Habs Qara

Under the imperial city is a large vaulted space - brick piers carrying shallow domes, extending further than the lit section, with light wells at intervals - and what it was for is genuinely unsettled. The popular account, attached to it since at least the nineteenth century, is that it was the prison of Kara, holding tens of thousands of captives taken at sea by Salé corsairs and used as forced labour on Moulay Ismail's building works, and that story is told to every visitor. Archaeologists and historians have generally been sceptical of the numbers and of the identification, pointing out that the structure is consistent with a storage vault of the kind built throughout the complex, of which Heri es-Souani is the aboveground example. The honest position is that a very large underground vault exists, that people were certainly held and worked in Meknes in large numbers, and that the link between the two is tradition rather than evidence.

History

The vaulted chambers were built in the early 18th century on the orders of Moulay Ismail as part of the royal kasbah of Meknes, the capital he chose for strategic reasons and perhaps to step out of the shadow of earlier dynasties. They are popularly called the Prison of the Christians, said to have held thousands of captives taken at sea, but most scholars think they were a vast storage space for the royal complex; prisoners and slaves did work on the vaults and the wider kasbah, though studies put them at only a small part of the workforce. Some of the passages were later sealed with cement to stop people getting lost in them (Wikipedia, Qara Prison).

Highlights

• A large vaulted space - brick piers and shallow domes with light wells above.
• An unresolved purpose - prison in tradition, storage vault in most scholarly readings.
• More than is lit - the chamber continues beyond the accessible section.
• A corsair-era story - told confidently on site, and not securely evidenced.

When to go

October to April. Half an hour.

Good to know

The prison account presented on site is tradition rather than established fact. Lighting is poor and the floor is uneven. Guides tell the dramatic version and expect payment. It is a short visit.

Nearby

The mausoleum of Moulay Ismail is a short walk; El Hedim is north.

Key facts