Agadir (Berber collective granary and citadel)

Agadir is a Berber name for a fortified enclosure in which chambers are allotted to the families of a tribe for storing grain, and to which the tribe retreats in danger.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.) describes the agadir as an ancient Berber institution, a collective granary and citadel. It survives under different names: gast or kast, and temidelt, in the Djabal Nafusa; ghurfa in southern Tunisia; gelaa or kal'a in the Awras; and in Morocco, in the Rif and the Great, Middle and Anti-Atlas and the Sirwa, where it is called agadir among the Shluh and igherm among the Berbers of the Middle Atlas. The word probably goes back to Phoenician gadir, the Hebrew gader, "wall"; in the Sus it means "strong wall". ¹