Once a year there is a special spectacle in Moulay Abdellah: that is when the Doukkala tribes gather in the historic fishing village in the Moroccan province of El Jadida. They travel to the Atlantic coast from more than 12 regions to celebrate the Moussem Festival together.
A moussem is an annual regional festival with religious and folkloric activities. In Moulay Abdellah, in addition to collective Koran readings and recitations of the invocation of the Prophet, shows, nightly pop music and falconry are also on the programme. Music orchestras and folk groups perform on the numerous stages of the Moussem. A fair and other amusements provide entertainment.
One of the most important festivals in Morocco
The festival also promotes the art of “Halqa”, a cultural heritage that is slowly disappearing with globalization. The “Halqa” is a performance performed in open squares, weekly souks, folk markets and busy streets. The ancient Moroccan art form is usually led by a main performer called “Lhlaiqi” surrounded by dancers, musical instruments and sometimes tamed snakes or trained monkeys.
The highlight of the seven-day celebrations in Moulay Abdellah are the so-called Fantasias. In these spirited equestrian games, participants show off their amazing skills in mock battles or fights. In a closed file, they pick up the pace, roar their war roars and, at full gallop, fire deafening volleys of their traditional rifles before bringing their horses to a halt just short of the audience.
The Moussem of Moulay Abdellah has been celebrated for over a hundred years in memory of Saint Moulay Abdellah Amghar and is now considered one of the most important traditional and religious festivals of its kind in Morocco. More than 500,000 people from home and abroad visit this cultural event every year. The tent city, which is erected annually on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean nine kilometers from the town of El Jadida, is a solemn homage to a past marked by faith in Islam and ancestral love for the earth.