Sousse or Jzola country
Historians in Islamic times described the site of Souss as a country of Jezula, so they gave the geographical area a human dimension, in the sense that Souss is the home of Jezula. But most of the geographers and historians who wrote about the Souss region converged on defining the region. This is Abdel Wahid Al-Marrakshi, who identifies the country of Souss after talking about Marrakech. He says: “This is Marrakech, the last of the great cities in Morocco that is famous for it, and there is no city behind it that has a mention and a civilization, except for small towns in Souss Al-Aqsa. Among them is a small city called Taroudant, which is the capital of Sousse, and to it its people gather, and also a small city called Zajender, which is on the metal of silver, inhabited by those who extract what is in that metal, and in a lush country, a city that is also their metropolis, called Alkest. And in the country of Lamta, another city is also Lamta, the cities behind Marrakesh, so as for Taroudant and Zanjdar, I entered them and knew them, and I still know travelers from merchants and others, especially to the city of metal known as Zanjar.
The smaller towns mentioned by al-Marrakshi, from Taroudant to Lamta, are known to this day as Souss, because he said, “Little towns of Souss al-Aqsa. Al-Yaqubi in the ninth century AD makes Souss al-Aqsa a city alongside the cities of Tamdoult and Massa, and he defines Souss: “Souss is a city alongside the cities of Tamdoult and Massa: which is useful. These two cities were among the most important Susian cities. I said: As for Tamdoult, it no longer exists today, and as for Massa, it is still expanding. Al-Yaqoubi quickly expanded his vision, saying: “Wasos is what is behind the mountains of Darn, that is, what is behind the High Atlas, and it ends at the loom of Lamta, where the desert region begins.”
This is similar to al-Bakri’s view in the 11th century AD, who defined Suss beyond Darn, to end at the loom of the loom where the desert begins. We find that Ibn Khaldoun identifies the Souss far beyond Marrakesh, and includes Taroudant and * Ifrane * and ends to the qiblah at the mouth of the Draa River, and the Souss River penetrates it to the sea. This identification is common in the Marinid era as a region for tax collection, as the Marinids divided Morocco into five regions to collect taxes. This definition is what prevailed in the Saadi era, as there are two sources that confirm this “first” meaning, describing Africa, where he said: “I will now discuss the Souss district located behind the Atlas to the south opposite the country of Haha. It begins in the west from the ocean, and ends in the south in the sands of the desert, in the north in the Atlas, and in the east at the headwaters of the Souss River, for which this district is named. As for the second source: the tax collection record of Ahmed al-Mansur al-Dhahabi, known as the “Diwan of the Souss tribes,” and it contains the names of the Souss tribes known to this era.
And in Suss, the scholar, to his companion Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Susi, knows Suss: “We mean Suss in all our historical works in this book and others, what is located from the southern slopes of Darn to the borders of the desert from Wadi Nol and its tribes from Takna and Al-Rikaibat and whatnot to the borders of Tata and Suktana, and we wonder whether the word “suss”
and “Jazola” and “Al-Masamdah” mean the same area? We find that Al-Mukhtar Al-Sousi takes this definition and called it “Bilad Jazoula” and called his book “During Jazoula”, so Jazoula came in his book conforming to the borders of “Sous”
. Jazoula: It extends in North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the center of present-day Algeria, confined between the sites occupied by the Romans in the north to the regions of Ethiopia in the south.
As for the Europeans, the Souss region is considered a mysterious land. Only its coastal cities are known about it, and the maps drawn up by Europeans until the beginning of the 19th century contain only lines indicating some roads and paths, and this ambiguity continued until the beginning of the protectorate. What can be deduced from these different definitions is that the name Sous was used at first to denote a wide geographical area that extends from Tlemcen to the Atlantic Ocean, then the area of this area became smaller and smaller, and it was divided into two parts, the lowest and the maximum, then gradually the phrase “minimum and maximum” disappeared, and Sous remained indicative of The area overlooked by those coming from the north when descending from the southern slopes of the High Atlas. Which we can conclude is that the Souss region is shrouded in ambiguity, because the successive countries in power change their strategy, which is always subject to administrative, military and economic divisions from time to time according to circumstances and conditions.
The Souss Plain is bounded to the north by the High Atlas Mountains, and to the south it is bordered by the Small Atlas with its ancient mountains. It overlooks the Atlantic front with an open plain.
The Souss Plain also knows a gradual elevation from the east towards the ocean. The plain also crosses an important water axis that derives its name from the region. It is the Souss Valley, which derives its waters from the southern and northern slopes of the Great and Small Atlas. According to Marmol Karbakhal in his book Africa: “The Souss Valley took its name from A river, which is the largest river in the country of the Berbers in the west, and some of them claim that it is the island that housed the palace of Antioch and the gardens of the Hesperend, and it seems, however, that it is the Oona of Ptolemy, which makes it in the eighth degree in length, and the twenty-eighth and thirty minutes in width, this river emerges from the High Atlas, Between this region and the region of Haha, then it penetrates the plains of Sus heading towards the south until it empties into the ocean near Karston, and irrigate the most fertile and populated country in that region, and the people take from it streams with which to irrigate the fields of sugar cane, and it overflows in the winter so that it does not cross from anywhere. Except that in the summer it can be crossed from every direction.”
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