Ben Youssef Madrasa

About this place

The Ben Youssef Madrasa stands as the largest Islamic college in Morocco and one of the most significant in all of North Africa. The institution takes its name from the nearby Ben Youssef Mosque, which honors the Almoravid spiritual leader Ali ibn Yusuf. While an earlier madrasa existed on this site during the Marinid period, the current magnificent structure was built between 1564 and 1565 by Sultan Abdallah al-Ghalib, the second Saadian ruler of Morocco. At its peak, the madrasa housed and educated up to 130 students who studied theology, law, and Islamic sciences. The building is a masterpiece of Saadian decorative art, featuring an immense central courtyard with a marble ablutions basin, walls covered in intricate zellige tilework, carved cedar wood, and stunning stucco arabesques. The student dormitory cells, arranged on two floors around the courtyard, provided living quarters for scholars from across the Maghreb. The madrasa remained active for over four centuries until 1960, serving as a bastion of learning and spirituality in the heart of the medina. It was inscribed as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Medina of Marrakech in 1985.