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The mosque of Mulai Idris, built by the founder of Fez about the year 810, is considered so sacred that the streets which approach its entrance are forbidden to Jews, Christians or four-footed beasts. The sanctity of the shrine in particular is esteemed very great, and this accounts flock to it. The Tumiat door leading to it was once very fine, but is now much faded. Opposite to it is a refuge for friend-less sharifas—the female descendants of Mohammed—built by Mohammed XVII. It is believed that the foundation stone of Fez was laid in 808 by Idris II. Since then its history has been chequered, as it was successfully besieged no fewer than eight times in the first five hundred years of its existence, yet only once knew foreign masters, when in 1554 the Turks took possession of it without a siege and held it for a short time. Fez became the chief residence of the Filali dynasty, who obtained possession of the town in 1649. The population has been very varyingly estimated; probably the inhabitants number under one hundred thousand, even when the court is in residence.
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See H. Gaillard, Une Ville de l'Islam. Fes (Paris, 1905); C. Rene-Leclerc, “Le commerce et l'industrie a Fez " in Renseignemenis col. comite afrique francaise (1905).
