Fez began as twin river towns before Almoravids fused them
Idris I founded Madinat Fas in seven eighty-nine; his son Idris II raised al-Aliya across the Fez River in eight oh nine. Yusuf ibn Tashfin united the rivals around ten seventy into today's Fes el-Bali, the medina still listed as a World Heritage Site.
Early settlers were mostly Berbers plus Arab warriors from Kairouan; waves of Andalusi families expelled from Cordoba after eight seventeen to eight eighteen and migrants from Ifriqiya stamped an Arab character on opposite banks. Under the Marinids from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries Fez regained the political capital, poured money into madrasas and mosques, and in twelve seventy-six saw Abu Yusuf Yaqub found Fes Jdid with the royal palace still there. Jewish residents later concentrated in the Mellah on that new district's south side, especially after fifteenth-century tensions and Iberian expulsions of fourteen ninety-two and fourteen ninety-six.
Almohad conquest in eleven forty-five smashed the walls, yet Ya'qub al-Mansur ordered them rebuilt and Muhammad al-Nasir finished the circuit in twelve oh four, fixing Fes el-Bali's footprint. Twelfth-century estimates put the population near two hundred thousand, among the world's largest Muslim cities beside Cairo by twelve hundred. Between twelve seventy-one and thirteen fifty-seven the Marinids raised seven madrasas that remain showpieces of Moroccan design. The University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded in eight fifty-seven, is called the oldest continuously working higher-education institute, and the Chouara Tannery from the eleventh century ranks among the oldest tanneries anywhere.
Zenata rulers such as Dunas ibn Hamama in the eleven thirties and forties improved water systems, bridges, baths, and mosques that still shape daily life. French colonial planners later added the Ville Nouvelle beyond the two old quarters. The twenty twenty-four census counted about one point two five six million residents in the Fez-Meknes regional capital northwest of the Atlas. From pickaxe legends behind the Arabic name Fas to a car-free medieval core, Fez still stages scholarship, trade, and craft on a river that once split a double city.
Source: Fez, Morocco
