Religion and Theology

Article Miller, Susan Gilson et al. Inscribing Minority Space in the Islamic City The Jewish Quarter of Fez (1438-1912). The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 60(3), September 2001, 310-327.

Fez is divided into three distinct cities. Old Fez is the original place of settlement in the 9th century. It is the site of numerous mosques, oratories, and colleges that make the city renown for its building arts. New Fez was built in the thirteenth century to house the sultan and his court, far from Old Fez. The third city of Fez is called the mellah or Jewish quarter. It was settled in the fifteenth century (Miller et al., 310). Jews lived here with their own separate walled quarters, surrounded by the services needed to sustain ritualistic and communal life.

The general aim of the study was to understand the mellah as an integral part of the larger city (Miller et al., 310). Now, the study of this North African city is based on the idea that Islam rendered the city legible. The fragmentation of urban space was left essentially to urban planners. The Islamic religion allowed minorities to live in recognizable portions of the city, with its own laws and customs. Minorities were required though to pay additional taxes to the government. In Morocco, Jewish quarters are located in coastal areas of cities, varying from small villages to large walled quarters. In some cities, Jewish cities are removed from the molecular city.

During the Christian era, Jews were harassed by Roman authorities. Forced conversion was the prima facie rule in the Roman Empire. Under Islamic rule, Jews had a protected status, based on legal rights and obligations that permitted a greater degree of interchange with the majority population (Miller et al., 311). In Morocco, Jews were an integral part of regional and local systems of production and exchange. They were considered as middlemen, moving economic resources from one area to another.

Prior to the establishment of the mellah in Fez, Jewish philologists, jurists, scientists, and philosophers contributed to the intellectual vitality of the city, giving the city a reputation as a center of learning (Miller et al., 312). Jews were essentially a preferred class of citizens. However, during the rule of the Al-Muwahhids, they were driven into exile. Those who stayed behind became Marranos, practicing their faith in secret and nurturing a double identity in order to survive. They became the core population of the mellah after its foundation in the fifteenth century (Miller et al., 313).

Over the next centuries, the influx of Spanish Jews transformed the morphology of the city. The community was divided along ethnic lines. The megorashim were immensely proud of their Spanish heritage, while the toshavim were deeply immersed in the Moroccan Arab-Berber tradition. Each group essentially worshipped in its own synagogue, followed its own rabbis, and buried the dead in their own cemeteries. Over the next centuries, Jews were forced to move into the poorer sections of the city. Conversion was always an extreme option in cases of persecution. However, this was not an immediate option for most Jews.

The mellah is a social, cultural, and architectural component of Jewish life. From the exterior, the house is blind, its external walls showing only minimal openings (Miller et al., 314). Access to the house is essentially through a room or corridor that mediates between the street and the corridor. The orthogonal geometry, the framework, and the structural wooden beams reinforce the eccentric regularity of the house. In the 12th century, the furnishings of the house were relatively simple. Over the next 200 years, rich Jews placed expensive and exotic furnishings as symbols of prosperity (Miller et al., 316).

The ability of Jewish architecture to absorb influences from its surroundings is not particular to Fez. It exists in Jewish communities scattered in different parts of the known world (Miller et al., 324).