Tamegroute

Tamegroute Pottery

This village, with its Berber and Arab population, is located 15 km from Zagora in the direction of Mhamid.

The potteries of Tamegroute, a major artisanal activity of the Draa Valley and famous, are made according to a distant technique imported from Fez.

Thanks to the mastery of the secrets of earth and fire, the potter’s craftsmen work the turn that they operate with their feet. In this way, they make potteries which, when shaped, are put to dry in the sun and transform this earth into objects essential to everyday life.

This pottery from southern Morocco comes in two forms:

The pottery with significant green enamel of Tamegroute and whose origin would come from Fez is conceived by an alloy of manganese, copper oxide… Once the object covered with this composite, the whole is put to cook with suffocation in an oven of stone giving it this typical aspect.

A brown-coloured pottery is obtained without adding copper to the initial alloy. A white pottery decorated with henna completes the choice of Tamegroute pottery.

Tamegroute Library

Tamegroute is home to a famous zaouïa, founded in the seventeenth century by theologian Ahmed Ali Ansari Al Tamgrout. His son, the scholar Mohammed ben Nassir, founder of the brotherhood of the Nasiriya, rests there and his tomb is located in the enclosure of the mosque.

Visitors can enter the large courtyard of the mosque, but only Muslims have access to the zaouïa enclosure, which is now a welcome centre for pilgrims and needy or sick people.

Ahmed Ali Ansari Al Tamgrout acquired nearly 6,500 manuscripts on religion, Islam, medicine, mathematics and science during 6 long journeys, all of which took him to Mecca and brought him into contact with many theologians and pilgrims from Persia, Syria and Cordoba.

4,000 of these manuscripts are currently in the library of Tamegroute and 2,500 in the National Library of Rabat. The oldest manuscript, a treatise of the Qur’ an, is written on eleventh-century gazelle skin from Cordoba, during the Caliphate era in Spain.

The manuscripts are protected by glass bookcases, some of which are open, allowing you to admire their magnificent illuminations.

No fixed price for the visit of the library of Tamegroute, an obole is welcome. Open every day except Saturdays – from 8am to 12pm and from 3pm to 6pm. No pictures allowed.