A Moroccan Maid-Rite: Habricha

In the Maghreb, in that area of Northern Africa so frequently contested and conquered by a succession of empires, there are a number of fortified cities built to withstand such invaders. But cities of any size and age in the region will have a walled section called the Medina (اَلْمَدِينَة), or the Old Medina, an Arabic word with a simple meaning: “the city.” The Medinas are the ancient, beating hearts of the Arab world, the stone walls and open atria and dark narrow passages we might imagine when we think of those far-off places; Sallah’s home in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Rick’s Bar in Casablanca, or the poor quarter of Agrabah where Aladdin scraped by stealing bread before he found the genie in the lamp. Of course Agrabah is an entirely fictional place, drawn by artists; Casablanca was filmed on a soundstage in California; and while Raiders was filmed on location in North Africa, Sallah’s home was located not in Cairo, Egypt, but in Kairouan, Tunisia. Still, in the old Medina of…