Letter from Morocco: Saintly secrets

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/10/letter-from-morocco-sale-rabat

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Since the French moved their capital to Rabat during the protectorate, twin sister Salé on the opposite bank of Bou Regreg river has been in a state of decline. Once a bustling souk peopled by artisans and craftsmen, it has merchandise, if traditionally made, from Fes, Marrakesh or Essouira.

If shopping is not the main attraction, Salé has something else to offer. Ensconced in shoulder-wide darbs – the maze-like alleys of the medina – are countless zawiyas. These shrines sometimes represent a holy man buried elsewhere or have evolved around his entombed body. And holy men abound in Salé: virtually on every street corner there is a bolted wooden door with a commemorative plaque.

You may be forgiven by mistaking mausoleums and zawiyas as they are marked by a square minaret and often a dome. But "mosques and zawiyas are two separate things", Ahmed Madani from the Zawiya Sidiqiya tells me. "Nowadays few people come to the zawiya," he said.

The city's two most imposing mausoleums belong to rival patrons: Sidi Ben Hassun and Sidi Ben Asher. Sidi Ben Hassun's shrine, almost adjacent to the grand mosque, is surmounted by a green tiled dome and a monumental portal marks its entrance.

Taking my shoes off, I ventured inside. An old woman squatting on the floor asked if I was a "Muslima" and as I replied in the affirmative, she nodded in assent. As I turned towards the tomb, a man appeared. He followed me around, then thrust the corner of a green flag hanging from the saint's tomb on my head, muttered something and asked for money. I replied calmly that I just wanted to sit for a while. He still hovered around, and pulled out a rosary from his djellaba, which he handed to me and again demanded money. I repeated my wish for quiet and he took his leave. Before putting my shoes back on, I gave some change to the woman at the entrance, which she acknowledged in silence, and I left.

Later, walking through the souk, I bumped into the same man who smiled beguilingly, as if there had been nothing sinister in our previous encounter. I'd like to think my visit could pass for religious tourism. If that's what it was, there may yet be a future in Salé's secretive shrines.

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