June 6, 1666

Alaouite dynasty

Mawlay al-Rashid captures Fez and receives its allegiance

One account says Fez's Jews opened a gate; a Moroccan chronicle says the attackers went over the wall of the Jewish quarter instead.

1 to 6 June 1666

The Moroccan chronicler Muhammad al-Qadiri dates Mawlay al-Rashid's renewed assault on Fez from 1 June 1666, with fighting ordered through Monday, 6 June.

By that account he entered New Fez during the following night, climbing over the wall of the mellah; the local commander Abdallah al-Duraydi fled.

Two sources, two doors

A conflicting near-contemporary account by Germain Mouette — a French captive in Morocco from 1670, whose history appeared in 1683 — says the Jews of the mellah arranged entry and opened a gate. That is the tradition behind the calendar entry's title, and al-Qadiri's chronicle does not corroborate it.

Either way this was a sequence rather than one daytime action: fighting through 6 June, entry during the ensuing night, and al-Rashid inside New Fez the next morning.

The oath

Al-Rashid then moved into Qarawiyyin Fez. The city's other leaders fled or were captured, and its people offered him the bay'a, the oath of allegiance, and proclaimed him. A new qadi was appointed on 9 June.

Modern scholarship treats the conquest of Fez in 1666 as the point after which the Alawi family was recognized as Morocco's ruling dynasty.

It did not put all Morocco under Alawi control: campaigns against the Dila'iyya, Marrakesh, and southern regions followed.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

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Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The event was a sequence rather than a single daytime action: fighting continued through 6 June, entry occurred during the ensuing night, and the chronicle says al-Rashid was in New Fez the next morning.
The Jewish-gate narrative is genuinely disputed. Mouette’s 1683 account supports it, but al-Qadiri’s chronicle says al-Rashid entered over the mellah wall and does not credit Jewish residents with opening a gate.
The dates are modern conversions of Islamic-calendar dates and can vary by a day depending on conversion practice and how an overnight action is assigned.
Sources also differ over the later capture of Marrakesh, variously placing it in 1668 or 1669.