Melilla (Rusadir, Malila) – Visit Al-Andalus

The city in the Andalusian period

The present name seems to come from the Rifian or Tamazight language Tamlilt, meaning the white one, perhaps in reference to the local rock. The Arabs eliminated the initial ta- and the Castilians converted the Arabic Mlicia into Melilla.

After the period of uncertainty and decadence between the end of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages, the ancient Rusadir will be integrated into the process of the advance of Islam in North Africa.

In 710 the kingdom of Nekor was consolidated in the area, but we do not really have precise data on the city until the tenth century, when it reappears in the sources.

At this time, from 927 to 945, the enclave takes relevance to be integrated into the orbit of the Caliphate Cordoba as an Andalusian fortress in North Africa, strategic bridgehead described by El Bekri as “ancient and prosperous population endowed with walls”, even the poet al Razi recorded this historical fact:

“prepared for Musa a
Fortified city on high
and impregnable.
Tahari humbled themselves before her
and Africans;
not even the Amalekites could
match its construction.”

This Andalusian Melilla, especially during the Cordoba period, had cultured and prestigious characters, such as Cadi Ibn al Faraadi or Ibn Umayna Ibn Amina, who wrote a book on syntax.

The Umayyad Melilla gave way to a period of crisis in the 11th century. In these years it even became one of the Taifas of Al-Andalus since in 1067 a prominent member of the Andalusian dynasty of the Hammudids was appointed king. Mohamed Ibn Idris, who came from Almeria to begin a reign that lasted until 1081, the time of the conquest of the Almoravids.

The passage of the Almohads and the Benimerines affected the city sometimes positively and sometimes negatively, but in the early fourteenth century Melilla was consolidated as a prosperous commercial enclave profusely outlined in the cartography of the time, however, throughout the fifteenth century Melilla enclave enters a deep decline that caused its gradual abandonment and ruin, this being the state in which the Castilian troops found it in 1497.

The relationship or influence of the Islamic culture does not end at the end of the 15th century like the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, but through the Rifian tribes of the neighboring kabylas, a relationship that will be perpetuated throughout the Modern Age between sieges and periodic attacks with other periods of relative peaceful calm.

The 19th century marked a change of trend in the relationship of the Imazighen with the city of Melilla, and from archival sources we know that from the beginning of that century several Rifians from the Campo Exterior were authorized to reside in the old city of Melilla with the “right to spend the night” in a progressive increase in relations between the two territorial areas after centuries of conflict since 1497. They were traders and suppliers of food for a historically poorly supplied citadel and they will exercise their activity in the old orchard esplanade that becomes a souk, leads to build the first mosque at the foot of the wall, and because of its proximity to the port, it will be the germ of the Mantelete neighborhood where the first Jewish and Hindu traders will also settle and market.

The first half of the twentieth century will be marked by the last African Campaigns, the creation of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco and the Spanish Civil War, while the progressive settlement of the population of Rifian origin in the city will be constant, mainly in the suburbs, such as the Polygon, Cabrerizas, the Alcazaba or Reina Regente, shaping an increasingly diverse and mixed Melilla.

The percentage of Imazighen settled in the city will grow steadily reaching figures, according to statistical data, of 23.3% in 1975 and approximately one third of the total population in 1986. It was then when the law of foreigners enacted before the entry of Spain into the European Community, excluded a large percentage of Melillians of Rifian origin who had been living in the city for decades, even several generations, and placed them in a situation of inequality with respect to other citizens. After a series of peaceful civil movements, they managed to bring their demands to the central government and reverse the situation, culminating in the full acquisition of rights and recognition of Spanish nationality for the Melilla Imazighen in 1987.

Since then, their percentage of the total population of Melilla has been increasing to reach almost 50% of the total, as well as their levels of representation and public and institutional participation that extends to all areas of local and state administration, while enriching the cultural substratum of the city with its ancient legacy of customs, traditions, rituals and gastronomy.

Collection of archaeological finds from medieval times from the Museum of History and Archaeology of Melilla.

List of archaeological finds related to successive campaigns in which artifacts and remains from the Islamic period have been documented, from ceramic fragments (plates, ataifores, lamps), structures such as silos dug into the rock, or coins that confirm the double Islamic occupation of Melilla, firstly, under the orbit of the Andalusian kingdoms (Almohads-Alamoravids) and secondly, from the 12th century under the influence of the Merinid sultanates of Fez or the Ziyanids of Tlemcen.

Plaza del Veedor.
Warehouses of Las Peñuelas.
Governor’s House.
Plaza de Armas.
Hornabeque Moat.
Alcazaba I.
Alcazaba II.
Fort Victoria Chica I.
Fort Victoria Chica II.
Lobera Park.

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Aljama Mosque of Melilla or Central Mosque of Melilla

It was built between 1945 and 1947, according to a project designed by architect Enrique Nieto y Nieto in July 1938, and inaugurated on September 7, 1947.

The facades are composed on the first floor by doors with horseshoe arches, leading to the main floor, windows of the same type of arches, with baluster balconies on Garcia Cabrelles street, then placing a frieze, cornice and being crowned by stepped battlements, similar to those of the inner courtyard of the mosque of Al-Nasir, in Cairo. In the chamfer there is a portal, a horseshoe arch on columns and over these three windows, with the same type of arch, the chamfer being crowned with a dome and behind the minaret, a square tower that ends in a body of poly-lobed arches that end in a dome.

It has a first floor, where there are commercial premises and a Turkish bath in the front area, and a prayer room in the back, with different accesses for men and women from the sides. On the upper floor there are some rooms where the CEIP Mediterráneo used to be, and today the Centro de Educación de Adultos Carmen Conde Abellán is located.

Modernist architecture of Melilla in the neo-Arabic or oriental style.

Former Gran Hotel Reina Victoria, also known as “Casa de los Cristales”.

Built between 1920 and 1926, possibly according to Ramón Gironella’s design, with the architectural direction of the military engineer Enrique Álvarez and the architect Enrique Nieto, although it is possible that Jose Friberg and Alejandro Rodríguez Borlado participated in its design. It was inaugurated on January 29, 1927 as the Gran Hotel Reina Victoria, with 80 rooms and elevator.

It has a first floor, mezzanine, four floors and a recessed top floor. It is built with a concrete structure, slightly reinforced, with columns supporting a framework of beams, on which the brick vaults are supported, with brick partitions, allowing large open spaces and large openings.

The concrete elements are built with a lost formwork, prefabricated and externally ornamental, in which the steel rods are inserted and the concrete is poured.

Its facades are composed of a first floor with straight spans, a mezzanine of horseshoe arches, with corbels of quarter sphere that give way to a gigantic viewpoint where windows occupy the entire space, separated and compartmentalized with Nasrid columns on the second floor, and pillars on the next two floors of the side facades, ending in arches on the third floor, while the fourth floor has galleries topped with eaves on which stands a recessed plant, while the chamfer has columns to the fourth floor ending in arches that end in an eave. Inside, the staircase box in the shape of a half-orange supported by Nasrid columns stands out.

CEIP Mediterráneo, former Escuela de Artes y Oficios, former Hospital Indigena

It was built between 1907 and 1908 with a single floor as an Indigenous Infirmary, according to Manuel Becerra’s project, although at the beginning the Kabileños of the surroundings did not use it. In 1909, after its transfer, it became a military hospital. In 1911, an attempt was made to expand with the land of the Hebrew Quarter, but its inhabitants prevented it. In 1912 the body and personal effects of El Mizzian were exhibited there after he was shot by regulars.

In 1926, since it was no longer needed, it was closed to save costs, and was used as a laboratory and drug depot. Some time later, it was considered to be used as a residence for indigenous students from around Melilla, but lack of funds prevented its implementation. In 1933 it was converted into a School of Art and Artistic Crafts, being renovated in 1946, according to the project of the architect Enrique Nieto.

It is built in local stone masonry, walls, solid brick, architraves and vaults and iron beams and has a historicist style facades, neo-Arabic, with windows with horseshoe arches, gazebos supported by columns and an imperial staircase present in almost all public schools built in the first half of the twentieth century.

Yamin Benarroch Synagogue – Or Zaruah

It was built between 1925 and 1927 by the contractor Lázaro Torres, with decorations by Vicente Maeso and locksmith work by Vicente Palomo, according to a design by Enrique Nieto, dated September 1924.

It consists of first floor and two floors. The main one houses the home of the Yamín Benarroch family and the Or Zaruah Synagogue in the upper one. It is built with masonry walls of local stone and solid brick, with iron beams and solid brick vaults for the ceilings, except for the top floor, which is covered with a gable roof.

David Melul Passage. Its facades are composed of first floors with doors in horseshoe arches with voussoirs in which white and yellow alternate, with
a main floor with the same type of arches with an alfiz that give way to balconies, while on the second floor there are two-sided windows, with columns in the center.
that give way to the same arches, and there is a central viewpoint on the second floor of the central façade.

Fuente del Bombillo

It was inaugurated in 1916 and restored in 2005. It consists of two white crenellated towers with doors in horseshoe arches flanking and protruding from the two niches under also horseshoe arches with basins, with a front wall with the same arches. In the pillar located between the niches is the Coat of Arms of Melilla. All the work, with the exception of the towers, has tile basements.

According to UGR professor Salvador Gallego Aranda, it develops layouts of different function and typology that, with official character, give nature card, in a recurrent way, to peninsular periods where it is compiled from the Cordovan Caliphate to the Granada Nasrid passing, inexorably, by the Sevillian Almohad, under conception criteria marked by the generic.

The Bombillo fountain has the coat of arms of Melilla prominently displayed on its main façade. Above a ducal crown, on the summit is the figure of Alonso Pérez de Guzmán “the Good” in attitude of throwing a dagger, and is flanked by the columns of Hercules and the legend “Non Plus Ultra”. As a badge, in its upper part, behind the castle, it has a winged ribbon with the legend related to the event of Guzmán el Bueno “Praeferre Patriam Liberis Parentem Decet” (it is convenient to put the homeland before the family). Finally, at the foot of the shield is a dragon in sinople with a spear stuck in its mouth.

The arms of the coat of arms are, on a field of azure, two cauldrons checkered in gold and gules gringoladas (topped) of ten snakes in sinople for each cauldron. It has a border of the royal arms of Castile and Leon (typical of the Guzmans), of seven silver pieces, with gold castles, alternated with seven silver pieces with lions of gules.

Fountain built in 1916 in the area of the Polygon in neo-Arabic style and in which the coat of arms of the city stands out in front. The name Bombillo comes from its first machinery, which consisted of a hand pump.

Telefónica Building

It was built between 1936 and 1944 according to a design by Paulino J. Gayo for the Compañía Telefónica Nacional, currently Telefónica, and inaugurated in 1946, housing the automatic switchboard that housed an electromagnetic system of rotary switches.

It consists of first floor and two floors. It is built with masonry walls of local stone and solid brick, with iron beams and solid brick vaults for the ceilings. Its façade is composed of windows, with columns supported by pointed arches, except for the street on the right, where the entrance door is located, with pointed arches supported by columns that give way in the following ones to two-sided windows with pointed arches, with eaves on top, on sebka panels ending in a tower.

Interiors of the Military Casino of Melilla

It is a square, two-story building with classicist facades organized from a lower and upper hall of neo-Arabic style with a ground floor and two floors, plus the quartiers of the roof, built with masonry walls of local stone and solid brick, with iron beams and vaults of the same brick. Its main façade stands out, with moldings on the lintels, circular on the ground and main floor, and triangular on the first floor, with a central vertical axis composed of the entrance door flanked by two Doric columns on each side, which give way to a balcony with balustrade flanked by pilasters that lead to another balcony with identical arrangement that culminates in a triangular pediment, in which there is a coat of arms of the Spanish Republic.

Good Agreement Mosque

The Buen Acuerdo Mosque was the first mosque built in Spain after the Reconquest. It is located on Querol Street, in the Modernist Ensanche of the city of Melilla, and is part of the city’s Historical Complex, declared a Site of Cultural Interest.

It was built between 1926 and 1927 according to a project by the architect Larrucea, on the remains of another one by the military engineer José de la Gándara, on a site ceded in 1905 to the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Morocco, Habús and inaugurated in 1927.

In the 1980s, a lightning strike destroyed the prayer hall, with its magnificent coffered ceiling, and it was rebuilt with reinforced concrete, columns and lanterns.

In 2009, due to the deteriorated state of its facades, attributed to the lack of maintenance and the lack of administrative control that allowed the occupants of the premises to carry out works and the lack of emergency exits, the Autonomous City of Melilla decided to intervene and in 2011 repair works began, paralyzed by its owner, the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Morocco, who and with the CA of Melilla, closed the temple, until the Islamic Commission of Melilla decided to reopen it, in the face of criticism from the Muslim Association of Melilla. It is managed by the Good Agreement Mosque Association.

Villa Ben Amor

It is a protected historicist style villa in the Modernist Ensanche of the Spanish city of Melilla located on the Farhana Road and is part of the Historic-Artistic Ensemble of the City of Melilla, a Property of Cultural Interest.

It consists of a first floor and a turret with a hipped roof. It is built with masonry walls of local stone and solid brick, with iron beams and solid brick vaults for the ceilings. The facades of the building are particularly ornamented, particularly the main facade, with its staircase with a ceramic fountain leading to an arcade of semicircular arches that end in a wall of sebka panels culminating in green tile eaves.

Culinary-gastronomic heritage of the Amazigh-Muslim community of Melilla.

The traditional Amazigh cuisine is based on the products of the Mediterranean diet, olive oil, cereals (mainly wheat flour). vegetables, fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and fish. Dishes based on lamb meat, associated with family and religious celebrations, are very varied, from tahini with vegetables, to cous-cous of semolina or skewers, as well as vegetable and chicken stews, harira or lentil soup, traditional breads (tisnif) made in iron pans or sweets, both fried dough and dried fruits.

Practically all these products and dishes are tasted by all the citizens of Melilla, regardless of the community they belong to, both at home and in the numerous restaurants, cafes and tapas bars that offer them in all the neighborhoods of Melilla.

Amazigh community room ethnographic museum of Melilla

For more than 6000 years, the Amazigh culture has developed and expanded throughout North Africa. In the Rif region, mainly tribal societies occupied fertile valleys near rivers or the coast, where sedentary communities exploited resources through agriculture, hunting and fishing, and nomadic communities engaged in pastoralism and trade.

The Imazighen communities are characterized by being eminently matriarchal where women inherit and perpetuate the weight of tradition. From the traditional kábilas made of adobe, they witnessed the passage of all the civilizations that inhabited and dominated the Guelaya region where the city of Melilla is currently located. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Christians, spread over the territories of the Imazighen without allowing themselves to be excessively influenced given their combative and independent character, although from the VII century AD, they did assume the Islamic religion in their expansion from the Near East to the Iberian Peninsula.

Celebrations of the month of Ramadan

Every year a whole program of events is held during the month of Ramadan.

The schedule for 2025 will be published soon.

The website of Melilla Inmaterial

It is the website that collects all manifestations, as an ethnographic atlas, of the intangible cultural heritage of Melilla, information on the 6 main communities of Melilla (of peninsular-Catholic, Amazigh-Muslim, Judeo-Sephardic, Hindu-Sindhi, Gypsy and Chinese origin), an “intercultural news” section where, in the form of a blog, all the actions related to cultural diversity that are carried out in the city are collected, “life stories” with testimonies of elderly people from different communities and a thesaurus of related terms.

Information on the Amazigh-Muslim community of Melilla

ICH manifestations of the Amazigh-Muslim community recorded in the atlas

Melilla Intercultural Calendar

It gathers both civil and religious celebrations of the majority communities of Melilla: Peninsular-Catholic, Amazonian-Muslim, Judeo-Sephardi, Hindu-Sindhi, Gypsy and Chinese communities. Regarding Muslim religious celebrations, Melilla has been the first city in Spain to celebrate and institutionally support festivities such as Ramadan, in which a multitude of activities are held for all age groups, including the breaking of the institutional fast, Eid el Fitr, Eid Al-Adha, both considered holidays and non-instructional, the new year of the Hegira, Ashura, and the Amawlid Annabawi or birth of the Prophet.

Regarding the festivities properly imazighen collects the Amazige New Year or Yennayer. The word Yennayer comes from the Latin name for the month of “January”, ianuarius or januarius, named after Janus, the Roman god of doors, openings and elections. The word yennayer is thus related to the Latin term enneyer (January). It is the most commonly used in the Berber cultural universe, although in Kabylia there is a tendency to sometimes use “ixf u segwas” (“the beginning of the year”) or “tabburt u segwas”. The At Waziten (the Berbers of Libya) prefer “anezwar n u segwas” (“introduction of the year”). This month marks the beginning of the winter solstice. The sun begins its ascent. The still very cold days are getting longer and give hope for a better year. The origins of this celebration date back to the 1980s when it was agreed to establish 950 B.C. as the date of the beginning of the “Berber era” which corresponds to the date on which the Berber king Sheshonq I (ⵛⴻⵛⵓⵏⴽ) (also known as Chichnaq, Chichneq) acceded to the throne as pharaoh of Egypt and founded the XXII dynasty that reigned over Egypt until 715 B.C. This Berber king had managed to unify Egypt and then invaded Palestine. This Berber king had succeeded in unifying Egypt and then invaded Palestine. It is also said that he seized the treasures of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem in 926 B.C. This date is mentioned in the Bible and would constitute, by itself, the first date in Berber history that has a written reference. Historically, it has been held on January 12, 13 and 14. In Melilla there has been more than a decade of full institutional support with a multitude of socio-cultural activities, concerts, talks and presentations and a large fair that brings together a large part of the amazige population of Melilla.