House of Bennani: the library of the habous of couscous

At the western edge of Tunis' medina, beneath a loud mural of football graffiti, I arrived at an almost invisible arched door set in a pale pink stone doorway carved with flowers. As I pressed the doorbell, I heard shuffling inside and the loud turning of an old lock. The door swung open, and Mohammed Bennani beckoned me inside.

Beit y Bennani (The House of Bennani) is Bennani's ancestral home, but is also home to a private library housing books, documents, photographs, periodicals and letters related not only to the history of Tunisia but its laws, religion, food, fashion, society and the occasional delicious morsel of gossip and scandal. Most of the archives come from the grand families of Tunisia, many of whom donated family photographs and old magazines.

Bennani ushered me into the house's inner courtyard, where hand-painted tiles lined crumbling turquoise window frames and a rampant red bougainvillea arced over a door that led to his laboratory. There, he and students from the Zitouna University in Tunis carefully restore and conserve fragile or damaged books and documents. It was high summer, and the walls of the courtyard carved out a square of cobalt Tunisian sky for us to sit under as we sipped coffee and talked.

"It is not a wholly traditional Tunisian house; it is a mixed house," said Bennani. Some of its style is Tunisian, some of it Turkish, but all the architectural elements and decoration come together in what he calls "a happy accident", creating an oasis of calm from the hustle and bustle of downtown Tunis.

"My father died in the 1980s, and because he grew up in a patriarchal society, before he died he told my mother that the house should be left to his sons," he said.

At that time, though, he and his brother were pursuing their careers abroad: Bennani as an economics journalist for the state news agency and Tunisian Africa Press bureau in Belgium; and his brother dentistry in France. Thus it was their mother who watched over the family home until her death in 1995. By then, Bennani and his brother had returned to the house, living in the upper apartments. As Tunisian inheritance obeys the Islamic Sharia, their sisters' shares of the inheritance should have been half of their brothers'. However, they divided the property up equally and bought out their sisters' shares to establish the library and archive on the ground floor.

The tradition comes from an Islamic hadith

However, with the house came an additional inheritance: the legacy of the "habous of couscous", a philanthropic tradition of providing a meal of couscous, Tunisia's most iconic dish, to people in need from the local mosque.

Couscous is as old as the Amazigh, the original people of the Maghreb, an area that encompasses much of northern Africa. Traditionally, women would hand roll ground semolina to make the granular pasta in summer before drying and storing it to feed their families year round. The cooked dish was (and still is) made by steaming the couscous in a couscousiere (a double-chambered pot) over a spicy stew of meat or fish and vegetables. The sauce created from cooking would be mixed into the cooked couscous, and the meat and vegetables laid decoratively on top and garnished with fried long green peppers. Traditionally, diners would all eat from the same big platter, making it an ideal dish to offer to those who come hungry.

Habous is the North African name for the Muslim tradition of waqf – an endowment made to a charitable cause. It originates from an Islamic hadith, where Omar ibn al-Khattâb, a companion of the Prophet Mohammed asked what he could do with his land that would be pleasing to Allah. The prophet advised distributing profits among the poor, and thus the tradition was born.

"We have three shop spaces inside the medina, which we rent out to merchants; the rent money pays for a large platter of couscous for poor people to eat after Ju'muah (Friday prayers)," Bennani said. Originally, when Bennani's family started the tradition, the housekeeper would cook a huge pot of couscous with lamb, which is traditional and something the poor could not afford to buy for themselves, though now, Bennani serves vegetarian couscous. He explained that his couscous always includes wedges of pumpkin, cabbage, whole onions, carrots, potato and one or two seasonal vegetables such as cardoons in winter and courgettes in summer, which is all topped with long green peppers.

At this point, Bennani jumped up from his seat and gestured for me to follow him to the house's back entrance, into a high vaulted hall of pale grey stone lined with tiled benches set into the wall. There, he opened a small door and enacted the arrival of visitors who had just come from prayer at the mosque. "The family would leave this back door open so worshippers could enter quietly, eat the couscous and then leave discreetly," he said.

The Bennaniis have lived in this house since 1813. However, when Tunisia won its independence from France in 1956, the tradition of habbous couscous was abolished by the first president of the Republic, Habib Bourguiba. "But my father and mother did not accept this, and they continued to do the Friday couscous dinners," Bennani said. However, he continued, "After 1970, they stopped the couscous. They gave money because the poor didn't want [to be given] things to eat anymore." According to Bennani, the Bourguiba regime brought in food subsidies to help the poor eat well, but that they still needed money to buy other essentials.

Bennani reinstated the tradition of habous of couscous following his mother's death. At first, he would bring a huge plate of couscous to the nearby mosque, but later offered it to visitors at the house. Now, the couscous dinners are held every Wednesday during the academic terms. "I reintroduced couscous to create a sociable [weekly event] to complement the other activities of Beit el Bennani," he explained. Aside from the workings of the library, Bennani has always had an open-door policy for cultural activities such as outdoor screenings of documentaries, films and photographs, where "young people come and watch sitting on carpets in the courtyard".

All are welcome, he says, and he has received visitors from as far afield as the US and Japan, though most of his couscous diners are cash-strapped students hailing from the poorer regions of Tunisia. "They are the new poor," he explained. "They come from the deprived region of the interior, not from the capital." Bennani's weekly couscous dinners not only fill their bellies, but feed their minds as well. Students make friends and discuss ideas, while Bennani indulges in his greatest love: sharing knowledge from his latest archival discoveries.

Inside the medina's labyrinthine streets, Bennani showed me the shop spaces he rents to provide the money for the habous, on Rue des Libraries (Street of Bookshops), a cobbled street shaded from the harsh summer sun by a roof made of dried palm fronds. The street once lined with booksellers is now filled mostly with jewellers, watchmakers and trinket shops.

We then walked over to Tunis' grand Marche Centrale, where he buys the vegetables for his couscous. He introduced me to his favourite vendors, cracking jokes with anyone who stopped to greet him. At one stall, he showed me the shiny green peppers beloved in Tunisian cuisine. He explained that onion, carrot, pumpkin and potato are staple vegetables in a Tunisian couscous, but others like courgettes and white and purple turnips are used when they are in season.

Across the Maghreb region, from Libya and Tunisia in the east to Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania in the west, bread and couscous are staple foods. These countries have argued over which is the original home of couscous, but in December 2020, "the knowledge, know-how and practices related to the production and consumption of couscous" was inscribed in Unesco's list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, honouring all the countries that share the traditional dish.

Each nation has its own couscous variations – for example, Morocco uses sweet spices like cinnamon, while Tunisia is known for its love of harissa, a spicy red pepper paste – but even Tunisian couscous recipes vary widely from region to region. In the southern city of Zarzis, for instance, green couscous with dill is popular, while on the coast in Sousse, locals love brown couscous with snails. However, the best-known couscous is a marriage of lamb and tomatoes that hails from Sidi Bouzid, which incorporates filfil ahmer shaya (the smoky flavoured dried red peppers from the Cap Bon peninsula that go into the country's famous harissa), a garnish of peppers and cumin from the holy city of Kairouan, and vegetables grown in the west of the country. It's truly a national dish.

It's truly a national dish

Essentially, Bennani's Wednesday feasts offer visitors an important taste of Tunisian culture and identity. And whether through food or the library, he has been playing an important role in preserving Tunisian heritage inside the house and sharing it with the world.

For him, collecting pieces of history has become a noble obsession, either from buying or having libraries and archives donated, such as hand-painted inscriptions of the 99 names of Allah. Recently, he acquired documents relating to the once-dynamic trade and diplomatic relations between Malta, Britain and Tunisia, all handwritten in swirling copperplate script weighted with stamps of the former British empire. He lovingly restores each piece before filing them on the library shelves or securing the most precious documents in a giant safe.

Some collections – such as such as the 8,155 photographs of Tunisian photographer Mustapha Bouchoucha (1900-1969) who documented people and life across the Maghreb and Europe – are digitised and available online. Everything is categorised and indexed in an online catalogue so that students and researchers in Tunisia or beyond can easily gain access – though Bennani seems to know the location of everything in the archive by heart.

His face lit up as he described finding a new library or bundle of documents as "discovering un mille d'or", a golden treasure.

Tunisians always have open arms, always welcoming and hospitable

"When I find a piece of paper on the floor, I restore it, care for it and then one day, a researcher comes and they need that paper for their thesis – that gives me such joy and fulfilment," he said.

Bennani believes that his archive of historical texts and images can educate current and future generations on how the country can take its rightful place in the world, recalling the past when it was one of the great trading nations – one that happens to be known for its culinary riches of olive oil, grains and spices – of the Mediterranean. Whether through Tunisia's history, food or cultural customs such as habous, he invites Tunisians – and visitors who are fascinated by this land of green hills, mountains, sea and desert – to feast upon its past, present and future.

According to Bennani, "Tunisians always have open arms, always welcoming and hospitable."