Question 1

What does El Badi mean?

Accepted Answer

El Badi — 'the incomparable' or 'the marvellous' — is one of the 99 Names of God in Islam. Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur chose the name to signal both his personal piety and his ambition to build a palace without equal.

Question 2

Why is El Badi a ruin?

Accepted Answer

About a century after it was completed, Sultan Moulay Ismail of the Alawi dynasty had the palace systematically stripped from around 1707 onwards. Marble columns, zellij, gold leaf and timber were removed and re-used in his new capital at Meknes and other Alawi monuments.

Question 3

What is the Koutoubia minbar doing here?

Accepted Answer

The 12th-century minbar (pulpit) of the Koutoubia Mosque, commissioned in 1137 in Cordoba, was moved to El Badi Palace in 1962 to protect it. It is now the centrepiece of the on-site exhibition.

Question 4

Is the palace fully accessible?

Accepted Answer

Most of the central courtyard, the four sunken gardens, and the surviving pavilion ruins are walkable. Underground service passages and parts of the ramparts can also be visited; uneven steps mean the site is not fully step-free.

El Badi Palace — Marrakech

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