Here one lives a strict fundamentalism, respecting tradition and safeguarding a long-established identity. However, the relationship with the outside world is loyal and unconditional. The Ibadis are proud people, self-confident, intellectually solid, who do not fear cultural contaminations. The ancient Middle Eastern influence has made them great merchants, open to exchange and confrontation with the world, while religious rigor, wisdom, and a strong sense of privacy protect them from any external “contamination”.
A valley loved by Le Corbusier and protected by UNESCO
Men of culture and excellent architects, the Ibadis, now better known as Mozabites, have transformed over the centuries the arid hills hiding the M’Zab river into an extraordinary microcosm. The structure of their cities fascinated urban planners and world-famous architects such as Le Corbusier and Ricardo Bofill, and the Holy City of the M’Zab valley, Beni Isguen, has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The valley is located about 700 kilometers south of Algiers, in a harsh and hostile territory but safe from ancient persecutions. On the hills are now five oases, built over the last thousand years. The first to be built was El Atteuf, the “Turn” dating back to 1013. Ghardaïa was founded in 1053 by Sheikh Sidi Bou-Gdemma and is the current administrative capital, and Melika, the “Queen,” was the ancient Holy City that lost its religious function after the construction in 1347 of Beni Isguen. Bou Nura, the “Luminous,” dates from 1046.
All five oases have a well-defined social function, are all fortified, and each has its mosque and minaret, from which every day, five times a day, the muezzin raises his religious call. Each has its own economy: pottery and leather processing, animal breeding, but above all trade.
“Machine à habiter” and crossroads of the Great South
In recent decades, the Mozabite merchants have created a very dense commercial network and are present throughout the Algerian territory. Ghardaïa is located on the route to Niger and Mali, and is a fundamental desert crossroads: it is the privileged exchange point between the nomadic populations and the merchants of the Maghreb, as well as being the departure station for the Great South. The market square of Ghardaïa comes alive and colors every day with carpets and spices, fabrics and animals, handicraft objects, and then, in October, there are the dates.
But the market, an area intended for buying and selling products, is also a place of cultural exchange, therefore a potential threat to one’s moral and spiritual integrity. The skilled Mozabite architects structured their cities looking at preserving their culture, their caste, confining the spaces meant for merchants to the lower part of the hill. At the top is the mosque with its minaret, a kind of lookout and guard tower, often used as a grain storage. Then the residences of the notables and below, towards the valley, the residences of professionals, following a terraced layout with narrow streets and alleys to cope with over 55° summer heat.
The elegant simplicity of the forms and decorations of the houses, with proportions and measurements independent of economic well-being or social position, is in harmony with the Mozabites’ principles of equality; the construction materials are also the same for all: palm wood, stone, gypsum, lime, and sand.
Each city is then protected by enclosing walls and watchtowers. It is possible to visit them all freely, except Beni Isguen, the Holy City with a large triangular square and all the alleys converging towards the mosque, where foreigners are required to hire a guide and photography is forbidden. The city structure of the M’Zab valley coincides with Le Corbusier’s idea of urban architecture: a “machine à habiter,” without academism, human-sized, where the entire city becomes a large dwelling.
Enchanted gardens and bee-men
The Mozabite “pentapolis” also has a single, enormous, immense palm grove: 1,000,000 date palms, irrigated thanks to a sophisticated structure managing the waters of the underground river. It is a capillary system of dams, barriers, galleries, and distributors that channel, divert, and dose the water, ensuring that all gardens receive the right quantity. It is a hydraulic system almost 900 years old and consists of 7,000 artesian wells that draw water up to 80 meters deep directly from the aquifer of the ancient riverbed.
The palm grove is an enchanted garden where forgotten rhythms are found, gently immersed in the cool and silent green of the trees and enveloped by the scent of jasmines and roses, dates and orange blossoms. A true oasis within the oasis. A magical place where the Mozabite man has a special task. He pollinates the female palm flowers: he climbs each tree, one after the other, manually fertilizing the flowers without relying on the wind. Before each pollination, there is a propitiatory prayer, a kind of nuptial rite to marry the two palms.
The whiteness of the haïk, mosques, and soul
Spirituality is very strong in the M’Zab. Here fundamentalism is not an exacerbated form of religion. It rather feels like being in a large monastery where everyone tries to earn their place in paradise. Besides those on the city tops, there are mosques almost everywhere. They do not have minarets, and inside there is no decoration that could distract from meditation and prayer. The mosques are simple, white, with all uneven arches made from bent palm trunks, a semi-underground floor with several rooms and an outdoor or rooftop prayer area. In every room are small niches and there is a mihrab, an apse facing Mecca where the Imam leads the prayer. It is said that Le Corbusier, to build the Ronchamp chapel, was inspired by the simplicity and beauty of the mosque of Sidi Brahim, at the gates of El Ateuf.
Forgotten rhythms
In the M’Zab, time is marked by prayers and the sun’s height on the horizon. Everyone has the right to their time. Women walk with natural lightness wrapped in their white haïk. They have only one uncovered eye, the left one, the eye of the heart, and go to the cemetery to honor their loved ones or to offer food to some sheikh buried in his tomb monument as an ancient pre-Islamic custom demands.
Men are engaged in heated commercial negotiations. The “notables,” proud and austere in their elegant bùrnùs or with white gandura, calmly discuss business and politics. Meanwhile, dozens of children run and play entering and exiting cool alleys. The wise elders seated in the square or near the minaret watch and comment on life passing by peacefully, waiting.
