Medina quarter

Medina, Arabic مدينة عتيقة, DMG Madina ʿ Atiqa 'old town', is the name given to the old town of Arab, mostly of North African cities. In the Arabic language, the word has the meaning " city " par excellence.

The largest Medina of North Africa is that of the Moroccan city of Fez ( Fez), ranks second in importance those of Tunis, with an area of ​​87 hectares. The Medina of the Tunisian town of Kairouan has an area of 54 hectares.

Several Moroccan medinas and Tunisian towns were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as the Zabids in Yemen and Aleppo in Syria.

The medinas are closely linked with Islam, as is clear from the following quote:

"Without reference to Islam, which has the ancient Arab city foundations set its solid forms and structures that Medina [ ... ] remains a chaotic seeming maze of alleyways, where you inevitably lose your orientation. In reality, each Medina, organized by the Friday Mosque of, after irrefutable principles. Although the Friday Mosque in each case marks the religious center of each Old Town, the largest house of worship does not necessarily lie in the center of the old town. The various neighborhoods, connected by sometimes tortuous main roads, close to that is dominated Friday Mosque. The neighborhood itself are divided into several groups of buildings, frequently access to the apartment entrances ending in a deadlock, which are allowed to enter only the residents, strictly speaking. Use any residential district, whose homes are each an infrastructure of oven, hammam (bath), madrasa and a grocery common is faithfully reserved to the Holy Book of the Muslims a certain group of the society. [ ... ] The more genteel city dwellers once lived near the Friday Mosque, the highest-ranking family usually lived in the building at the end of the impasse. [ ... ] "

Over the last hundred years, the Medina, however, have changed dramatically. Numerous smaller Medinas in southern Tunisia were ever abandoned. Thomas Veser says in his article that in stopping this development, " the Medina probably completely lose its role as a central reference system of Maghrebi society in the foreseeable future " will.

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