El Badi Palace

Behind these battered walls once stood one of the most sumptuous palaces in the Islamic world. Today only the earthen walls, the sunken gardens and the storks remain, but the scale is still breathtaking.

1The spoils of the Three Kings

On 4 August 1578, at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, also known as the Battle of the Three Kings, King Sebastian of Portugal and two claimants to the Moroccan throne were killed. The victor was Ahmad al-Mansur, who came to power with enormous prestige and, most likely, with the ransoms paid for captured Portuguese nobles. In December of that same year he began this palace.

He called it al-Badi, 'the Incomparable', one of the ninety-nine names of God. The central courtyard measures about 135 by 110 metres, with a pool more than 90 metres long. According to the chronicles, the marble columns came from Italy and were paid for with their weight in sugar, the great source of Saadian wealth.

2A recycled palace

After the fall of the Saadians, the Alaouite sultan Moulay Ismail had it dismantled and its materials carted off to his new capital, Meknes. The chronicler al-Ifrani dates the order to 1707-1708, although the stripping began earlier and went on for years.

Tradition has it that at the inauguration a jester told the sultan the palace would make a magnificent ruin.

3What to look for

• The storks' nests on top of the walls.
• The regular holes in the rammed earth, left by wooden scaffolding.
• Place des Ferblantiers, with its metal lanterns.