Moroccan history dates back to the 12th century BC when the Phoenicians established trading posts along Morocco's coast.  It's history is dotted with conquests by people vying for control.  And even before the Phoenicians - around 50,000 years ago - Neanderthal man was already living there!  Back then, Morocco was densely forested and populated by lions, panthers, giraffes, ostriches, elephants and antelopes, besides prehistoric people.

 

I found it interesting that around AD23, King Juba II who ruled for half a century until his death married Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and he was one of the most prolific writers of his time in Latin, Greek, and Punic.

 

It was in the 7th and 8th centuries that Arabs introduced Islam to Morocco.  There followed a number of different dynasties starting with the Idrissids. During this period, Al Karawiyyin of Fez - the oldest continuously functioning university in the world - was established.  Dating back to 859, the University is no doubt older than Egypt’s Azhar University (970) and its European counterparts: the University of Oxford, which is regarded as the oldest university in the English-speaking world (roughly founded in 1096), and University of Bologna (founded approximately in 1088). The historic university of Fez is actually recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world. We visited Fez and this historic city which I will describe under my Fez entries.