The Badi Palace

Pass through the Bab Berrima gate and turn immediately to the right into the long passage leading to the entrance of the Badi Palace. Let's now visit this site.

PRESS PAUSE

Here we are outside the entrance to the Badi Palace. If you don’t wish to visit it, feel free to move on to the next chapter entitled “The Alaouites” and return to the Bab Berrima. If not, after having purchased your ticket, we’ll meet you inside.

PRESS PAUSE

The 1st open-air building we’ve just walked through was once a mosque. We’re now standing in an enormous rectangular courtyard which has 4 sunken pools. To our left in the Eastern corner is a staircase leading to a terrace. From there we’ll be able to see the whole structure. Off you go, we’ll meet you up there. Along the way, we’ll begin our commentary on the Badi Palace. “El Badi” means “the incomparable” in Arabic and the name was a reflection of the immense riches it contained. Nowadays, little remains of its former splendour.

At 1st sight, what we have here is an immense courtyard surrounded by walls that have been restored to a greater or lesser extent, and in the centre, an area that has been partially transformed into an orange grove. However, on closer inspection, we’ll see that around the rectangular courtyard a whole series of pavilions once stood here, similar to the one opposite the entrance. Let's conjure up an image of what this palace must have looked like. This large courtyard with its 4 rectangular pools, fountains and small gardens was surrounded by ochre coloured pavilions whose lower walls were decorated with predominately blue ceramic tiles. The columns were of white marble. The pavilions themselves contained many rooms as the palace boasted 360 in total. These rooms were decorated with gilded cedar wood ceilings incrusted with semi-precious stones and the walls would have been decorated with ceramic tiles and painted stuccowork. Such was the palace built by Ahmed the Golden One, whose tomb we saw earlier. In fact, the palace was only just completed at the moment of his death in 1603. It was intended for the royal audiences and receptions of Ahmed the Golden One as a statement of his omnipotence. Legend has it, that when Ahmed asked his court jester his opinion on the palace the latter replied that once demolished, it would be nothing more than a mound of earth. This turned out to be a rather prophetic comment as the Alaouite Sultan, Moulay Ismail, demolished the palace after stripping it of its riches. The motive behind this was firstly to destroy the memory of a dynasty that he loathed and secondly, to recover the most valuable materials for the new capital city he was building at Meknes. Coming back to this palace, or at least what remains of it, we can nevertheless see evidence of a feature that was common to all Muslim palaces, namely the proliferation of small buildings and the large number of gardens and courtyards. Here we have an example of the most obvious difference between the design of a western palace, often formed by one large building, and the eastern palace comprising a multitude of structures. The origin of this Eastern design can be found in 2 complementary traditions. The palaces of Mesopotamia and Iran were designed in this way with numerous pavilions intended for different purposes such as reception rooms, the private residence and outbuildings. Equally, this tradition for multiple buildings grew from the nomadic custom of Arab and Turkish tribes who set up camps in tents. This tradition was therefore carried into this type of construction and is to be found in examples such as the famous Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. Nowadays this site is the venue for a folklore festival. Let's now go back downstairs and following the indicated tour, proceed to the part of the palace facing the entrance.

PRESS PAUSE

This pavilion is the best preserved and was used for royal audiences. Towards the rear of the building were the law courts, built over a series of underground passages which served as dungeons. One of the palace pavilions housed a remarkable piece of cabinet making: the portable Minbar of the Koutoubia mosque. It was made in Cordoba in the early 11th century, upon the orders of the Almoravid ruler, Emir Ali, and was intended for the great mosque he had just built in Marrakech. This minbar or pulpit is a masterpiece of Islamic liturgical furniture. It measures 12 foot in height, had 9 steps and was designed to