Chefchaouen — All about Chefchaouen

A fort against the Portuguese (1471)

Chefchaouen began as a simple kasbah founded in 1471 by the sharif Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami, a descendant of the saint Moulay Abdessalam ben Mashish and of Idris I. Born around 1440 in the nearby village of Gherzim, he went in 1460 to fight for the Kingdom of Granada, the last Muslim state in Spain, before returning to settle in the mountains around 1465.

At the time the Portuguese held the ports of northern Morocco. Ali ibn Rashid led the region's fighters and built the fortress to resist them. Work began in 1471 and was completed around 1480. The Great Mosque was built at the founding and also served as a place of learning.

The Banu Rashid principality (1471-1561)

For nearly a century the town was ruled by its founder's descendants, the Banu Rashid, nominally vassals of the Wattasid sultans of Fes. Ali ibn Rashid's daughter Aisha married the emir of Tetouan, Ali al-Mandri; known by the title Sayyida al-Hurra, "the free lady", she later governed Tetouan and allied with corsairs against the Portuguese and Spanish.

In 1561 the Saadians brought Chefchaouen back into the rest of Morocco, ending the principality's autonomy.

Refuge of the Andalusians

The fall of Granada in 1492 drove thousands of Spanish Muslims and Jews to Morocco. Some settled in Chefchaouen, a front-line town against the Portuguese, alongside the Ghomara mountain tribes. The last Moriscos, expelled from Spain by Philip III in 1609, were still arriving in the early 17th century.

These Andalusians built their quarters on the slopes in the style of Granada: narrow lanes, patio houses, tiled roofs. The town gained ramparts with about ten gates and several mosques. Andalusian poets and scholars settled here, and the culture of Granada blended with that of the Ghomara.

The forbidden town

For centuries Chefchaouen, a holy town, stayed closed to Christians. The first European to describe it was the French explorer Charles de Foucauld, who passed through in July 1883 disguised as a rabbi. He compared the town, with its tiled roofs and streams, to a peaceful village on the Rhine.

Thanks to him we know it then had three to four thousand inhabitants, including about ten Jewish families.

The Rif War (1920-1926)

In October 1920 the Spanish general Dámaso Berenguer occupied the town for the Spanish protectorate. During the Rif War the Spanish withdrew and from 1924 to 1926 Chefchaouen was part of Abd el-Krim al-Khattabi's Rif Republic.

In September 1925 a squadron of American volunteer pilots, fighting for France, bombed the town and hit civilians. After Abd el-Krim's defeat and exile to Réunion, the Spanish army retook Chefchaouen in 1926.

Independence and the blue town

Chefchaouen returned to Morocco in 1956 with the end of the Spanish protectorate in the north. The blue walls that make it famous today are not an age-old tradition: their origin is debated, between the legacy of Jewish families, coolness and residents' taste, and the blue mostly spread in the 20th century.

Now one of Morocco's most photographed towns, Chefchaouen has its heritage recognised under the Mediterranean diet, listed by UNESCO in 2010.

Jbala weaving

The Jbala mountain people weave wool into red-and-white striped blankets, and the women wear the pompom straw hat and the striped mendil.

Goat's cheese

Chaouen's jben, fresh goat's cheese wrapped in dwarf-palm leaves, is sold every morning by women coming down from the villages.

The Chaouanis

Residents descend from the Jbala mountain tribes and Andalusian families. Country women still wear the straw hat with wool pompoms and the red-and-white striped fouta when they come to sell at the market.

The Jebli dialect

Northern darija, called Jeblia, is recognisable by its "tch" sound, Spanish loanwords and sing-song intonation. Many residents also speak Spanish.