The Last Civilized Place is an unusual and engaging volume, weaving together archaeological and historical information about the southern Moroccan city of Sijilmasa, generally acknowledged as one of the earliest Muslim urban foundations in the region and a hugely important entrepot in the trans-Saharan trade for nearly a millennium. Although known to scholars working on Morocco, Sijilmasa has frequently been cast into shadow by the prominence of Fes, Marrakesh, Rabat, and Meknes, the so-called “imperial cities” on the modern tourist trail, and the abandonment of the medieval city for its modern successor, Rissani. However, for many centuries, Sijilmasa was probably the largest and most important city in the western Maghreb, rivalled only by Ceuta on the Straits of Gibraltar. It was the place where the founder of the Fatimid dynasty sought refuge from his eastern rivals, the first city captured by the Almoravids when they emerged from the Sahara to found an empire, and a prize which the Almohads, Marinids and the Zayyanids all waged numerous campaigns to control. It is, therefore, an important step forward in our understanding of pre-modern Moroccan history to have a volume such as this that places Sijilmasa firmly at the center of the narrative.
The book begins with an atmospheric prologue to Sijilmasa that uses Ibn Battuta's account of his passage through the city en route for West Africa, to lay out the main areas of the city and subsidiary settlements such as Suq Ben Akla. It then moves to consider scholarly and methodological “approaches to Sijilmasa,” including its position within histories of trans-Saharan commerce and debates on the Islamic city, the kinds of archaeological evidence that the site provides, and the microhistory of the excavations undertaken by the authors and their collaborators in the 1990s.
After this introductory material, broadly speaking chronological chapters explore Sijilmasa's history during its first phase as the capital of the Kharijite Banu Midrar, its “imperial” phase under Almoravid, Almohad and Marinid rule from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the Filalian era when it regained a certain independence, and then its final phase from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century as the cradle of the still-ruling ʿAlawi dynasty. The encounters of the archaeologists themselves with the local population and the myths and legends of Sijilmasa that the latter recounted form an additional strand.
The outline history in which Sijilmasa is embedded is, of course, not new and functions primarily as the context for Sijilmasa's own story which is elucidated by reference to the archaeological findings of Ronald Messier, James Miller, and their collaborators. Therefore, it is in the discussions of the finds at Sijilmasa and their implications that the book comes into its own. Although Messier and Miller point out that they have previously published information on their findings, this book brings that body of work together and presents it to a more general readership, interwoven with the historical narrative.
Among the most noteworthy findings are indications that Sijilmasa did not fall into decay after its sack by the Marinids in 1393, despite textual suggestions to the contrary. It is also fascinating to learn more about the development of the city's morphology through the changing siting and orientation of the great mosque and the citadel, and about its unusual satellite settlement or suburb, Suq Ben Akla, where the markets serving caravans were located. The book concludes with an assessment of Sijilmasa in comparison to various theoretical models about cities in the Islamic world and a review of the future of the site, which is faced with pressure from the urban expansion of Rissani and ambiguities about its future status and development as a heritage site.
There is a certain tension between the often chatty and personal tone adopted by the authors and the more scholarly aspects of the book; it is likely that readers will come to it for one or the other, and engage primarily with that. Nonetheless, there is an implicit justification for this style in the idea that Sijilmasa was a real place with real inhabitants and that the lives of the people in the Tafilalt oasis around the site today, and their interactions with archaeologists, are simply another page in Sijilmasa's story. Although it is a small point, the Arabic transliteration falters on a few occasions, for example the Marinid sultan Abu Saʿid is called Abu Sayid and the land tax is described as khasraj rather than kharaj, which could lead to a modicum of confusion in teaching environments.
Such quibbles aside, this is an accessible and fascinating introduction to Sijilmasa's past which draws this vitally important city into the orbit of western Maghrebi history and shows the value of combining textual and archaeological investigations to create a more rounded vision of the past. It sheds light not only on the life of Sijilmasa itself but also medieval urban life in Morocco more generally. I have no doubt that it will make a valuable addition to many a course list on Islamic urbanism, North African history, the history of trade—the trans-Saharan trade in particular—as well as on archaeology.
