What is the storytelling tradition (hlaiqia) of Jemaa el-Fna?

Jemaa el-Fna by night is theatre with no stage, and the storytellers are its soul. The tradition is called the halqa — literally the "ring" or "circle" — because the performer plants himself in the open square and an audience gathers around him in a tight human ring. The storyteller, the hlaiqi, holds them for an hour or more with nothing but his voice, his memory and his gestures, reciting epics of sultans and saints, the tales of the Thousand and One Nights, religious legends, bawdy comedy and local history.

This is pure oral heritage. The stories were never written down by these performers; they were learned from a master and carried in the head, embellished and adapted to the crowd in front of them. A good hlaiqi reads the audience like a sailor reads weather — pausing at the cliffhanger to pass the hat, teasing latecomers, switching from terror to laughter in a breath. It is improvisation built on a vast memorised repertoire, and it is genuinely thrilling to witness even when your Arabic is limited.

The storytellers share the square with a whole ecosystem of performers — Gnawa musicians, snake charmers, Berber dancers, herbalists and healers, henna artists and acrobats — that materialises every evening as the food stalls fill the air with smoke. It is this living, nightly assembly of oral and performing arts that led UNESCO in 2001 to proclaim Jemaa el-Fna a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, one of the very first sites ever recognised in that category.

I won't pretend it isn't under threat: television, phones and tourism have thinned the ranks of the old hlaiqia, and many of the master storytellers have died without apprentices. That is exactly why I urge clients to go and stand in the circle, even briefly, and to tip generously when the hat comes round. You are not just watching a show — you are helping keep alive one of the last great traditions of live storytelling on earth.