The Kasbah Of The Oudayas
The Kasbah des Oudayas was originally built in the 12th century to ignore the mouth of the Bou Regreg, the river of Rabat.
It acted as a base for the Moroccan militaries entrusted to dominate Andalusia by the Almohades empire, particularly Sultans Abdelmoumen and Yacoub El Mansour. The powerful primary door of the Kasbah dates from this period. The Kasbah was possibly improved on an ancient Roman site, the Ksar of the Benitargas. The Kasbah remained the civil as well as armed forces center of Rabat, particularly when it invited the Andalusians it got rid of from Spain (the Moriscos) in the 17th and 16th centuries. From the 18th century on, it was basically a den of privateers that pertained to marketing their captured slaves simply a stone's throw away in the Souk El Ghazal. The Kasbah, previously called Ribat Al Fath, the success camp, took its present name under the regime of Sultan Moulay Abderrahman in honor of the Guich tribe of the Oudayas from the Sahara. At the death of the sultan, this tribe destabilized the area around Rabat up until the second half of the 19th century.
The renaissance of Rabat and its modernization under the protectorate transformed the Kasbah into a charming little town with houses painted with blue lime overlooking the river and also, in the distance, the Atlantic Sea. It is also among the initial royal residences built by the currently-ruling Alaouite empire.
Don't miss out on having tea at the coffee shop, Maure.
In the color of the walls, you can see the nearby town of Salé with its aquatic burial ground and the marabout of Sidi Ben Acher a little further on. I appreciate your walk in the Kasbah des Oudayas.