The profession of the Laqwads & imacr;, or "sheikh of fresh water," constitutes a fundamental pillar of hydraulic management in traditional Moroccan cities. As heirs to ancestral expertise passed down through generations, they have played a decisive role in safeguarding the continuity, regulation, and preservation of urban water networks. This article examines the technical, organizational, and institutional dimensions of this practice, revealing its deep-rooted presence within the urban fabric despite ongoing social and technological transformations. It further underlines the heritage value of this legacy, advocating its integration into public policies of conservation and sustainability, while reaffirming the symbolic significance of the Laqwads & imacr; in Morocco's collective memory and cultural identity.
The contribution of archaeological research to our understanding of human life, including its decorative arts, is well established. In Morocco, the growing number of studies in Islamic archaeology in recent years has led to several discoveries, among them ornamental plasterwork dating from the early Middle Ages. While the importance of monumental studies in documenting and analyzing the decorative and architectural features of a wide range of surviving medieval monuments is widely acknowledged, archaeological investigations play an equally significant - if not greater - role. They provide new insights into questions concerning the artistic production of a period that remains relatively underexplored. Recent archaeological discoveries have opened new perspectives, offering promising results regarding the origins, characteristics, and development of medieval Moroccan decorative art, and substantially enriching its ornamental repertoire with previously unknown elements. These archaeological findings stand as tangible evidence of the existence of a Moroccan ornamental tradition, whose techniques and concepts have been transmitted across the centuries and continue to resonate today.
Our study aims to shed light on the reasons why marble, a noble and highly prized material, was only rarely used in Morocco, particularly in comparison with other regions of the Muslim West such as al-Andalus. We first present the data provided by historical sources, followed by the initial results of our study based on a sample of 331 marble pieces of various categories. The objective is not to offer definitive conclusions, but rather to draw researchers' attention to another issue, poorly known, concerning the architectural school of Islamic Morocco.
In the towers of the castles of Villena and Biar (Alicante, Sharq al-Andalus), built at the end of the XIIth century, there are intercrossed arches vaults inside, inspired by the Caliphal vaults of the Mosque of Cordoba and the Almoravid vaults of the Mosque of Tlemecen (Algeria) or the Qubbat al-B & amacr;r & umacr;diyy & imacr;n (almur & amacr;bitiyya) in Marrakech and contemporary with the Almohad voult Kutubiyya minaret of Marrakech.
This study examines the urban perceptions of the countryside in Pre-Protectorate Morocco using the concept of Othering as an analytical approach, where markers distinguish the self from others, who are seen as different, inferior, and threatening. The hypothesis of the study is that the concept of Othering reflected the urban view of the rural sector in Morocco and that that perspective entailed both psychological and tangible consequences. A corollary hypothesis, however, is that the urban Othering in Morocco did not necessarily reflect a power balance translating automatically into a subordination of the countryside to the city. The study identifies and analyzes the then-prevailing binary urban-rural conception of society, the cultural and material aspects of Othering, the effect of Othering on power relationships, the rural-urban transitional and integrative mechanisms, and concludes with an evaluation of the concept of Othering as an analytical approach.
