ABSTRACT
Divided into three parts, Fez today comprises the medina (FAs al-BAlC ), Fez Jedcd (FAs al-JadCd ), and the Ville Nouvelle. The medina is the heart of the city (fig. 1), the historic Arab-Muslim habitat founded in 789 by the grand patriarch of contemporary Morocco, eponym of the Idrisid dynasty, and great grandson of the Prophet, Moulay Idrcs I (d. 791).1 Menacing the medina’s borders, the imperial nexus of Fez Jedcd dates to 1276 and consists of the Sultan’s palace, barracks, and administrative quarters, as well as the area that became the Jewish enclave, or mellah (mallAS) (“Hims” in fig. 1). The Ville Nouvelle, or “New Town” is the modern part of the city, established by the French four years after the signing of the Protectorate in 1912, at some distance from both the medina and Fez Jedcd. As it has continued to expand
Figure 1 Map of Marinid Fez. (After Roger Le Tourneau, Fez in the Age of the Marinides, trans. Besse Alberta Clement [Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961] © 1961 by the University of Oklahoma Press, Publishing Division of the University)
exponentially, so it has come to comprise a multitude of new areas, each with its own name.2
