North Africa
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North Africa is the subregion of the African continent bordering the Mediterranean, and the part of it documented here comprises Morocco and Egypt.
The two contribute to the record in almost opposite ways. Morocco is a producing country: its Rif carries the beldiya landrace and the kif and hashish complex built on it, and it supplies this wiki's only North African growing region, growing area and accession. Egypt is not documented as a landrace source at all. Its significance is documentary and legal: it is where the resin-bearing plant is first securely attested, and it produced one of the earliest sustained national prohibitions.[1]
The regional record
Two crops with the same name moved through North Africa at different times and from different directions, and the medieval geographers separate them cleanly.
Hemp grown for fibre and seed was established across the Maghreb before the 10th century and was reported from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Tunis. Ibn Hawqal, travelling between 948 and 951, records cultivation in the Sous and around Carthage. Al-Idrissi, travelling between 1116 and 1137, adds Beni Warîfen in the Tenès region for seed and the Carthage region for textile hemp, and distinguishes the textile plant (qinnab) from the seed crop (šahdânaj).[1]
The resin plant came later and from the east, and Egypt is where it is first pinned down. Ibn Al-Baytar encountered it only in Egypt during his stay there between 1224 and 1227, and states that it did not exist in Andalusia; at that date the preparation was eaten rather than smoked.[1] Three centuries later it had reached the central Maghreb but not yet the far west: Leo Africanus, travelling between 1511 and 1519, describes hashish eating at Tunis and Constantine, and reports neither cultivation nor consumption in the Rif or the Jebala, which he crossed from west to east.[1]
The resin crop settled in its western end last. Bellakhdar places the shift that made the Rif a producing region in the 17th and 18th centuries, when growers found the resin more profitable than fibre and planted cultivars probably brought from eastern Algeria.[1] That is the crop the modern Moroccan industry descends from, and it is treated at Cannabis in Morocco.
Algeria, Tunisia and Libya carry parts of this record and are not yet documented here.
Countries
| Country | Capital | Legal status |
|---|---|---|
| Egypt | Cairo | Illegal |
| Morocco | Rabat | Illegal (recreational) |
Growing regions
| Region | Country | Conservation status |
|---|---|---|
| Rif Mountains | Morocco |
Growing areas
| Growing Area | Region | Country | Conservation status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ketama | Rif Mountains | Morocco |
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Country | Area | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RSC-MAR-HOC-0119900001 | Ketama 'Beldia' 1990 IBL | Morocco | Ketama | Low |
Recent news
| Article | Date | Country | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| News:2026-08-26/Enforcement/royal-gendarmerie-seizes-350-kg-of-kif-from-an-underground-store-at-oulad-hamdane | 26 August 2026 | Morocco | Enforcement |
| News:2026-08-12/Enforcement/judicial-police-seize-4-89-tonnes-of-cannabis-resin-from-an-abandoned-van-near-safi | 12 August 2026 | Morocco | Enforcement |