The photographs were taken in the Hammam Moulay Idriss and in the Abattoir A Khadus, Fez (Morocco), in 1979 and 1980.
This traditional bath, or hammam, near the central mosque sheltering the tomb of the medieval city’s founder, Idriss, is one of about 30 in the old city, or Medina, of Fez. I photographed on the evenings preceding the great Friday prayer, when ritual purification is customary. In the humid heat, the bather’s skin is purged under the friction glove of the masseur? then his joints are opened systematically by stretching called the tjbida. For flesh to be pure, or halal, and fit for consumption, the blood must drain from the living body at the moment of slaughter. Theabattoir at A Khadus provides the city’s daily meat? in one night, 17,000 sheep, 800 horses, 1,200 head of cattle are treated. The work is manual, unaided by automation. The sacrifice is made by cutting in a single stroke the trachea, the esophagus and the principal arteries in the neck, immediately after pronouncing the invocation, in God’s name.