Rabat Serenity and Splendor
Paru le 1 janvier 2020
Anglais
Rabat, the inhabited city since prehistoric times, has inherited many thousand years of history. It drew and draws its strength from its geographical location on the Atlantic coast, at the Bouregreg river mouth. Land of exchange and sharing, where different civilizations, Phoenician, Moors, Roman, Andalusian, Islamic and European, have left both tangible and intangible marks. So many outstanding values, that allowed Rabat to be inscribed on the World Heritage List. A heritage city par excellence, Rabat boasts an impressive cultural heritage, with its historical value, its splendor and its great resistance to the vagaries of time. Its prestigious sites and monuments, achievements of great builders, who have governed the city throughout time, bear witness to that. Capital of the Almohades, in the XIIth Century, they who endowed it with its majestic ramparts, its monumental gateways, its unrivalled Hassan Tower and its princely residence, the Qasba of the Oudayas. The Merinides who have abandoned it for the city of Fez, chose it, nonetheless, to be their eternal residence in the Royal necropolis located in the Chellah ancient site. In the XVIIth Century, Rabat became, with the arrival of the Moor refugees from Spain, the capital of the Bouregreg Republic, the home of a prosperous maritime piracy which was creating a climate of terror even among the great powers of that time. Since early XXth Century, during the time of the french protectorate, Rabat has, once and for all, regained its status as the political and administrative capital of Morocco. «Rabat, Splendor and Serenity» is a book that aims to shed light on the secrets and mysteries of this City of Lights, today, emerges as both Moroccan and African Capital of Culture.