Fes (/fɛs/; Arabic: فاس, romanized: fās) or Fez (/fɛz/) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fez-Meknes administrative region.

[2] Located to the northwest of the Atlas Mountains, it is surrounded by hills and the old city is centered around the Fez River (Oued Fes) flowing from west to east.

After the downfall of the Idrisid dynasty, other empires came and went until the 11th century when the Almoravid Sultan Yusuf ibn Tashfin united the two settlements into what is today's Fes el-Bali (lit.

Idris I was an Hasanid Sharif from Arabia who was forced to flee the Hejaz after a failed revolt against the Abbasid Caliphate, eventually moving to northern Morocco and conquereing much of the area.

[17]: 51  The city also had a prominent Jewish community, probably consisting of Zenata Berbers who had previously converted to Judaism, as well as a small remaining Christian population for a time.

[13]: 53 [24] Although the capital was moved to Marrakesh under the Almoravids, Fez acquired a reputation for Maliki legal scholarship and remained an important centre of trade and industry.

In particular, Jewish sources describe the transfer as a consequence of the rediscovery of Idris II's body in the heart of the city in 1437, which caused the surrounding area—if not the entire city—to acquire a holy (haram) status, requiring that non-Muslims be removed from the area.

[17]: 157  The Ottomans attempted to invade Morocco after the assassination of Mohammed ash-Sheikh in 1558, but were stopped by his son Abdallah al-Ghalib at the Battle of Wadi al-Laban north of Fez.

[47] The Saadis, who used Marrakesh again as their capital, did not lavish much attention on Fez, with the exception of the ornate ablutions pavilions added to the Qarawiyyin Mosque's courtyard during their time.

Sultan Moulay Abdallah, who reigned intermittently during this period and used Fez as a capital, was initially welcomed in 1728–29 as an enemy of the Udayas, but relations between him and the city's population quickly soured due to his choice of governor.

[17]: 244  The order spread quickly among the literary elite of North West Africa and its ulama had significant religious, intellectual, and political influence in Fez and beyond.

The ulama of Fez, led by the Sufi modernist Muhammad Bin Abdul-Kabir Al-Kattani, offered their conditioned support to Abd al-Hafid, which turned the tide of the conflict.

One immediate consequence was the 1912 riots in Fez, a popular uprising which included deadly attacks targeting Europeans as well as native Jewish inhabitants in the Mellah, followed by an even deadlier repression.

Buildings were burned and looted, including the Hôtel des Mérinides, a luxury hotel overlooking Fes el-Bali and dating to the time of Lyautey.

The tanning industry, for example, still embodied by tanneries of Fes el-Bali today, was a major source of exports and economic sustenance since the city's early history.

[12] Today, the city's surrounding countryside, the fertile Saïss plains, is an important source of agricultural activity producing primarily cereals, beans, olives, and grapes, as well as raising livestock.

[111] In 2021, Abdeslam Bekkali, a member of the National Rally of Independents (RNI), succeeded Driss Azami El Idrissi as the new president of the municipality of Fez.

[142][73] The Marinid dynasty devoted great attention to the construction of madrasas following the Maliki school, resulting in the unprecedented prosperity of the city's religious institutions.

[14]: 8 The entire medina of Fez was heavily fortified with crenelated walls with watchtowers and gates, a pattern of urban planning which can be seen in Salé and Chellah as well.

[13]: 190–191, 280, 307–308  The Funduq al-Najjarin was built in the 18th century by Amin Adiyil to provide accommodation and storage for merchants and now houses the Nejjarine Museum of Wooden Arts & Crafts.

Writers sought to establish a continuity between the teachings of contemporary Sufi masters and those that came before them, with the city of Fez portrayed as the center of this spiritual heritage.

A copy of Sefer Abudarham (ספר אבודרהם) was printed in Hebrew in 1516 by Samuel ben Isaac Nedivot and his son, who were Jewish refugees from Lisbon.

Printing in Arabic was introduced to Morocco in 1864–65, on the initiative of a man named Muhammad at-Tayyib ar-Rudani [ar], an Islamic scholar and judge originally from the Sous region.

In 1864 Ar-Rudani, while returning from his Hajj pilgrimage, bought an Arabic printing press in Cairo and contracted an Egyptian operator, bringing both back with him to Morocco.

[99]: 110–115  The press was installed in a central neighbourhood of Fes el-Bali and was managed by the government, which printed traditional scholarly books and made some of the productions available to the Qarawiyyin University free of charge.

'instrument') to differentiate it from the Sufi tradition of samā, which is purely vocal, while Idrīs Bin Jellūn at-Twīmī [fr], in his study of Mohammed al-Haik's Kunash al-Haik (Arabic: كناش الحائك), described the appellation "Andalusi music" as an unprecedented colonial invention "meant to detract from [the musical form's] Arabness and [Moroccans'] intellectual and artistic abilities.

The festival occurs in May or June and concerts take place at multiple venues across the city, including at historic sites such as Bab Makina (the New Mechouar) in Fes Jdid.

[217][218] Multiple moussems (Sufi religious festivals) have traditionally taken place every year in honour of local Muslim saints and are typically sponsored by one or more of the city's guilds.

[235] The city's main train station, operated by ONCF, is located a short distance from the downtown area of the Ville Nouvelle and is connected to the rail lines running east to Oujda and west to Tangier and Casablanca.

[245][246] The École polytechnique de Technologie was started in 2006 and quickly established itself as one of the leading institutions in the private higher education sector in the city of Fez.