle, most likely referring to the color of the materials used to build it. I am using a book called Granada and the Alhambra to fill in the info that I don't remember from the tour, but all the pictures are mine.

The Alhambra was built by the Nasrids. They were the last reigning Muslim dynasty in Spain and they ruled from 1238 to 1492. Muhammad Ibn Yusuf Ibn Nasr Ibn al-Ahmar( or Alhamar the Magnificent for short) ruled over Granada, Malaga, Almeria, part of Jaen, Cordoba, Seville, and Cadiz. He succeeded where the others failed because he decided it would be a good idea to become a vassel of King Ferdinand III of Castile. This meant that he no longer had to worry about attacks from the Spanish people and could better focus his attentions on the defense from the Arabs. Alhamar began the building of the Alhambra as soon as he took power. It is located up atop Sabika hill and Alhamar had a weir constructed to deliver water to the top. He also had the walls built and a military fortress was built on top of an ancient, most likely roman one. The fortress(the Alcazaba) is triangular in shape because this makes it easier to defend than a square or a circle. It was also used as the king's living quarters(Alcazaba means palace) until a better palace could be built. The Alhambra was never breached, even during the surrender of the city to the Christians in 1492. There is a long line of kings until Boabdil, the last Nasrid king, handed the city over to Isabella of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon in 1492 so instead of going through king by king, I'm just going to tell you about the important features.

If you haven't noticed by now, Islamic architecture is very plain and unadorned on the outside, but brilliantly decorated and beautiful on the outside. This is in stark contrast to the European buildings which are very intricate on the outside but are rather plain on the inside. This is explained by a pretty general Muslim philosophy of living your life looking inward. Inward to your soul, inward to your family, and inward to your home. Everything you do in life is supposed to be for God, for you, and for your family not for the world. The Alhambra provides excellent examples of the major styles of Islamic architecture at its finest. Being a palace for kings, everything from floor to ceiling is amazingly complex and beautiful.

Stucco is the most widespread method used to decorate in Islamic architecture. It is mixed, molded or carved, and then finished to give it a shine and durability. Then it would be painted with bright colors or gold leaf.

Example of detailed stucco molding. This would have been painted. This pattern frames the king's entrance in the Mexuar coutryard.

Muqarna are prisms shaped out of wood or stucco. They are used to decorate everything from arches to ceilings. Many of the ceilings in the palaces are covered with Muqarna. The vaulted ceilings form a large 8 pointed star and the Muqarna come down to represent stalactites in all sorts of geometric patterns. The idea of having stalactites comes from the story about Mohammad sheltering himself in a cave on his flight from Mecca to Medina. 

Cieling of the Cupola of the Hall of the Abencerrajes covered in Muqamas.

Entrance to the Courtyard of the Lions. The arches are adorned with Muqamas.

Decorative wood ceilings were made of cedar. They were either intricately carved and painted or inlaid with other types of wood to create geometric patterns.

Inlaid and carved wood ceiling. I don't remember which section of the Alhambra this was.

Azulejos and Alictados (Tiles and Ceramics) are very detailed and required a time consuming process to get them just right. They decorate every ince of every floor and the bottom half of every wall in the Alhambra. Decorative tiles began being used and developed in the 11th century and the skill progressed greatly in North Africa and Spain. 

Wall surround in the Patio of the Mytles (Patio de los Arrayanes)

Calligraphy is widely used in Islamic architecture. Often a blessing from God or a poem written as though the building itself was speaking are written around the door frames and walls. 

The calligraphy often divides a tiled section of wall from a stuccoed section. 

This is such a long post already and I've only described the basic architectural elements of Islamic design. I think the specifics of the Alhambra will have to wait until another time. Check back soon!