PANORAMA OF MEQUINEZ.
CH A P T E R TH E F IF T E E N T H
IMPERIAL CITIES— 2
MIKNAS (MEQUINEZ)
LE A S T imposing of the three imperial cities, hardly
metropolitan in character, Mequinez has none the less
its special interests, and an important place in modern
Moorish history. * Here Isma'i'l the blood-thirsty held
his Court, and here, in days when Moorish
pirates swept the seas, the European captives
fared their worst. From very early times some settlement
appears to have existed on this spot, which is
referred to under its present name in the tenth century,1
but Idreesi, writing about n o o , describes the place, which
he calls Takaràrt,2 as still ari ordinary agadir
or citadel, surrounded by villages which afterwards
coalesced -to form the city. Consequently its
foundation was marked by no flourish of trumpets, as it
gradually rose out of a Berber settlement.
Away to the south-east, between Fez and Oojda, lies
the home of what remains of the Miknàsa tribe, whose
members played so important a part in build- History f
ing up the Empire, and became the masters
* M. Houdas has translated a historical description of this city dating
from 1533, entitled Er-Raòd el Hàtùn f i Akhbàr Mikndsal ez-Zàitùn^
by one of its kàdis, but it is Only the usual unsatisfactory discursive mélange
and record of trivialities, containing practically nothing of present importance.
f The Moorish Empire contains the following historical references to
Mequinez: Christians transported there, p. 61; taken by Abd el Mu'min,
1 Raód el ICartàs, p. 61 (ann. 941). 2 p. 88,