ancient cities

404 Islamic City
Muslim cities. However, the existence of legal
rulings and judgments in Maliki law can ultimately
be traced to the exegesis of the sacred text,
the Qur’an.
The Topos of the Islamic City
In summary, the topos of the Islamic city consists
of a two primary tropes: a strong sense of affection
(topophilia) for a place and a sense of aversion
(topophobia). As a mode of dwelling,
topophilia means that competing disputes can be
resolved through mutual regard for one another in
order to maintain mutual affection. Topophilia
also means a social homogeneity, as evidenced in
the topography of a landscape, is both figurative
and communicative. The house is a private retreat
or a mode of private dwelling; public gathering
exists in the city in the congregational mosque.
Bringing together public gathering and private
dwelling, the madinah embodies a habitat, a physical
expression, and the physical nature of a place
and context. Although the character of the ground
of a habitat varies, its space is what enables it to
play its role in uniting a community of human
beings, and the order of the space gives them identity
and fellowship, hence the basis for a city.
The madinah Fes evolved in the ninth century
AD as a magnificent example of urbanism and
social hierarchy. The topos of Fes is a matrix of
linear spaces immediately accessible (streets) and
spaces conceived out of an empty central area
(mosque courtyard, house, dwelling), both determining
the laws of juxtaposition and organization.
The courtyards are designed to isolate, to ensure
the intimacy of the inside as opposed to the outside.
These types of enclosures are antonymic,
meaning the enclosure presents an opposition in its
function to the order that brought it about in the
first place. The opposition is materialized through
the juxtaposition of inside as opposed to the outside
defined by blind perimeter walls.
Apart from being a place of human habitation,
the topos embodies political authority, religious
knowledge, and collective memory. It is therefore
possible to speak of the madinah in terms of the
idiom power/knowledge. The well-known maxim,
I am the city of knowledge (Ana madinat al-Ilm),
embodies topography, landscape, and meaning. Fes
is a luminous example of collective memory, which
is associated with a pious primogenitor, Idris II,
who is entombed within the precincts of the city.
We are told that when the city was fully inhabited,
Idrıs II ascended the minbar and addressed
the people of the city. He prayed for their sanctity,
their prosperity, and the protection of the city. The
collective influences of natural springs that provide
fresh water to the inhabitants of Fes have a pervasive
effect on the site. In the collective memory, it
is impossible to ignore the power of Idrıs’s words:
He speaks with the language of incarnation, verba
concepta. Idrıs II repeats the archetypal du’a
(heavenly supplication) of Abraham for Makkah,
the Prophet’s du’a at the time of entering Madinah,
and Uqba’s du’a at the time of the founding of
Qayrawan. Idrıs II also prayed for knowledge and
sacred law. In the city of Fes, two significant monuments
are associated with knowledge and sacred
law: the Qarawiyyin (university) mosque and the
sepulcher mosque of Idris II.
Many historians tell us that the city of Qayrawan
was founded by Uqba b. Nafi’s, and he sanctified
the site with a du’a. Uqba’s charisma is evident
from the site of the mosque, which bears his
eponym. It explains the importance of the city as a
place embodied with ritual prayer, knowledge, and
the enactment of sacred law.
Several conclusions can be drawn from the
foregoing remarks. First, the Islamic city is a
landscape immersed in knowledge and power.
Second, the topos bears a relationship between
language and landscape. It is possible that the
extravagant claims associated with various indigenous
narratives attached to the mapping out of
settlements in the Islamic cities in North Africa
may have encouraged some historians to ignore
these claims and to adhere strictly to a list of
chronological events. But extant physical evidence
points to the narrative, inasmuch as it is a
proviso that is naturally suggested by time and
place. Habitat narratives are connected with
custom and vernacular traditions, which are a
source of collective memory and therefore cannot
be easily ignored. The choice of a site and
how that site is visually composed or how the
building process becomes part of a shared human
experience are among the reasons why the urbanism
of the city has accepted a particular type of
building activity or how a peculiar settlement
pattern has evolved.