Dear All Fascinated by North Africa,

Please let me introduce the Fes-Portal, website of the city of Fes.

Fez or Fes (arab. فاس, fr. Fès) – third of the the biggest cities in Marocco, with almost 950 000 population. The ancient capitol of Maurs country and of Marocco founded by Idris II in 807. After French occupation in 1912 the capitol was moved to Rabat. Nowadays Fez becomes the centre of Moroccan economy and tourism as well as the religion with rich heritage of religious architecture: mosque Karaouiyne, Andalousian mosque from IX century and numerous mosques from XIV and XVI centuries. The city is still walled by the old curtains. In 1981 medina – the traditional district of arrabian cities - in Fez was registered on the Unesco world cultural heritage list. In 2001 a botanical garden was opened in Fez.

With Fes-Portal you can learn about the history and culture of the city, special event venues, tips to visit Fes. Fes-Portal closely cooperates with the accommodation specialist in this area of Africa - Riad Selection. Both, they present the authentic character of the city.

A minaret - from the Arabic word manârah – is “a tall slender tower attached to a mosque, having one or more projecting balconies from which a muezzin summons the people to prayer”. Otherwise called a mi’dhana, it’s a distinctive feature of Islamic architecture.

The world’s tallest minaret is the one of the Hassan II mosque located in Casablanca – Morocco, which is the second largest mosque in the world, after al-masjid al-haraam in Mecca. That minaret is more than 200 meters high.

More than 30.000 persons worked for more than 50 million hours building this one of the largest mosques in the world.

Work started on Hassan II mosque on July 12, 1986, and the building was inaugurated on August 30, 1993, after 7 years of work. Despite the fact that it was first designed by the French architect Michel Pinseau, the mosque gathered thousands of Moroccan artisans who worked on making it originally Moroccan. The mosque is not only a technological challenge, it’s also a wonderful mixture of traditions; it includes today many modern touches, such as a heated floor, electric doors, a sliding roof, and lasers which shine at night from the top of the minaret toward Mecca. The late king Hassan II insisted on having the sliding roof in order to have the three major compounds of life linked in this mosque: water, land and air.

Built by the Atlantic, a big part of the surface of the mosque actually lies over water. Part of the floor is glass, so worshippers can kneel directly over water.

Workers used a lot of material such as granite, plaster, marble, wood.., that were all taken from around Morocco.

This mosque is one of the rare mosques in Morocco that are open for visits to non-Moroccans.

It can receive 100.000 worshippers, 80.000 in the courtyard, and 20.000 in the prayer room.

Royal Air Maroc, the Moroccan airlines company, has closed its prayer rooms and prevented its employees from going to the mosque during work hours.

The company stated that there was no official ban concerning prayers, but that it had to do something about the long breaks employees take in order to pray.

Praying five times a day is a crucial part of the Islamic religion, and the RAM’s unofficial ban raised a lot of controversy. Even if Islam is the predominant religion of Morocco, that does not justify taking long breaks from work to pray, knowing that the average period of time needed for every prayer is less than 10 minutes.

Some consider this ban as being political, and a move to cut down Islamist extremism, referring to some events that took place previously; and some consider it an offence to their religious freedom. Other complaints that were made against this company were about pilots and stewards who were not allowed to fast in Ramadan, and female staff who were not allowed to wear the veil.

Moroccan transport minister Karim Ghellab denied that the government has banned prayer times for employees at the RAM, and that they have only been asked to pray in their offices.

RAM employees said that prayer rooms were closed, and will be opened only on Fridays.