Understand
Taza has always been of high importance because of its strategicly favourable location as a passage between the Rif and the Middle Atlas.
Taza is divided into two parts: the Medina Taza-Haut, built on a plateau, and the Ville NouvelleTaza-Bas in the valley, set up by the French after the occupation in 1914.
At the Medina the more "touristic" sights of Taza are located: the Great Mosque "Jemaa el-Khebir", the Medersa Bou Abul Hassan, the Andalusian Mosque and the souks with the "Jemaa es-Souk", the Market Mosque.
The heart of the Ville Nouvelle Taza-Bas is the Place de l'Indépendance. From there you can easily access the two main shopping streets, the Avenue Mohammed V and the Rue Allal Ben Abdullah. Here you find all sorts of shops and cafés. Most of the cafés are only visited by men, but there are some where you can feel comfortable as a woman. In the morning and at noon you will meet the Tazi women, who do their shopping and errands. In the early evening the streets of the city are full of men and women, but later the streets are left to the men.The young Tazi you will meet at the cinema or in one of the local internet-cafés, where they enjoy an evening out to chat and meet their friends. Like all over the world also in Taza surfing the web and chatting has become a common pastime. So more and more internet-cafés are opening, mainly in the Ville Nouvelle.
History
It is always pointed out that Taza's history and daily life was stamped by its geographical situation as the prominent passageway from east to west. Legend has it that the Meknassi tribe founded Taza at the end of the 7th century. But 25000-year-old prehistoric findings near the Medina Kifan el-Khomari show that people have settled here as early as the Palaeolithic.
In its history the town has been made capital several times, so under the Almohades, when Sultan Abd-el-Moumen conquered Taza in 1141 and had the Great Mosque built. Also the first Alaouite ruler, Moulay er-Rachid, the ancestor of the present king, started his conquest of Morocco from here. After his death in 1672 Taza lost its status as a capital once and for all, with the exception of the interim "reign" of the rebell Moulay Muhammed, called Bou Hemara "man on the donkey". He had gained the support of local Berber tribes and had himself proclaimed sultan in 1902 in Taza, but was imprisoned by Sultan Moulay Hafid and executed a few years later. The house of Bou Hemara still can be seen at the Medina.
Apart from adding to the mosques and medersas, each of the dynasties expanded and enforced the fortifications. So when Taza was occupied by French troops in 1914, it was almost naturally made a garrison town. In the first period of the French Protectorate Taza served as a base and starting point for raids against the Berbers in the Rif and the Middle Atlas, who tried to found independent states.
In 1956 Taza regained some local administrative importance, when it was made the provincial capital of the region.