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A PRESTIGIOUS PAST
Amzru and the Zagora Djebel Amzru, that is to say the qsar or fortified village that’s been its unique habitat up to the 20th century, dates back to the 18th century. Before that, the city that was existing there, badly protected under its poor ramparts but in safety thanks to the castle that was on the top of the mountain, was called Tagmadert. It was reputed and frequented by scholars and scientists of the time, whose mausoleum are scattered around, because it was the cradle of the Saadiyîn dynasty ; and also, because of the proximity of the holy centre of Tamgrut with its reputed zaouïa, a mystical centre, university, library, refuge, inn for pilgrims, and powerful economic and political centre.
Amzru is located at the bottom of Tazagurt, today called the Zagora Djebel, which is made of a double summit (1030m and 971 m) tracing a strategic pass next to the ford for North-South or West-East itineraries as well. Tazagurt has been for centuries a strategic strong-hold oversseing on important crosssection of the North-South and West-East roads that trans-Saharan salt and gold caravans were using to link the Sahara to the Maghreb and Mediterranean world. According to Jewish chronicles and legends, Tazagurt would have been captured in the 7th century by Jews who had already colonised the Dra Elbow and made of Tamgrut their capital. Tangible signs of the presence of Jewish communities in the valley around the 9th century have been found (like silver coins of the Todhra with inscriptions in Hebrew). Another noticeable aspect of these Jewish traditions is that the Jews would have taken Tazagurt from the local “Kuchit” people who, they say were Christianised. Whatever the case, the presence of Jewish communities in the region is undoubtedly attested at the time of the first Arab Muslim invasions, at the beginning of the 8th century. It is at this early period that the ancestor of the Arabs of the Dra Zidan Ben Ahmed, coming from Arabia, would have settled in the Dra. The Almoravids in Zagora In the 11th century, thanks to a call for rescue of the Dra inhabitants oppressed by the Emir of Sijilmassa, the Berber chiefs who were to form the dynasty of the Almoravids (1056-1147) took over the valley in what was to be the first step of their epic, that will see them found a kingdom stretching from Marrakech (founded in 1062) to Spain and Algiers. Thus, in 1503-1054, they invaded the Dra, captured Tazagurt, massacred or enslaved the Jewish communities and imposed their domination. They built a fortress on the Tazagurt mountain, not at the top but at the bottom of its Northern-Eastern side, that is to say next to the strategic crossroad on the left-hand side of the river. Thus, the fortress was facing the North, where the danger could come from (indeed it will, a hundred years later, with the Almohads of the Atlas). The fortress was blocking the way round the hill, obliging all to take the pass between the two summits and the ford. Excavations carried out in the fifties supported the identification of the ruins that one can still observe on that side as those of that thousand-year-old fortress, as old as Marrakech itself. The reign of the Almoravids favoured Berber settlment in the valley and completed its islamisation. Jews will come back in the following centuries. Christians too, and “Renegades” , but it will be via the numerous armies that the Sultans sent at times in the valley, that were mainly composed of mercenaries.
In front of the djebel, on the other side of the oued, a city called Tansita was the seat of one of the independent Berber kingdoms that ruled the palm-grove of Ternata in the 15th - 16th centuries, and entertained cordial relations with the Sultan of Fes. It was also an important commercial place frequented by tradesmen from Africa and Europe that had the capacity to maintain its integrity against the pressure of the Maâqil Arab nomads who were ravaging the region - thanks to the armament provided by the Portuguese who were at that time capturing the one after the other all Moroccan harbours, from Sebta to Agadir. Leo the African visited the place and he described the sumptuous gift sent by the King of Tansita to the Sultan of Fes, in 1514-1515 : it included a hundred of slaves, dozens of camels and ostriches (that people were breeding for their meat) and one giraffe ! The valley that he described was abundant in dates, the basic food for animals and humans alike. It had also a de facto monopole of indigo’s production and was reputed for its gum lac.
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