The Soul of Morocco

A STRANGE device, ornate and arcane, looms over the passing mule carts and djellaba-robed masses that daily throng Talaa Kebira, the Broadway of Fez, the 1,200-year-old Moroccan city. Built into the high wall of the 14th-century Bou Inania mosque, just across from a halal butcher and his hanging rows of skinned lambs, 12 finely sculptured windows hover over 13 carved wooden blocks, on which long ago rested 13 brass bowls.

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At first glance, the ensemble might be another of the architectural flourishes that adorn Fez's many stunningly decorated medieval religious institutions. But things in Fez are rarely as simple as they seem. The windows, blocks and bowls are thought to have formed an elaborate clock, powered by running water, that sounded the hours of prayer - though no one knows this for certain.

The mechanism, if there was one, has been lost to time. Its operating principle cannot be fathomed. According to local legend, the enigmatic machine was designed by a magician.

The device is an apt symbol for Fez, a city whose cracked and dusty streets hide all manner of beautiful and forlorn relics. Like the water clock, Fez seems to have stopped marking time several centuries ago (cellphones and occasional soccer jerseys aside). And like the water clock, this mazelike city of minarets, shrouded figures and forgotten passages can seem impossible to decipher - yet tinged with a deep enchantment.

"It's a mysterious place," said Abdelfettah Seffar, a craftsman and cultural entrepreneur, as he stood on the roof of a beautiful but dilapidated 18th-century Moorish estate that he is restoring into a vast guesthouse and arts center. "It's even a mystical place."

Around us, crowing roosters and shouts in Arabic and French reverberated through the tangled streets - wholly bereft of automobiles and all but the simplest machines - as black smoke billowed in the distance from the city's old ceramic workshops. Farther off, beyond the ramparts, a late-afternoon glow illuminated the hillside tombs of the Merenid sultans, who presided over Fez's Golden Age in the 14th century.

"Fez is really just the medieval city that it was," Mr. Seffar went on, contrasting his hometown with its fast-developing jet-set sister and rival, Marrakesh. "We are a little scared of what Marrakesh has become. Fez is the soul of Morocco. It's the last bastion of what Morocco really is."

Faded but stately, crumbling but proud, the walled city of Fez might well be the largest and most enduring medieval Islamic settlement in the world. It is indisputably Morocco's spiritual and cultural heart.

You need only watch the daily procession of candle-toting mourners entering the tomb of the city's founder, Moulay Idriss II - believed to be a great-great grandson of the prophet Mohammed - to feel the city's connection to its past. A glance at the ninth-century Karaouine University, widely considered the world's oldest operating institution of higher learning, reaffirms the impression.

As Marrakesh has opened to Tropezian swimming-pool clubs and branches of Ibiza night spots, Fez has turned ever deeper to its history, renovating architectural masterpieces and creating new festivals devoted to the city's rich culinary and musical traditions.

Yet even as it opens, Fez remains a hidden city. High windowless walls hem narrow passageways adorned with flowing Arabic scripts, impenetrable to the outsider. Many men are hooded, many women veiled. In its hundreds of mosques, barred to non-Muslims, worship proceeds beyond public view. Talismans protect from the unseen world of djinns.

An "enchanted labyrinth sheltered from time," was the reverent assessment of the writer Paul Bowles, who lived in Tangier.

Fez speaks in symbols. Few places on Earth seem so imbued with buried meanings: in the patterns of hand-knotted carpets; in the tattooed faces of Berber peasant women; in the cosmic swirls of carved plaster in its architecture; in the voices of traditional Sufi and Gnawa singers; in the techniques of expert craftsmen; in the ingredients of its cuisine.

Like a giant ancient text, Fez requires exegesis. To the casual observer, it might appear a frustrating jumble of bodies, animals, indecipherable voices, strange designs.

To the person who has learned its codes and its lore, the crowded confusion begins to make sense. Patterns form. Colors radiate with significance. Geometric shapes convey ideas. Every number contains a charm. Every flavor enfolds a bit of history.

PEOPLE find Fez very confusing," said Ali Alami, a curly-haired, black-robed guide, as he shepherded me through the ever-forking paths of the medina - the old city - one radiant blue day in February. (Fez also has a modern city, built by French colonials in the early 20th century, though it barely warrants a glance.)

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SETH SHERWOOD, based in Paris, is a frequent contributor to the Travel section.