The neighborhood of Zawya (Zaouia)
Located in the northern part of Marrakech’s medina, it is a neighborhood that has developed since the 1200s.
famous for its sumptuous architecture but also for its social role in the city. Here our project is developed with the creation and support of activities dedicated to the youth of the neighborhood. You will be able to visit our headquarters, the Zelije atelier, the Moroccan traditional mosaic, tailoring and embroidery workshop, and the Zawya studio where young people conceive and carve on wood and plaster works of their own design and where they make letters in the Arabic, Berber and Latin alphabets. You can visit the construction site of the Literary Cafe where work is underway to restore and decorate a small building that will house the neighborhood’s first cafe, a place where you can take a break and admire the works created by the young people as part of the “Build with te word” project see here.
If you come to the neighborhood, the Zaouïa of Sidi Bel Abbès, the mausoleum in which rests one of the seven patron saints of the city. Died in 1205, the one who was considered the defender of the blind and the poor rested first in a small sanctuary before the Saâdian Sultan Abu Faris built this superb mausoleum around 1605. It is today one of the most frequented religious buildings in Marrakech as well as a superb historical place.
The Zaouïa of Sidi Bel Abbès is a magnificent sanctuary with a careful architecture. Ceramic rosettes and sculpted beams adorn the porch of the building. The zawiya also boasts a superb fountain and a magnificent canopy decorated with calligraphy. This monument is a jewel of Morocco in terms of beauty, but it is also and especially a high social place of Marrakech. The Zaouïa of Sidi Bel Abbès is indeed a charitable center where the inhabitants of the city come to deposit offerings and make donations which will be then entirely redistributed to the poor and the handicapped.
Previous image
Next image