THE BOOK OF
مرزوقة
History, places, people, culture and food of Merzouga, told by two Moroccans.
CHAPTER I
At the foot of Erg Chebbi, Merzouga is a young village on very old land: the Tafilalet, where Sijilmasa ruled the gold caravans and where the Alaouite dynasty began. Nomads, Gnawa musicians and camel drivers still tell that story.
CHAPTER II
9,000 to 10,000 years ago the region was not a desert: the Sahara was then going through a wet period, with abundant vegetation and lakes. The Tafilalet's marine fossils, trilobites, ammonites and orthoceras hundreds of millions of years old, recall that a sea once covered the whole area.
Erg Chebbi, Merzouga's sea of dunes, stretches some thirty kilometres from north to south, on the edge of the great stony plain, the hamada.
About forty kilometres north, in the Tafilalet oasis near today's Rissani, stood Sijilmassa. According to the geographer al-Bakri, it was founded in the 8th century by Sufrite Kharijites after the Berber revolts against the Umayyads; the Midrarid dynasty, from the Miknasa tribe, made it independent of the Abbasid caliphate as early as 771.
Northern terminus of the great trans-Saharan route, Sijilmassa became one of the richest trading centres of the Maghreb: Sudanese gold was minted into coin here, and the traveller Ibn Hawqal wrote in the 10th century of seeing a bill of credit for 42,000 dinars, a sum he had never heard of. Its ruins stretch for about eight kilometres along the Ziz river.
Around 905 Abd Allah al-Mahdi, future founder of the Fatimid caliphate, hid in Sijilmassa with his son; imprisoned on Baghdad's orders, he was freed in 909 by an army from Ifriqiya. In the 10th century the Maghrawa, allies of Cordoba, took the city.
In 1055 Abdallah ibn Yasin, spiritual leader of the Almoravids, seized Sijilmassa: their very first conquest, and the city housed their first mint, the empire's only one from 1058 to 1100. The Almohads took it in 1146, then the Marinids in the 13th century. In 1352 Ibn Battuta stayed here before crossing the desert to the Mali Empire, praising its dates as better than those of Basra.
In the 13th century shorfa from Arabia, descendants of the Prophet, settled in the Tafilalet. From this family, the Filalis, came the Alaouite dynasty, which still rules Morocco. Its namesake ancestor, Moulay Ali Cherif, lies in a mausoleum in Rissani.
In the 17th century the Alaouites set out from the Tafilalet to conquer the country: Moulay Rashid took Fes in 1666 and reunified Morocco. Sijilmassa, in decline since the late 14th century, was abandoned, and Rissani became the oasis's centre.
Merzouga itself was just an uninhabited watering place, a stop for merchants heading to Timbuktu and a gathering point for Ait Atta and Ait Khebbach nomads. The Tafilalet long resisted the French conquest: fighting lasted from 1916 to 1932, and the Foreign Legion then built fortified posts in the region.
From the 1990s guesthouses and camps multiplied at the foot of the dunes. On the night of 26 May 2006 a flash flood destroyed about 140 houses and hotels, killed three people and displaced 1,200. Since 2010 the Merzouga Rally has drawn drivers from around the world, and in 2024 the seasonal Lake Yasmina filled again after heavy rain.
CHAPTER III
757
Sijilmassa, the caravan city of the Tafilalet, is founded about 50 km away.
1631
The Alaouite dynasty rises in the Tafilalet.
CHAPTER IV
1
Some twenty kilometres of orange dunes, the highest close to 150 m. Climb a ridge before dawn: the colour changes every minute, from ochre to pink.
2
Home to descendants of people from sub-Saharan Africa, this hamlet keeps Gnawa music alive. The musicians welcome visitors over tea, to the sound of qraqeb and guembri.
3
A seasonal lake at the foot of the dunes. After good rains it fills up and draws flamingos and migrating birds; the rest of the time it is a cracked plain.
4
40 km to the north: Rissani's big souk (Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday), the mausoleum of Moulay Ali Cherif and the ruins of Sijilmasa, bare earthen walls among the palm trees.
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
You reach the camp by dromedary in the late afternoon. After the tagine, drums echo around the fire, then comes the silence and a sky with no artificial light at all, where the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye.
Hundreds of millions of years ago the region lay under the sea. Trilobites, ammonites and orthoceras show in the rock; workshops and quarries around Erfoud cut and polish them.
The Berber nomadic tradition is alive here — guides are often from families who have navigated the desert for generations. Camel (dromedary) caravans remain a practical reality, not just a tourist attraction. Traditional music around the fire — drums, guembri, and call-and-response singing — is authentic Berber entertainment. The festival of Taragalte celebrates nomadic culture annually.
CHAPTER VII
Residents come from the Ait Khebbach Amazigh tribe, long nomadic, and from Gnawa families, descendants of West African slaves, settled in Khamlia. Many dune guides are nomads' sons who know the erg by heart.
People mainly speak southeastern Tamazight and darija; guides often get by in French, English and Spanish learned from travellers.
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
Allow 2–3 days to see Merzouga without rushing. That is the length we use in our itineraries.
The best months for Merzouga are October, November, March and April.
Per person per day, accommodation included: about $60 on a budget, $150 mid-range and $400 for a luxury stay.
No train. CTM buses from Marrakech (9h) and Fes (8h). Most visitors drive or take organised tours. Shared taxis from Rissani (45 min) are the cheapest option.
The must-sees of Merzouga: Erg Chebbi at sunset, Overnight desert camp, Camel trek and Dayet Srji salt lake.
To taste in Merzouga: Camel tagine, Khobz, Moroccan mint tea and Oranges with cinnamon.
The best areas to stay: Merzouga village and Hassi Labied.
Yes, Merzouga welcomes many travellers every year. The precautions are those of any tourist destination: watch your belongings in crowds, politely turn down unofficial guides, agree on a taxi fare before getting in.
Yes, Merzouga is easy to visit with children.
To go further and check what we write.
