The Kasbah Boulaouane is located about 75 km southeast of the city of El Jadida. It was built on a rocky cliff overlooking the Doukkala plain, on the left bank of the Oued Oum Rbia.
The history of the Kasbah Boulaouane remains unknown before the seventeenth century. Some scattered data indicate its possible foundation by the Almohads but nothing allows us to know if it is the current building or another kasbah built on the ruins of the old one.
Legend and history blend to tell the story of this Boulaouane Kasbah. Thus, it is said that when Sultan Moulay Ismaïl crossed the region, the inhabitants, unable to give him precious goods, gave him as a gift a young girl of great beauty named Halima, with whom he fell madly in love.
However, the ruins of this architectural jewel are still of great beauty. The minaret overlooking the wadi Oum Errabii and the partly preserved crenelated ramparts testify to the beauty of this place and the setting sun still magnifies its splendor.
It would take a lot of imagination to revive this place full of history, including only the monumental portal that marks the entrance, and a little further on what remains of the sultan's house, a square courtyard covered with mosaics, 4 vast rooms on each side of which we can still see the frescoes with magnificent calligraphic ornaments, and probably the remains of a hammam, and the traces of Halima's apartments. The walls, finely plastered, have been altered by time. Pieces of white marble and strips of tiles that resisted vandalism can still be seen in the courtyard. A menzeh (stair tower) supported by blackened wooden frames overlooks the Boulaouane Kasbah. And of course, all that remains of the mosque is the minaret that dominates the meandering wadi, offering a magnificent view of the valley that seems very small below, the orange grove, and the entire region. The remains are worth the detour because they tell a glorious period of our history, especially since on the road leading to it, we can see the famous tazootas that we can find nowhere else than in the Doukkalas. This Kasbah Boulaouane, which is a real fortress, is one of the 76 fortresses built by this sovereign to pacify and secure the country. It would be the best preserved. It is not difficult to imagine the state of the others. It should also be mentioned that the writer and aviator Antoine de Saint Exupery would have followed the road leading to this fortress in 1927, where he lingered and met the kaid Ahmed Tounsi, chief of the Aounates tribe.
From the top of a tower of the kasbah, he told her that he was giving her and her family all the land in the region. When she died, he did not return. So, was this imposing kasbah a gift to his beloved or a symbol of power in the region?
The present Boulaouane Kasbah was built during the reign of Sultan Moulay Ismail in 1710 by his pasha Abu Othman Said Ben al-Khayat, halfway between the two great centers of Fez and Marrakech. It is an integral part of all the fortresses that lined the sultanian tracks and roads of the time and was for a long time the relay of the Alaouite rulers between Rabat and Marrakech. The Kasbah Boulaouane also played a key role in the control of the provinces of Doukkale, Chaouia, and Rhamna.
The Kasbah Boulaouane has an irregular quadrilateral plan. Its wall is reinforced on the south side by five towers, the middle of which is pierced by a monumental doorway of dressed stone, arranged in a chicane. Corner towers are erected on the north side. The western rampart has a semicircular tower, and the side rampart has a rectangular tower. The lower buildings lean against the latter and house a postern that leads through a bent corridor to the wadi.
The interior of the Kasbah houses a residential complex "Dar Sultan" including a tower, latrines, a hammam, and sumptuous rooms, as evidenced by the remains of ceramic mosaics, carved stuccoes, and fragments of columns. In addition to this complex, the Kasbah offers stores, stables, a mosque, and a cistern. To the east, a passageway to the river runs along two side walls forming a long corridor leading to a polygonal hall and basins that would have served as drinking troughs.
