Moulay Idriss Zerhoun: A Gentle Guide to Morocco's Holy Town

Nearly everyone arrives here the same way: a car pulls up, the driver points at a white town spilling over two green hills, cameras come out, and twenty minutes later the car is gone again, heading down to the Roman ruins at Volubilis.

We would like to suggest something quieter. Arrive in the late afternoon instead, when the olive-covered slopes turn gold and the swifts start their circling over the green-tiled roof of the shrine. Put your bag down. Order a mint tea on a terrace. Let the call to prayer roll around the valley, once, and then again at dusk.

Moulay Idriss Zerhoun is a small town, around twelve thousand people, perched at roughly 530 metres in the Zerhoun hills of the Fès-Meknès region. It is the most sacred town in Morocco, and until the mid-2000s foreign non-Muslim visitors were not permitted to sleep here at all. Now a handful of family guesthouses will happily give you a bed and a rooftop — and that overnight stay, not the photo stop, is the whole trip.

A little history

In 789, a man named Idris ibn Abdallah — a great-great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad — arrived in these hills after fleeing persecution in the east. The Berber tribes of the Zerhoun took him in, and he settled beside the ruins of the Roman city of Volubilis, whose cut stone was still standing and still useful.

He ruled only a few years. He died in 791, most accounts say by poison sent on behalf of the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, leaving his wife pregnant with the son who would become Idris II and found Fès. In that short time he had begun the Idrisid dynasty, the first Muslim dynasty of Morocco, and the country has remembered him ever since.

His tomb became the heart of the town that carries his name. The shrine you see today, with its pyramid of green tiles, largely dates from a rebuilding under the Alaouite sultans in the early eighteenth century. Every August a great moussem, a pilgrimage festival, fills these narrow lanes with visitors from across Morocco — wonderful to witness, but a difficult week to find a quiet room.

The mausoleum of Moulay Idriss, the heart of the town.

What to see

This is not a town of monuments to tick off. It is a town of about four things, seen slowly, with long pauses in between.

The zawiya and mausoleum of Moulay Idriss

The religious complex sits in the dip between the two hills, and everything in town leans towards it. A low wooden bar across the entrance lane marks where the sacred ground begins; the mausoleum and mosque are reserved for Muslims, and non-Muslim visitors stop at the threshold. There is no disappointment in this. From just outside you can see the great doors, the courtyard beyond, and the steady, unhurried traffic of pilgrims — men in white, women carrying candles and sugar cones — which is really the thing worth seeing.

The cylindrical minaret

A short walk from the shrine stands a minaret said to be the only cylindrical one in Morocco. It was built in 1939 for the Sentissi medersa, using stone taken long ago from Volubilis, and it is covered in green tiles bearing white Kufic inscriptions. Look for it from a rooftop rather than from directly beneath — the shape reads much better from a distance.

Khiber and Tasga

The town's two halves face each other across a small gorge. Khiber is the higher hill; Tasga climbs opposite. Their lanes are whitewashed, impossibly narrow in places, and threaded with arches, worn steps and doorways painted in that particular Moroccan green. You will get gently lost. Someone will point you home.

The terrace view

Up in Khiber, the Sidi Abdellah el Hajjam terrace gives the classic view: the whole town cupped around its shrine, with the plain and the Zerhoun ridge behind. Be honest with yourself about the climb, which is steep and stepped. Many guesthouses have rooftops with a view nearly as fine and no hill at all — ask to see the terrace before you book.

White houses stacked on the hillsides of Moulay Idriss Zerhoun.

The slow hours

Here is the part no day-tripper ever gets.

At around five in the afternoon the town changes temperature and temper. Shutters go up, bread comes out of the communal oven, boys race down the lanes, and the cafés on the main square fill with men watching nothing in particular. Sit among them. Nobody will hurry you, and nobody will try to sell you a carpet — this is a pilgrimage town, not a shopping town, and the difference in atmosphere is immediate and enormous.

Then at dusk the muezzins begin, several at once from different heights of the hill, overlapping like a round. Afterwards it goes very quiet. There is no nightlife to speak of, and most guesthouses do not serve alcohol; what you get instead is a dark sky, a cool breeze off the olive groves, and one of the soundest nights of sleep in Morocco.

Morning is just as good. Be on the terrace by seven with coffee and watch the light come over the ridge onto the white walls.

A doorway opening onto a fountain in Moulay Idriss Zerhoun.

A day trip nearby: Volubilis

The Roman city of Volubilis lies only about 4 to 5 km away, in full view from the town's terraces — a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1997 and the best-preserved ancient site in Morocco. Its mosaic floors remain where they were laid, open to the sky: Orpheus and his animals, Bacchus, the labours of Hercules, still vivid after eighteen centuries.

Staying in Moulay Idriss gives you a real advantage here. Instead of arriving at midday with the tour buses, you can take a short taxi ride down first thing in the morning or in the last hours of the afternoon, when the stones are warm, the light is long and the crowds have thinned.

A word of caution, though. Volubilis is a demanding site underfoot: uneven paving, loose stones, slopes between the different quarters and almost no shade anywhere. Allow one and a half to two hours, wear proper shoes with grip, take more water than seems necessary, and if the day is hot, be content with the forum, the basilica and the triumphal arch rather than walking the whole grid. Some visitors walk down from town in an hour; in anything above mild weather we would take the taxi both ways.

The countryside near Moulay Idriss, with olive groves and low hills.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• This is a hill town, and there is no way around that. The lanes of Khiber and Tasga are steep, stepped, and often too narrow for any vehicle. The good news: the main square, the cafés and the approach to the shrine sit low in the town and are reasonably level, so a rewarding visit is entirely possible without ever climbing.
• Choose your guesthouse by its position, not its photos. Ask exactly how many steps lie between the nearest taxi drop-off and the front door, and between the front door and your room. Some houses are a few paces from the square; others are a ten-minute climb with a suitcase. Most hosts will send someone to carry bags if you ask in advance.
• Hire a grand taxi for a half-day rather than walking between sights. A driver can take you to the upper terrace, down to Volubilis and back for a fixed sum agreed beforehand, which turns a strenuous day into an easy one.
• Go in spring or autumn. July and August can be genuinely hot on these open slopes, and the ruins at Volubilis have no shelter at all.
• Bring cash. It is a small town with limited banking; draw dirhams in Meknès or Fès before you come.
• Dress modestly and ask before photographing people. This is a place of pilgrimage. Covered shoulders and knees, and a little discretion near the shrine, are repaid many times over in warmth.
• Take a stick or trekking pole if you use one at home. The cobbles are polished smooth in places and can be slippery after rain.
• Two nights is plenty. One night feels rushed; three is more town than most people need.

A view of Moulay Idriss, Morocco.

What to eat

Zerhoun is olive country, and it shows. The hills around town are dense with olive groves, and the local oil — green, peppery, poured generously over everything — is the first thing you will notice at breakfast, alongside flat bread, honey, and fresh cheese.

Around the main square, simple cafés grill kefta and brochettes over charcoal through the afternoon; the smell alone will decide your lunch for you. Expect honest, unfussy food: harira soup, bean stews, tagines with local olives and preserved lemon, tomato and pepper salads, couscous on Fridays.

Dinner, however, is best taken at your guesthouse. In a town this small the finest cooking happens in family kitchens, and most hosts will prepare a multi-course meal if you tell them in the morning. It is usually the best food you eat in the region.

And then there is the nougat. Moulay Idriss is known across Morocco for its halwa — white nougat studded with almonds or peanuts, sold in slabs from stalls near the square, along with sesame sweets and caramel brittle. Buy a small piece. It is very sweet and very good, and it keeps well on the road.

Getting there

Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, listed as a Moroccan cultural heritage site.

Our verdict

Moulay Idriss will not overwhelm you with sights, and that is precisely its gift. There is one great shrine you will admire from the doorway, one curious round minaret, two hills of white houses, and a view worth an hour of anyone's time.

For travelers over 60 it asks for a little planning — the right guesthouse, a taxi instead of a climb, a cool month rather than a hot one — but it gives back something Fès and Marrakech, for all their splendour, cannot: quiet. Real, olive-scented, hill-town quiet, in a place that has been welcoming travelers, in its own fashion, for over twelve hundred years.

Pair it with Volubilis and a night or two in Meknès, and you have one of the gentlest and most rewarding corners of northern Morocco.

“Come for an hour and the hill lets you go; stay a night and it quietly keeps you.”

Photo credits

• Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, Morocco - panoramio: Ben Bender, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• M idriss zerhoun: YassirZek, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Moulay Idriss Zerhoun, Morocco - panoramio 1: Ben Bender, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• A Fountaine: Lkadi Adil, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Près de Moulay Idriss - panoramio: Jean-François Capdet, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Moulay Idriss 2: George Swann, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Moulay Idriss Zerhoun 1: ZAINEB HACHAMI, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons