Medina of Fez
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How it came to be
Fez began in 789, when Idris I founded Madinat Fas on the south-east bank of the river now called the Fez. In 809 his son Idris II built al-Aliya on the opposite bank and moved his capital there from Walili (Volubilis). In 817 and 818 many Andalusi families expelled from Córdoba settled in the city and strengthened its Arab character.
In 857 Fatima al-Fihri founded the al-Qarawiyyin mosque, now a university and counted as the oldest continuously functioning institution of higher education in the world. In 1069 and 1070 the Almoravid Yusuf ibn Tashfin took the city and enclosed its two halves within a single wall. In 1276 the Marinid sultan Abu Yusuf Yaqub founded Fes Jdid to the west, where the royal palace still stands.
The Treaty of Fes of 1912 made Morocco a French protectorate, and the administrative capital moved to Rabat. Fez nevertheless remained the country's cultural and spiritual centre. The 280-hectare medina was inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1981 and is one of the largest and oldest car-free urban areas in the world.
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