‘You Who Enter My Door, May Your Highest Hopes Be Exceeded’
This is exactly what I was told when my guide recommended that I visit the Medersa Ben Youssef.
The Medersa Ben Youssef was the largest Islamic college in Morocco, named in the honour of the Almoravid sultan Ali ibn Yusuf who ruled between 1106 and 1142, who was responsible for not only expanding the city of Marrakech but also enhancing its prestige and influence considerably.
The college was founded during the reign of the Marinid sultan, Abu al-Hassan, and was closely allied to the Ben Youssef mosque next door. The building was reconstructed by the Saadian sultan, Abdallah al-Ghalib in the mid-1500s.
The medersa features a 130-cell dormitory cluster around a courtyard which is richly carved with geometric patterns in cedar, marble and stucco. In its heydeys, the institution was one of the largest theological colleges in North Africa and may have housed as many as 900 students. It closed down in 1960, but the building was refurbished and reopened to the public as an historical site in 1982.
And I could see how the "hopes" were exceeded. The medersa is not merely a building, it's a work of art intricate carvings in marble, elaborately decorated cupolas, lattice balconies, archways and cedar windows...
The courtyard...
Tourists were taking their time to let the wonders of the building soak in...
Basking in the afternoon sun...
The courtyard of the madrasa, with the ablution pool...
The mihrab...
The upper level houses the dormitory...
This is how the medersa looked before its closure...
The way into a dorm room...
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