Sbouâ du Mawlid de Timimoun (UNESCO heritage)

The festival

For a week, the Ksour of the Gourara begins. The Sbouâ is the annual pilgrimage of the Zenet communities of the Saharan south-west, who visit the mausoleums of the saints to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. Processions, songs and dances rhythmize the journey, until the seventh day when the groups of pilgrims converge towards the square of the Zawiya of Sidi El Hadj Belkacem, in the center of the Gourara, and symbolically join around the bearer of the standard of the saint.

A week before, women presided over the millstone ritual, grinding the first handful of cereals from the couscous of pilgrims. In 2015, UNESCO registered the intangible cultural heritage of humanity, the Sbouâ tells the story and the ties that unite these desert communities.