The Menara Gardens () are a historic public garden and orchard in Marrakech, Morocco. They were established in the 12th century (circa 1157) by the Almohad Caliphate ruler Abd al-Mu'min. Along with the Agdal Gardens and the historic walled city of Marrakesh, the gardens have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985. The gardens are laid out around a central water basin and reservoir, next to which is a pleasure pavilion dating in its current form from the 19th century. The reservoir and its pavilion, often framed in pictures against the background of the High Atlas Mountains to the south, are considered one of the iconic views and symbols of Marrakesh.
Etymology
The origin of the name Menara for the gardens is not firmly established. The name's first appearance (as Sahrij al-Manāra) in historical sources is in 1579, during the Saadian period. The Arabic word menara (منارَة) variously means "minaret", "lighthouse", "lantern/beacon" or other elevated structures of the kind. It is often suggested that this refers to the two-story pavilion standing on the edge of the main reservoir. However, other historians, such as Gaston Deverdun, have suggested that the name could date from as far back as the Almohad period (long before the current pavilion's construction) and that it may be an allusion to the minaret of the Kutubiyya Mosque to the northeast, which was founded and begun under Abd al-Mu'min's reign and with which the gardens were more or less aligned.
History
The tradition of creating gardens on the outskirts of the city began early with the Almoravids who founded Marrakesh in 1070. Multiple gardens, estates, and artificial lakes were established in multiple sites outside the city walls, often referred to as buḥā'ir – singular Buḥayra – an Arabic word meaning "little sea", presumably in reference to the artificial lakes and large water basins. These garden estates continued to exist and develop under the Almohads who conquered the city in the 12th century.
The Menara Gardens were first established by Abd al-Mu'min, the Almohad ruler who conquered the city, in 1157. This dating has been deduced by scholars from historical chronicles describing Abd al-Mu'min's construction of an enormous garden estate west of the city which contained two large water reservoirs. One of these reservoirs is the current one seen at the gardens today (although it was probably slightly modified in later restorations). The second reservoir in question is believed to be the Sahrij al-Bgar (or Sahrij al-Baqar), located outside and southeast of the Menara Gardens today, a short distance west of Bab Ighli and the Agdal Gardens. Its name, meaning "basin of the cows", may be a reference to either a nearby cattle market at the time or to the raising of bulls for bullfighting which took place here under the later Caliph al-Mustansir. The Sahrij al-Bgar is no longer in use and lies empty today, but was probably part of the same garden estate at the time. This vast estate was in turn enclosed by a 6-mile-long wall (absent today). The Menara's location to the west of the city walls is also consistent with the fact that Abd al-Mu'min still used the former Almoravid palace, the Ksar al-Hajjar (located next to the present-day site of the Kutubiyya Mosque), as his residence. The gardens are also perfectly aligned with Bab al-Makhzen, the western gate of the city, near the palace, which Abd al-Mu'min would have likely used to go in and out of the city. The later palaces of the Kasbah, founded by the Almohads and to which the Agdal Gardens are connected today, were not yet built. The Agdal Gardens to the south of the city, in turn, were traditionally believed to date from Abd al-Mu'min's time as well but have been more conclusively dated to the reign of his successor Abu Ya'qub Yusuf.
In early sources the garden and its location was also called Shuntululya. The gardens were likely designed by an engineer from Malaga (Al-Andalus) named Hajj al-Ya'ish, who was also responsible for designing other mechanical projects under Abd al-Mu'min such as the automated maqsura and minbar of the Kutubiyya Mosque. One historical source, the Ḥulal al-Mawshiyya, describes how the estate's second water basin (the Sahrij al-Bgar) was used at one point to train the ḥuffāẓ (singular ḥāfiẓ; meaning "Qur'an reader") how to swim.