Bou Inania Madrasa
The Bou Inania Madrasa or Bu 'Inaniya Madrasa is a madrasa in Fez, Morocco, built in 1350–55 by the Marinid sultan Abu Inan Faris. It is the only madrasa in Morocco which also functioned as a congregational mosque. It is widely acknowledged as a high point of Marinid architecture and of historic Moroccan architecture generally.
The main building, located on the south side of Tala'a Kebira street, consists of a courtyard surrounded by galleries with student quarters built on the second floor above. The courtyard is also flanked by two classroom chambers and precedes a wide prayer hall. Thanks to its hybrid mosque status, it is also one of the only Moroccan madrasas with a prominent minaret. Much of the building is covered with high-quality decoration in carved stucco, zellij, and carved wood. Across the street, on the north side of Tala'a Kebira, is an ablutions facility as well as the Dar al-Magana, a structure whose street façade is occupied by an elaborate water clock.
History
Founder and patron: Sultan Abu Inan
The name Bou Inania is derived from the name of its founder, the Marinid sultan Faris ibn Ali Abu Inan al-Mutawakkil. It was originally named the Madrasa al-Muttawakkiliya but the name Madrasa Bu Inania has been retained instead. He was the son and successor of Sultan Abu al-Hasan, under whose reign the Marinid empire reached its apogee and expanded all the way to Tunis in the east. Abu Inan, who rebelled against his father and declared himself sultan in 1348, did not manage to hold onto all these new eastern territories, but the Moroccan state was nonetheless prosperous during his reign. He was assassinated by his vizier on January 10, 1358, at the age of 31. His death marked the beginning of the dynasty's definitive decline, with subsequent Marinid rulers being mostly figureheads controlled by powerful viziers.Context: the role of Marinid madrasas
The Marinids were prolific builders of madrasas, a type of institution which originated in northeastern Iran by the early 11th century and was progressively adopted further west. These establishments served to train Islamic scholars, particularly in Islamic law and jurisprudence. The madrasa in the Sunni world was generally antithetical to more "heterodox" religious doctrines, including the doctrine espoused by the Almohad dynasty. As such, it only came to flourish in Morocco under the Marinid dynasty which succeeded the Almohads. To the Marinids, madrasas played a part in bolstering the political legitimacy of their dynasty. They used this patronage to encourage the loyalty of Fez's influential but fiercely independent religious elites and also to portray themselves to the general population as protectors and promoters of orthodox Sunni Islam. The madrasas also served to train the scholars and elites who operated their state's bureaucracy.The Bou Inania Madrasa was the largest and most important madrasa created by the Marinid dynasty and turned into one of the most important religious institutions of Fez and Morocco. It was the only such madrasa to gain the status of congregational mosque or "Friday mosque", which meant that the Friday sermon was delivered here like in the other most important mosques of the city. As a result, it was fully equipped with all the facilities of a major mosque and religious complex, in addition to extensive decoration. The architecture and decoration of the madrasa is also considered to be the culmination of this type of Marinid architecture.
Foundation and construction
A number of apocryphal stories about the madrasa's creation exist. One reported story claims that Abu Inan felt guilt about his violent overthrow of his father and gathered a number of religious scholars to advise him on how he could redeem himself and seek forgiveness from God. They advised him to choose a location in the upper city which then served as a garbage dump and to transform it into a site of religious learning; thus, by purifying and improving a part of the city, he would do the same for his conscience.The foundation inscription of the building, located inside the prayer hall, indicates that construction on the madrasa started on December 28, 1350, CE, and finished in 1355. The inscription also notes an extensive list of mortmain-type endowments which were dedicated to funding the madrasa's operations and which were part of its habous or waqf.
The construction project was known to be highly expensive due to the scale and lavishness of the building. One apocryphal anecdote claims that the sultan, upon seeing the full cost of construction presented to him by nervous construction supervisors, ripped up the accounts book and threw it in the river, while proclaiming: "What is beautiful is not expensive, no matter how large the sum."
Later history and restorations
Despite Sultan Abu Inan's significant investments in the madrasa's architecture and its waqf endowment, it does not appear to have successfully rivaled the prestige and importance of the larger and older Qarawiyyin as a center of learning. It operated autonomously for some time but it's likely that after a couple of centuries the privilege of higher education in Fez was de facto centralized through the Qarawiyyin.The madrasa building has undergone numerous restorations, particularly in the 17th century after a damaging earthquake. During the reign of Sultan Mulay Sliman, entire wall sections were reconstructed. In the 20th century restorations were carried out on the madrasa's decorations.
Architecture
The madrasa is actually a complex of buildings that together provide the facilities required to serve as a madrasa and mosque. The main building has the outline of an irregular rectangle measuring 34.65 by 38.95 metres. It is located between Tala'a Kebira and Tala'a Seghira, two of the most important streets of Fes el-Bali, and is aligned with what was then considered the qibla, to the southeast. This main structure includes the study areas, the mosque or prayer hall area, living quarters for students, and an ablutions room. Directly across the street to the north is another, larger, ablutions house with latrines. Right next to this is the Dar al-Magana or "House of the Clock", which features a famous but currently non-functional hydraulic clock on its facade.Entrances
The madrasa has two entrances: one on Tala'a Kebira street aligned with the mihrab and the central axis of the building, and another on Tala'a Seghira at the back. The Tala'a Kebira entrance has a horseshoe arch doorway surrounded by stucco decoration. A set of stairs leads into a vestibule and then directly into the main courtyard. The vestibule is covered in the same rich ornamentation as the rest of the madrasa and has a ceiling of cedar wood carved in elaborate muqarnas.Another doorway to the left of the main entrance, known as , leads directly to the outer gallery of the main courtyard and from there gives direct access to the student rooms and to the ablutions room in the northeast part of the building. The vestibule of this entrance is covered by a barrel vault clad with stucco decoration featuring a star-like geometric motif. The nearby ablutions room is centered around a rectangular water basin and is surrounded by other small chambers.
The rear entrance, opening from Tala'a Seghira, leads via a bending corridor to the main courtyard. This entrance is marked by very fine decoration, including a carved wooden canopy situated above a panel of carved stucco decoration. Directly above the doorway is a wooden lintel carved with an Arabic inscription that names Abu Inan as the madrasa's founder. In this part of the building was also a Qur'anic school for children.
Main courtyard and adjoining chambers
The building is centered around a large rectangular marble-paved courtyard slightly deeper than it is wide. At its center is a fountain and basin to assist in ablutions, as is common in many mosque. The courtyard is surrounded on three sides by a narrow gallery, partially hidden by wooden screens between the pillars that uphold the walls of the floor above. The passages of the gallery lead to other rooms, mostly living cells for the madrasa students, around the courtyard. At the northwestern and northeastern corners of the building are stairways that lead to an upper floor which is occupied by more living quarters for students, some of which have windows overlooking the courtyard.On the east and west sides of the courtyard, aligned with the central fountain, are two large square chambers, measuring 5 metres per side, which served as classrooms. They are entered via archways with intricate muqarnas-carved intrados, which are guarded by tall cedar wood doors whose surfaces are finely carved with interlacing geometric star patterns with arabesque fillings as well as with bands of Arabic calligraphic inscriptions. Inside, the chambers are decorated with more stucco-carved surfaces and covered by wooden cupolas with a pattern of radiating ribs. These two lateral chambers have been compared with the iwans of classic madrasa architecture further east in Egypt, such as the Madrasa of Sultan Hassan in Cairo, leading to speculation that the architect was familiar with such models. The gallery passages that run around both sides of the courtyard also connect to corridors that go around the lateral chambers, allowing students from the surrounding rooms to walk directly from the madrasa entrance all the way to the prayer hall without passing through the courtyard, if desired.
Prayer hall
Along the south edge of the courtyard runs a small canal with water drawn from the Oued el-Lemtiyyin, one of the canals branching from the Oued Fes which supplies the city with water. The canal likely also served an aesthetic and possibly symbolic purpose, in addition to further assisting in ablutions. The canal is crossed by two small bridges at the corners of the courtyard which give access to a prayer hall on the other side, bordering the southern side of the courtyard.This mosque area is open to the courtyard via the continuation of the gallery arches around the courtyard and its interior is thus visible from outside, although off-limits to non-Muslim visitors. The interior is divided by a transverse row of arches resting on marble and onyx columns. At the western end of the prayer hall is a, a small room intended for seclusion or private prayer. The room, open to the rest of the prayer hall via a double-arched window, is elevated above the doorway that gives access to the madrasa's rear street entrance.
The far wall of the prayer hall is marked by the mosque's mihrab, a niche symbolizing the direction of prayer. The walls around the mihrab are surrounded by typical stucco-carved decoration. In the upper walls are windows with decorative stucco grilles inset with coloured glass. The two aisles of the mosque are each covered by a berchla or sloped wood-frame ceiling, as seen in many other Moroccan mosques.