Morocco

The Amazigh, or Berber, peoples have lived in Morocco since prehistory. Phoenicians and Carthaginians traded on the coast, and Rome built Volubilis, whose mosaics still lie in the fields near Meknes. Idris I brought Islam and founded a dynasty in the eighth century, and Fez became its capital. There, in 859, Fatima al-Fihri founded al-Qarawiyyin, often called the oldest existing university in the world.

The great Amazigh dynasties followed: the Almoravids founded Marrakech around 1070, the Almohads raised the Koutoubia minaret, the Marinids built the madrasas of Fez, and the Saadians left their tombs in Marrakech. The Alaouite dynasty has reigned since the seventeenth century; Moulay Ismail made Meknes his capital. After the French and Spanish protectorates of 1912, Morocco became independent in 1956.