Marrakech appears below us from the window of a small plane.

Marrakech is a city of 750,000 which commands the heart of the rich agricultural plain at the the foot of the High Atlas mountains known as the Haouz (see Morocco map). It was founded in 1067 A.D. by Youssef ben Tachfine, who led conquering armies of a new dynasty which became known as the Almoravids. It is one of the great Islamic cities of the world, with many of the typical features of the preindustrial, or traditional, Middle Eastern city.

-Why would Youssef ben Tachfine locate his new capital city at the foot of the Atlas mountains and in the middle of the Haouz plain?

You can see the general outline of the city here stretching across the image from lower right to middle left and right. The city walls form a frame enclosing the dense urban space. Fields and orchards surround the city, and a dry riverbed, or wadi, is apparent outside the walls nearest us below. A gate to the city is visible along the walls in the bottom right. The spires, or minarets, of some of the prominent mosques appear plainly across the city.

-What structures dominate the cityscapes of America?

-What does the prominence of the mosque in the urban landscape of Marrakech say about the values of the society that lives there?