The Lands of Arabia Are My Homeland
Tighsaline is a village in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains, traversed by the main highway linking Rabat, the capital of the fraternal Kingdom of Morocco, with other towns and villages in the Moroccan Atlas region. It is inhabited by Moroccan mountain tribes, most of whom are ethnically of Berber (Amazigh) origin, as some call them. Due to the strategic geographic importance of its location on this vital route, the residents have developed it into a tourist area, especially given its stunning natural scenery. Consequently, Tighsaline serves as a tourist destination that hosts the majority of travelers on the long Moroccan route stretching from the country’s coasts to its highest mountain peaks. To reinforce its tourist status, the locals have established facilities catering to visitors, including hotels, cafes, and numerous traditional restaurants serving famous Moroccan dishes such as couscous and the renowned Moroccan tagine, prepared in Tighsaline with fresh mountain livestock meat and vegetables supplied daily by the abundant farms in the region’s plains and valleys.
By God’s will, I visited the beautiful village of Tighsaline one day, where I found, along with my companions, a group of young girls playing in a dirt courtyard in the heart of the village. We all stopped to watch and observe their game, and I realized they were playing a traditional folk game also played by young girls here in Kuwait. As I know, this game is popular among girls across the Arab Gulf states and neighboring Arab countries. This collective game is known as “al-Hila” or “al-Hajla,” and it is also well-known in Egypt. I wondered how this Eastern game reached the daughters of the young girls in the Atlas Mountains of the fraternal Arab country of Morocco, and how they learned to play this Eastern game that their sisters in Eastern Arab countries play.
I asked one of the elderly residents of Tighsaline about this, and he, may God protect him, answered: “This game, along with other folk games our children have played for a long time, arrived with the Arab tribes that settled in this region. These tribes came to Morocco alongside the founder of the Kingdom of Morocco, Moulay Ismail. These Muslim Arab tribes fully integrated with the Amazigh tribes through intermarriage and alliances, forming a single Muslim society. They brought this game to our region, to Tighsaline. This means that it is not only the game that is shared, but also cultures, customs, traditions, language, and human traits that Arabs share from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf.”
Mohammed Salem Al-Balhan
