KSAR EL-KEBIR

also spelled Al-qasr Al-kabir, Spanish Alcazarquivir, city, northern Morocco. It lies along the Loukkos, or Lucus, River. Originally a Greek and Carthaginian colony, the site was occupied by the Romans, whose ruins remain, and by the Byzantines. The Arab town, which was founded in the 8th century, has one of the oldest mosques of western Morocco, built with inscribed stones from an earlier Christian church. Ksar el-Kebir, which translates as The Great Fortress, was plagued by war (it was the site in 1578 of the Battle of the Three Kings) until it was destroyed during the 19th-century civil wars. It was rebuilt after the Spanish occupation of 1912 and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Morocco in 1956. Ksar el-Kebir is near the crossroads between Fs, Rabat, and Tangier and is the main market for the irrigated Loukkos River valley. Pop. (1982) 73,541.