Tétouan
Tétouan (Arabic: تطوان, romanized: tiṭwān, [titwaːn]), is a city in northern Morocco. It lies along the Martil Valley and is one of the two major ports of Morocco on the Mediterranean Sea, a few miles south of the Strait of Gibraltar, and about 60 kilometres (37 mi) E.S.E. of Tangier. In the 2014 Moroccan census, the city recorded a population of 380,787 inhabitants.[3] It is part of the administrative division Tanger-Tetouan-Al Hoceima.
"Tetuán" redirects here. For the district in Madrid, Spain, see Tetuán (Madrid). For the city in Tunisia, see Tataouine. For the city in Turkey, see Tatvan.
Tétouan
تطوان
205 m (673 ft)
2 m (7 ft)
380,787
Medina of Tétouan (formerly known as Titawin)
Cultural
ii, iv, v
1997 (21st session)
The city has witnessed many development cycles spanning over more than 2,000 years. The first settlements, discovered a few miles outside of the modern city limits, belonged to the ancient Mauretanians and date back to the 3rd century BC. A century later, Phoenicians traded there and after them the site—known now as the ancient town of Tamuda—became a Roman colony under Emperor Augustus.[4][5]
In the late 13th century, the Marinids started by building a casbah and mosque in what is now the old city. Soon after in 1305, the scale of the settlement was expanded by sultan Abu Thabit Amir, who fortified the place.[6] Around the early 15th century, the Castilians destroyed the settlement in retaliation for piracy.
The modern history of the city starts around the late 15th century. It was re-built and fortified by Ali al-Mandri, who emigrated from the Nasrid city of Granada in the decade before it fell in the hands of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile as the War of Granada was completed in 1492. Thousands of Muslims and Jews from Andalusia settled in the north of Morocco and on the ruins of the city of Tétouan.[7] The city went through a prosperous period of reconstruction and growth in various fields and became a center for the reception of Andalusian civilization. It is often linked to Granada and is nicknamed "Granada's Daughter";[1][8] some families still keep keys belonging to their old homes in Granada.[7] It is also nicknamed "Pequeña Jerusalén" (Little Jerusalem) by Sephardi Jews.[9][10] The vast majority of the population are Muslims and small Christian and Jewish communities also exist,[11] although their presence has declined sharply in recent decades.
In 1913, Tétouan became the capital of the Spanish protectorate of Morocco, which was governed by the Khalifa (Moroccan prince serving as Viceroy for the Sultan), and the Spanish "Alto Comisario" accredited to him. It remained the capital until 1956, when Morocco regained its full independence.
Tétouan is a renowned multicultural center.[12] The medina of Tétouan is a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997.[13] It has also been part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the area of Crafts and Folk Art since 2017.[14][15]
Etymology[edit]
According to Leo Africanus, the name comes after the Goths bestowed the government of the town upon a woman with one eye and that the inhabitants called it Tetteguin, meaning "eye" in their language.[16]
The current name is first mentioned in 9th-century Arabic chronicles, after the death of Idris II.[17]
Education[edit]
Education and the national movement[edit]
During the 1920s, activists belonging to the national movement in northern Morocco, especially in Tétouan under Spanish protectorate, made science and education a supreme goal of their struggle to combat colonialism. In 1924, and after considerable effort and determination, they established a primary school and named it the "Al Madrasa al-Ahliyah" (Arabic: المدرسة الأهلية meaning National School). Among them were historian Mohammed Daoud, Abdel Salam Bennouna, and Mustafa Afilal. To this end, members of the National Movement carried out a popular campaign under the leadership of the Special Education Committee established in 1934. In the summer of 1935, a group of activists met at the house of Mustafa Afilal, and after a long debate about educational dimensions, material resources, and other things, the group concluded by approving the establishment of a special secondary educational institution. The name of the institution remained suspended until the end of the year. After additional meetings, nationalist leader and Professor Abdelkhalek Torres, being impressed with the role played by the "free men" in the era of the Second Spanish Republic, said to his colleagues: most of the men of science, thought and liberation in Spain, graduated from Madrid's Instituto Libre. Therefore, I hope and suggest that you call our institute the Free Institute (Arabic: المعهد الحر). After this was approved, the Free Institute was established on November 5, 1935.[77]
The students of the Institute were among the first to demonstrate and protest against the Spanish administration. The year 1948, in which bloody events took place between the citizens demanding independence and the Spanish colonialism, in which a student of the institute was killed by colonial agents, was a milestone in its history. The Spanish administration began to take over the institute. All the staff were arrested and imprisoned in Ceuta. However, weeks later, historian Tuhami al-Wazzani, who was then the director of the elementary school, joined the institute and asked the college students to help teach the younger ones so that the institute would not stop teaching altogether. Since then, secondary education has ceased and has been limited to primary education up to this day.[77] Many graduates continued their higher education in Spain, Cairo, and Baghdad.
Other schools and institutions of higher education[edit]
Tétouan is home to l'Institut National des Beaux-Arts (National Institute of Fine Arts), the only national arts institution of higher education in Morocco. It was founded in 1945.[78] Its promoter and first director was the Spanish Orientalist painter Mariano Bertuchi.[79] The city also hosts the Ecole Nationale d'Architecture, a public architecture school.
Tétouan's public Abdelmalek Essaâdi University was founded in 1993. The 16th-century Moroccan sultan Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik I Saadi is the university's namesake. The university has a student body of 86,000, one of the largest in Morocco. The Faculty of Theology (Arabic : كلية أصول الدين) was established in 1963 and was an affiliate of the prestigious Al Quaraouiyine University in Fez until 2015, when it was annexed to Abdelmalek Essaâdi University.[80]
