The Angel fish

 Qarah prison: the largest prison in the world

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Many legends and stories revolve around it that reflect the brutality of the place. It was built by Sultan Mawla Ismail, and it is the only prison in the world without doors and is considered the largest in the world.

The area of ​​the Qarah prison is estimated at tens of kilometers, but there are those who go further and claim that it reaches the city of Rabat. Its real area is not known yet due to the bifurcation and branching of its corridors under the land of Meknes.

Its construction dates back to the late seventeenth (17) and early eighteenth century (18), and it is located in the Ismaili Kasbah (Palace of Government) and at its entrance there is the Dome of the Ambassadors, in which he used to receive ambassadors of countries in order to negotiate the release of their prisoners .

The name of Qarah prison is taken from the name of the first Portuguese prisoner, and it is said that over the course of its history, more than 2 million prisoners were thrown into it.

The Maze: Qarah Prison is a complex, real underground labyrinth consisting of several corridors branching out into many endless corridors, basements and halls.

And some foreigners have tried to explore its caves, but they did not leave it, which prompted the Kingdom of Morocco to close its paths and block it and leave a small part of it for tourists, because penetration into it leads to the inability to get out.

And one of the strangest things is that this prison has no doors despite its enormity and vastness, as it contains holes in the ceiling through which prisoners are thrown and food is thrown to them, and Qarah prison is one of the most visited historical monuments in Meknes.

In two books, the French prisoner German Moet chronicles the years of his capture in Qarah prison, which tells that he left France on September 16, 1670 AD on board a merchant ship, so the entire Salé pirates sold him in the slave market, to become later a prisoner and a prisoner working on construction sites in the cities of Fez And Meknes for more than 10 years, so that he was an inmate of the famous Qara prison in Meknes, and after his return to France, he will document the years of families he lived in Morocco in two books, which were translated and investigated by Dr. Muhammad Hajji and Dr. Muhammad Al-Akhdar, Alawite Studies and Research Center Rissani, Ministry of Culture of the Kingdom The Moroccan p. 29.