Alcazarquivir, in Arabic Ksar el-Kebir, means large palace or large castle.
With more than 126,000 inhabitants, it is the largest city in the Moroccan province of Larache, in the southwest of what was the Spanish protectorate.
Today it heads a region, on the Gharb plain, near the Atlantic, where there is no shortage of water.
The Lucus River and its tributaries also supply a large swamp: the Oued Al Makazhine.
And that means agricultural wealth.
And finally red fruits, in the hope that the Beatles song
Strawberry Fields Forever
will be fulfilled .
In that area they have already taken another step towards tropical crops.
Mangos and avocados are abundant merchandise in the Alcazareño souks.
Apart from the remains of the Roman wall, the town is spread out in neighborhoods where the modern appearance is dominant.
The Ghailan citadel, the family that ruled in the 17th century, preserves few antiquities, although there is no shortage of evocative walks.
The Genagua (Gnawa) troops, former slaves of sub-Saharan origin, were housed in the so-called Callejón de los Negros.
Today they nourish brotherhoods that, sometimes, perform trance music.
In the Bad el Oued neighborhood stands the restored Great Mosque, from Almohad times.
Zauias
or Koranic schools
abound .
There are no longer synagogues in the old Jewish quarter and the church of the Sacred Heart in the Xerea neighborhood, the most Spanish when the protectorate, houses a social center.
The Puerta de Regulares, in neo-Nasrid style, is almost the greatest urban icon.
It is the door that once gave access not only to a barracks, but to a small city whose epicenter was in the Hall of Flags, still visible with its blue columns and whitewashed capitals.
More information
Essaouira, the medina of the winds on the coast of Morocco
However, the name of this city is associated with August 4, 1578, when the Battle of Alcazarquivir, also known as the Battle of the Three Kings, was fought.
Because here, or nearby, three kings fought and died, two sultans and a Portuguese monarch, Sebastian I. The death of the latter gave rise to powerful legends and myths, giving rise to Sebastianism or the hope that the defeated young king would return among the alive.
To reconquer everything that Portugal had and even more.
The historic battle has a third name, that of the El-Makhazen (or Rot) River.
Leaving the city to the south is that famous riverbed that also lends its name to one of the largest swamps in Morocco, with its 700 cubic hectometers.
Before crossing the river of yore is the village of Mehacen, in whose cemetery there is a modest tomb where the winner of the battle, Sultan Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik, is believed to be buried.
The truth is that he died before the fight ended and the real winner was his brother, Ahmad Al-Mansur Eddahbi, a sultan who is buried in the Saadian royal tombs of Marrakech.
Regarding the other sultan in the running, the overthrown Ahmad Al-Mutawakil, an ally of the Portuguese king, drowned trying to cross the El-Makhazen river.
Memories written in the water today next to a swamp that since its construction, in 1978, has generated a succession of islands and artificial lakes in the middle of a fresh and green Riffian landscape, where canoeists are sometimes seen.
But about twenty kilometers from Alcazarquivir, towards the city of Larache, to the north, the great countryside of Suaken opens up, a town where what you hear most is how the wind combs the sugar cane fields, or how the trees bleat. sheep.
In the center of this town of about 12,000 inhabitants they have placed a small monument with two marble tombstones written, one in Arabic and the other in French.
Its letters, somewhat worn by the elements, say: “The epic of Oued Al-Makhazine, which is known as the Battle of the Three Kings, took place in this place on August 4, 1578.”
A few steps away there is an enclosure without doors, with white walls full of graffiti, and a tomb without inscriptions.
Which would also be that of Abd el-Malik.
A City Hall employee tells us that a foundation, perhaps Saudi, wants to restore these local monuments.
Portrait of Sebastian of Portugal (Lisbon, 1554 - Alcazarquivir, 1578), by Cristovao de Morales.G.
DAGLI ORTI (DeAgostini/Getty Images)
Well that's not all in Suaken.
In front of the school, a white cenotaph stands barely a meter above the sparse grass, without inscriptions, which is believed to be the place where the Portuguese king was buried.
Who would have thought, that there would have been, even if it was only for a short time, the first and last king of the Avis dynasty, the nephew of Philip II, the one who mounted an entire crusade with tens of thousands of infantry and horsemen.
Don Sebastián, at 24 years old, wanted to conquer not only Morocco, but Africa, and from there the rest of the world.
But everything ended as in the best Arthurian legends.
The body could have been taken to Ceuta, then in Portuguese hands, and then to the Jerónimos de Belém, in Lisbon.
At the same time the idea spread that King Sebastian had not died.
And that he would reappear to give Portugal justice, greater shine and renewed pride.
Even Fernando Pessoa addresses it in his first collection of poems
Menssagem
(1934): “Crazy, yes, crazy for wanting greatness / that Luck does not give.”
The fact is that Sebastianism, with its contradiction in tow, caught the imagination of many Portuguese.
Meanwhile, in the Jewish quarters of Alcazarquivir, Tetouan, Tangier and other places where the Hebrews settled after being expelled from Portugal, they celebrated the death of the Portuguese king with the Purim Sebastiano festival, in the month of Elul.
Coins were given to children and prickly pears were eaten.
Because another legend said that King Sebastian fell dead next to a prickly pear, the one that must have been in Suaken, the thorny bud of the Battle of Alcazarquivir.
Luis Pancorbo
is the author of Caviar
, gods and oil.
A return to the Caspian Sea…
(Renacimiento publishing house).
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