Foum ZguidFoum Zguid the Gate to the Sahara
Foum Zguid is a small authentic golden city in the south of Morocco. In the province of tata , souss massa region.
Foum Zguid is a small town located in the southeastern part of Morocco, specifically in the Tata Province within the Souss-Massa region. It serves as a gateway to the Sahara Desert, making it a popular stopover for travelers embarking on desert excursions. Foum Zguid is known for its desert landscapes, including vast stretches of dunes and rocky terrain, making it an ideal starting point for adventures into the desert wilderness. If you pass by Foum Zguid and before you or after your desert tours to Erg Chegaga and Lake Iriki there is a very big Kasbah called Kasbah of Oumhensh, that was the first construction in Foum Zguid, when the nomads started to change from moving and traveling from one place to another to become semi Nomades and have agriculture as well.
Kasbah of Oumhensh in Foum Zguid
What is the definition of a Kasbah:
typically refers to a fortified citadel or fortress, often constructed in traditional North African and Middle Eastern architecture. Originally designed for defense purposes, kasbahs were built with high walls, typically made of mud-brick or stone, and often featured corner towers for added protection. Over time, kasbahs evolved to serve various functions, including serving as residences for local rulers, administrative centers, or trading hubs.
The Kasbah of Oumhensh in Foum Zguid consists of 4 doors each door holds the name of one family that is living in the Kasbah. The first door is called Imi NAIT Amer, (imi mean the forum), 2 imi NAIT nimzil, 3 imi NAIT Ali and the last imi NAIT imozaz. At each door, there is a guard who controls who is entering the Kasbah and no stranger is allowed to enter the Kasbah, only the people who are living in the Kasbah are allowed .and if the person is late in the night he needs a password to be allowed to enter this last change each night. It contains also 4 towers that are 20 meters high and it has the role of service, to see what comes from far away. The Kasbah is also a mosque that serves the religious and the educative side. At the head of each family there is a kbir which means an old, but in this case means the responsible who solving the problems of the family with other families inside the Kasbah. He is the responsible and the ambassador of the family in the meanwhile the person who wants to be responsible for the family first should be wise, rich, and powerful to solve the problems. Each family member donates a little bit of money to put in a box for emergency cases such as when someone has died or for a marriage celebration. They use it also when they want to clean the water source with the boxes of other families because each family uses its box and when there is a problem that is for all the families they gather together and use all the boxes to solve it. And there is another box for the whole tribe.
Exactly behind the Kasbah, there is lfdadine which means small gardens where they grow vegetables and grass for the animals, but why exactly is the oasis behind the Kasbah? This was the natural air condition for nomads in the past because the hot wind that blew from the Sahara came through the oasis first to cool down before it reached the Kasbah fresh.
The tribe had a very important old way for the distribution of water.
Since there was no clock at that time people used a technique called adrim which equals around about one hour for each individual to water his garden. There was a wall and with the shade of the wall, they knew the time.
What they grow in the gardens, they used to grow the palm trees, the flowers, dried food, the grass for the animals, the consumed food.
There were two kinds of families, the family in which the mother controls everything and is responsible for making decisions at home, even if the child got old enough and even married he still submitted to the father, and the father who decdecidesr him.
The second family is the one where the grandmother is responsible for the house amakesake decisions because most of the time having a lot of experiences in life so she knows how to behave in each situation
