Description

The word "kasbah" or "casbah" has a very broad meaning. In each country, and even in each region, it is applied to a different construction: from an isolated fort in the middle of the countryside to a district of the city inside which gathered the administrations of the State and the army. In Morocco, however, we generally speak of a casbah when we want to designate a square plan building with four corner towers, built in raw earth and usually intended to house a family of notables. This type of habitat is of Berber origin and in this language it is called tighremt. The word casbah is recent and was introduced when Arab and French citizens arrived in the region around the 1920s. The oldest kasbahs date from the 18th century, perhaps from the 17th century in some cases, but most hardly exceed a hundred years, because previously the population of the pre-Saharan valleys lived in the ksour.