Frequently asked questions
What we are asked most often — about the house, about the rule, about the three ways of approaching its threshold.
The answers below are deliberately brief: wherever it helps, they point to the page that treats the matter in full. What is not set out here — the precise terms of a stay, the complete text of the rule, the sums attached to a patron's commitment — is communicated after a first exchange, not through a form. For everything else: write to us.
The house and its spirit
Is Riad Al-Uns a hotel?
No. It is a traditional dwelling and an intentional community of human scale: young men who live there, pray, work at a craft and share the table. Hospitality exists, but it is rare and subordinate to the rhythm of the house — never the reverse. The motto says it plainly: “The riad is for its own, not its own for the riad.”
Does the house already exist?
Not yet. Riad Al-Uns is a project: a precise vision, a place still to be found, a community that has not begun. These pages describe what the house intends to be, not what it already is. Applications, requests for a workshop and offers of support are received and examined now, with a view to the opening.
What does “Al-Uns” mean?
الأنس — al-uns means, in Arabic, intimacy, cordial familiarity, the companionship that drives out solitude (waḥsha). Joined to riyāḍ, the garden closed to the outside and open to the sky, the name describes what the house intends to be: the garden of intimacy, the place where one learns to be with others without scattering oneself.
What is Dar al-Hiraf?
The “house of crafts”: the formative heart of the Riad. There, beside a master and over time, one learns a craft of the hand — calligraphy, zellige, carved plaster and mocárabe, weaving, wood, essences — as well as the disciplines of the body and of chant. The formation does not aim at technique alone: it forms character, according to the ideal of futuwwa.
Why a house reserved for men?
Because the residency is a complete common life — shared rooms, workshops, hammam, prayer — and because the tradition it comes from conceives it so. The house forms young unmarried men, many of whom will later found a household: the separation is not mistrust, it is the frame that makes this formation possible. Visits from mothers, sisters and relatives take place in a dedicated parlour, reached from the main entrance.
Is this a closed brotherhood?
No. There is no secret oath, no hidden doctrine, no obligation to stay. The rule is written, handed over and signed on admission; the chain of responsibility is public; adherence is voluntary and anyone may leave the house freely. What is asked is explicit from the threshold — which is precisely why the rule is written down.
Who may come, and how
Who are you looking for?
Young men who have come to a considered decision: to learn a craft held over time, a discipline of the body, a word given that binds. Three orientations meet on the same path — the craft, spiritual and moral formation, physical discipline. None excludes the others.
What are the age conditions?
The long residency is reserved for adults (18 and over), in principle up to forty. The formation workshops, by contrast, remain open under conditions to younger candidates: a first encounter with the craft, before the age of commitment.
Must one be unmarried?
Yes, for the residency. The common life is complete — the house cannot at the same time be a conjugal home. The time of formation is a time that prepares, for many, the founding of a family; it does not overlap with it.
Must one already know a craft?
No. Selection bears on the candidate's disposition, not on any prior technical level: the gesture can be learned, the intention is judged from the threshold. Some already know what they wish to learn, others are still searching — both are admissible.
How does admission proceed?
In five stages, gradual and reciprocal: the application, a preliminary exchange, a formation workshop, a period of mutual observation, then entry into residence. It is not an enrolment: it is a process of mutual acquaintance, meant to verify on both sides the real disposition to common life.
Can an application be refused?
Yes. Agreement is never automatic, and the house reserves the right not to give detailed reasons for a refusal — not out of arrogance, but to protect what constitutes it. The priority remains the continuity of the crafts and the formation of men able to hold, not the filling of places.
What professional skills are you looking for?
One maalem per discipline, committed over time. For the crafts of the hand: calligrapher (khaṭṭāṭ) of khatt maghribī, zellige master, master of carved plaster and mocárabe, weaver, joiner and wood carver, perfumer. For body, word and sound: Andalusian music (al-âla), taḥṭīb, shaykh al-malḥūn, gnawa maâlem, Musara, archery, horsemanship, traditional fencing, zūrkhāne.
These posts are not addressed to residents: they are salaried masters who come to transmit their art without entering the circle of the residency. Each has his own equipped workshop and apprentices ready to receive what he has to pass on. When a workshop in the medina closes for want of a successor, the house can give its tools — and its knowledge — a second life.
On what criteria is a master chosen?
Technical competence, uprightness and a verified reputation. The house favours young masters, for whom the charge is a source of autonomy and professional pride, with no rigid age ceiling: competence and uprightness take precedence over seniority alone. The mission goes beyond technical teaching — to transmit a gesture is to transmit a way of being within the craft.
What staff does the house need?
The ordinary tasks — keeping one's room, the washing-up, serving at table, watching over certain common spaces — fall to the residents themselves. The rest calls for a regular salaried presence:
- • Head of the common kitchen
- • Gardener — the garden and the orange trees
- • Administrative coordinator and steward (wakīl) — accounts and purchasing
- • Head of communications and website
- • Maintenance staff (2 to 3 posts) — kitchen, hammam, training room, laundry and ironing; open by preference to young people in difficulty seeking work
- • Handyman — plumbing, electricity, small repairs
- • Master tailor (khayyāṭ) — upkeep and repair of the dress of the house
- • Non-resident nurse or first-aider — basic care and health follow-up
- • Head of the hammam and sports spaces
- • Driver — journeys and deliveries
Some of these roles may be combined or may evolve according to the skills of the person recruited.
Do certain charges require living in the house?
Three of them do — they cannot be held to fixed hours. The resident faqīh gives the lessons of doctrine (Qur'an, fiqh, ʿaqīda) and keeps the timetable of the five prayers; the house seeks him young, trained in Mālikī fiqh and Ashʿarī ʿaqīda, at ease with the Moroccan musical and confraternal tradition. The physical training instructor leads the daily training of the body and lives at the rhythm of the house: useful strength, the kind that holds a day in the workshop and a whole life, never the silhouette. The bawwāb, the keeping of the threshold, is not open to application: that charge falls to a resident, chosen among those most advanced in the disciplines of the body.
Daily life
What does a day look like?
The five canonical prayers give it its frame — from the silent Fajr to the recollected Ishā. Between them: the workshop in the morning, physical formation or chant in the afternoon, meals shared at the common table, study, and the silence of the night after Ishā.
Is there a written rule?
Yes. On admission each resident receives the rule of community life — daily rhythm, mutual respect, life in the room, tutoring, dress, use of devices, substances and health, visits and outings, procedure in case of breach — and signs it before settling in. It is a document for internal use; it is communicated to any serious candidate who asks for it.
May one keep one's phone?
Yes. Residents have free use of their phones, computers and tablets; there is no filtering, no inspection of personal effects, no monitoring of devices. The rule rests on formation and on each man's responsibility, not on surveillance — the only limit is not to disturb the common life or the times of prayer.
How does one dress?
Traditional dress is the rule of daily life for residents: the serwal replaces jeans, the gandoura or djellaba replaces the t-shirt. It is not a costume, but a way of learning measure through the body. Guests are offered traditional dress without obligation, within the bounds of decency.
Alcohol, tobacco, substances?
Alcohol and narcotics are forbidden within the precincts of the Riad. Tobacco and shisha are tolerated in designated outdoor areas, outside the hours of prayer. During Ramadan, no consumption in public during the hours of fasting.
May one go into town, or see one's family?
Yes. Residents go out freely and keep their friendships and family ties; periods of return to the family are provided for at the main feasts and during holidays. Only a systematic withdrawal from the common life gives rise to a conversation with the educators — to verify that the commitment remains a choice lived, not endured.
Is the commitment permanent?
No, and it could not be. Adherence is voluntary, no one is held against his will, and any resident may leave the community freely. The residency is a time of formation that prepares what follows — a craft held, a house, a family — not a permanent state.
Who decides, and who answers for what?
A named and visible chain of responsibility: the apprentice and his four grades, the nāʾib delegate of the guild, the maalem master of the craft, the two muqaddam counsellors, and the Ash-Shaykh who answers for the house. Exchanges of formation, counsel or correction always take place in common and visible spaces, never in isolation.
Stay, workshop, residency
What are the three ways of approaching?
The stay: a limited time within the rhythm of the house, without commitment. The workshop: a few weeks beside a master, in a single craft chosen in advance. The residency: the long commitment — the craft, the body, the faith, the common life.
Can a stay be booked as at a guest house?
No. There is no online booking and no open calendar: each request is examined one by one, by correspondence and conversation, and bears as much on the disposition of the guest as on the places available. Places are deliberately very few — the house receives first those who live and are formed there.
What is expected of a guest?
That he enter into the rhythm rather than turn it into scenery: the common table, respect for the hours of prayer, sobriety of dress, the silence of the night after Ishā. A guest may watch the work of the workshops without disturbing it, and sometimes share a gesture of the craft. He is not buying an experience: he is received, for a time, into a house that is already living.
May one visit the house without staying?
The Riad is not a museum and is not open to visits. Certain evenings — samāʿ, conversation, music — bring together the house and those it receives; one is invited to them, one does not sign up.
How long is a workshop, and on which craft?
A few weeks: enough to touch the craft and the rhythm, not enough to stand in for the long formation. A single craft, chosen in advance with the house — the hand in the material, not observation from the threshold. For some, the workshop opens the way to an application; for others it remains a complete experience in itself.
What are the material conditions?
The house publishes no price list: the terms of a stay, a workshop or a residency are agreed case by case, after a first exchange. They are not the starting point of the relation but its consequence.
Can one take away what one has made?
What leaves the workshops for sale or on commission follows the ordinary rules of the house. But the work of reception — the one each resident leaves at the end of his training — is never taken away: it is built into the building, entered in the register, and neither sold nor moved. One does not leave with it; one leaves having left it behind.
What happens if the work is not received?
The master may refuse it. One then begins again, and it is possible not to finish. That possible refusal is not an added severity: it is what gives the reception its weight, for a trial one is certain to pass is not a trial. The time needed is granted; the house does not award a title for seniority.
Faith, language and support
Must one be Muslim to enter the residency?
The residency presupposes sharing the prayer life of the house: the five canonical prayers order the day, and the lessons of doctrine — Qur'an, fiqh, ʿaqīda — are part of the formation. It is not a frame that can be followed from outside. A stay, by contrast, belongs to hospitality: what is asked of a guest is respect for the rhythm, not adherence.
Where will the house be, and in which languages does one write?
In Morocco, in a traditional dwelling still to be found. Correspondence may be in French, English or Arabic — these pages exist in the first two. The daily life of the house will be held in Arabic and French; a candidate who does not yet speak them should simply say so in his letter.
How can one support the project?
Three commitments, according to each man's measure: the acquisition of the place, its restoration, and the endowment fund — the last being the most decisive, since it guarantees that the house will not depend on next year's generosity. One may also carry a single element: a maalem's year, the setting up of a workshop, the formation of an apprentice, a loom.
What may a benefactor expect — and not expect?
His name may be inscribed at the entrance, following the ancient usage of the madrasas and fountains of the Kingdom — inscribed, not displayed. With means grow the quality of the restoration, the number of crafts taught, the solidity of the endowment. Never growing: the number of residents, the number of guests, the pace. These limits will be written into the deeds that govern the house.
How do I write to you?
Through the form on the Contact page, or directly at info@al-uns.com. State the reason — stay, workshop, application, patronage — and, for an application, your age and the craft or discipline that draws you. Every request is read with attention.
الرِّياضُ لِأَهْلِهِ، لَا أَهْلُهُ لِلرِّياضِ
“The riad is for its own, not its own for the riad.”
A question not answered here?Write to info@al-uns.com