Question 1

Is Riad Al-Uns a hotel?

Accepted Answer

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.”

Question 2

Does the house already exist?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 3

Who carries the project today?

Accepted Answer

The concept is Pietro Siffi’s. Until the house opens, the file is followed by the association Il Fondaco Siciliano &mdash; Associazione per le arti e i mestieri, in Catania. The direction of the house, once it is open, is another charge.

Question 4

What does “Al-Uns” mean?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 5

What is Dar al-Hiraf?

Accepted Answer

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, but forms character, according to the ideal of futuwwa .

Question 6

Why a house reserved for men?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 7

Is this a closed brotherhood?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 8

Who are you looking for?

Accepted Answer

Young men who have come to a considered decision: to learn a craft mastered 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.

Question 9

What are the age conditions?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 10

Must one be unmarried?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 11

Must one already know a craft?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 12

How does admission proceed?

Accepted Answer

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, but a process of mutual acquaintance, meant to verify on both sides the real disposition to common life.

Question 13

Can an application be refused?

Accepted Answer

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 who can stand on their own, not the filling of places.

Question 14

Can one enter without means?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Young men who are poor or in precarious circumstances are received on no condition other than their fitness for futuwwa and furūsiyya. A man is not judged on what he can buy, but on what he is — in act and in capacity. They may stay for a time, or for the long term, according to their ability to take their place and their will to learn a craft.

Question 15

Who watches over him?

Accepted Answer

No one, and that is deliberate. The house does not work by surveillance, since its spaces are common and visible, no meeting between a man who exercises a responsibility and the man in his charge is held one to one in an isolated place, and everyone there answers for someone and before someone. What protects a young man here is the arrangement of the rooms and the brotherhood of those who occupy them. A father looking for a boarding school that keeps watch will not find it here; a father looking for a place where his son will have nothing to hide, yes.

Question 16

And if he wants to leave?

Accepted Answer

He leaves. Adherence is voluntary, no one is held against his will, and a resident may leave the community freely and at any moment, with no debt and with nothing claimed from him. The house prefers a man who goes after three months to a man who stays without having chosen it.

Question 17

Does he pay, or is he paid?

Accepted Answer

Neither, in the ordinary sense. No one who lives here is paid, and no one who is paid lives here. The resident receives lodging, the table and everything he needs, with nothing withheld from him and nothing counted against him, and a savings account accumulates in his name throughout his years of residence. Families who can afford it contribute to the house; those who cannot are distinguished in nothing, and no sign in the dress, the room or the place at table says who has contributed.

Question 18

Who decides that he is ready?

Accepted Answer

The maalem, and no one else. Progress in the craft depends neither on seniority nor on a third party's request, and no sum and no name advance a man by a single degree. The work presented may be refused, and it is possible not to finish; it is that possible refusal that gives the reception its weight.

Question 19

Does the guest of Al-Munya enter by the same path?

Accepted Answer

No. Al-Munya is the adjoining house: one is received there on introduction or on invitation, never by form and never by buying a place. The guest is neither the visitor of the Riad, nor the trainee, nor the resident. Any passage towards the Riad remains a gesture of those who live there — never a right that the invitation confers.

Question 20

What professional skills are you looking for?

Accepted Answer

One maalem per discipline, committed over time. For the crafts of the hand: saddler ( sarrāj ), coppersmith and blacksmith ( ṣaffār ), joiner and wood carver ( najjār ), bookbinder and calligrapher ( mujallid ) of the khatt maghribī , weaver ( nassāj ), potter and zellige craftsman ( fakhkhār ), master of plaster and mocárabe ( jabbāṣ ); for the laboratories, perfumer and herbalist ( ʿaṭṭār ). For body, word and sound: Andalusian music ( al-âla ), Egyptian taḥṭīb, shaykh al-malḥūn , gnawa maâlem , Musara, archery, horsemanship, traditional fencing, zūrkhāne . These posts are not addressed to residents, but to salaried masters who come to transmit their art without entering the circle of the residency. Each has his own equipped workshop and ṣāniʿ 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.

Question 21

On what criteria is a master chosen?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 22

What staff does the house need?

Accepted Answer

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 • Consulting agronomist — the orange trees and the orchard, a few visits a year • Outside accountancy firm — bookkeeping and tax, with no role whatever inside the house • Head of communications and website • Maintenance staff (2 to 3 posts) — kitchen and heavy cleaning; open by preference to young people in difficulty seeking work • Handyman — plumbing, electricity, small repairs • Master tailor ( khayyāṭ ) — cutting and repair of the dress of the house, with the cloth workshop and at the chambrier’s request • Non-resident nurse or first-aider — basic care and health follow-up • Driver — journeys and deliveries These posts are outside the residency: no one who lives here is paid, no one who is paid lives here. Some of these roles may be combined or may evolve according to the skills of the person recruited.

Question 23

Do certain charges require living in the house?

Accepted Answer

Three of them do — they are not exercised at 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 carries a man through a day in the workshop and through 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.

Question 24

What does a day look like?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 25

Is there a written rule?

Accepted Answer

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 not published online. Detailed terms are given after a serious first exchange, not by public form.

Question 26

May one keep one's phone?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 27

How does one dress?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 28

Alcohol, tobacco, substances?

Accepted Answer

Alcohol is not part of the house, and narcotics have no place in it. Tobacco and shisha, on the other hand, belong to ordinary life: men smoke where they gather — the winter salons, the reading rooms, the patio, the galleries, the gardens — and it is a way of making a conversation last, not a tolerance granted. During Ramadan, no consumption in public before sunset.

Question 29

May one go into town, or see one's family?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 30

Is the commitment permanent?

Accepted Answer

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 mastered, a house, a family — not a permanent state.

Question 31

Who decides, and who answers for what?

Accepted Answer

A named and visible chain of responsibility: the ṣāniʿ and the three tones of his belt, 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.

Question 32

What are the three ways of approaching?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 33

Can a stay be booked as at a guest house?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 34

What is expected of a guest?

Accepted Answer

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. When he is admitted further, he takes part in the common offices — patio, garden, kitchen, workshop — and sits at the table of the ṣāniʿ. The intimacy of the house is not given; it is earned at the same gesture. Far from buying an experience, he is received, for a time, into a house that is already living.

Question 35

May one visit the house without staying?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 36

How long is a workshop, and on which craft?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 37

What are the material conditions?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 38

What remains after the residency?

Accepted Answer

Not the title of an alumnus, and not a network. What remains is a malaka — a craft mastered, a word given, a household to hold, and sometimes a work left in the walls. One does not carry the Riad away. One carries away what the gesture and the rhythm have laid down in oneself.

Question 39

Must one be Muslim to enter the residency?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 40

Where will the house be, and in which languages does one write?

Accepted Answer

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 conducted in Arabic and French; a candidate who does not yet speak them should simply say so in his letter.

Question 41

How can one support the project?

Accepted Answer

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 a ṣāniʿ, a loom.

Question 42

What may a benefactor expect — and not expect?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 43

How do I write to you?

Accepted Answer

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.

Question 44

Is a resident paid for what he does?

Accepted Answer

No, and neither is he an employee. He receives lodging, the table and everything he needs — clothing, tools, care and books come from the house — with nothing withheld from him and nothing counted against him. The necessary being covered, each man has a personal allowance for what is not, and more of it if he asks. Alongside that, a savings account accumulates in his name throughout his years of residence. It is not deferred wages but provision, and is deposited outside and in each man's own name, so that a man leaves here with something in front of him. The rule fits in one sentence: no one who lives here is paid, no one who is paid lives here.

Question 45

Is money needed in order to be received?

Accepted Answer

No. A young man without means is received free of charge, and nothing in the house sets him apart: not the room, not the place at table, not the clothing, which is handed to him complete on arrival as it is to everyone. The house lives on the work of its workshops, on study bursaries, on the support of its patrons — gifts and bequests —, on institutional funds and on the contribution of those families able to give one. To this is added the share paid by the guests of Al-Munya and the members of its circle: it is that price which pays for the free places.

Question 46

Can one take away what one has made?

Accepted Answer

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, for 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.

Question 47

What happens if the work is not received?

Accepted Answer

The master may refuse it. One then begins again, and it is possible not to finish. That possible refusal adds no severity, but 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.

Three doors

Who may enter

Who carries the house

Who reads and cites