The town of Safi (Ar. Asfī) on the west coast of Morocco is said to have been settled originally by Canaanites, named by Carthaginians, and settled by Romans, Goths, and Jews from Palestine before the Muslim conquest. It is also said that in 1174 its patron saint, Shaykh Abū Muḥammed Ṣāliḥ, built a ribāṭ (fortress retreat) for members of the Sufi military orders who guarded the borders of the Dār al-Islām and engaged in religious exercises there. Safi attracted Portuguese attention at the beginning of the sixteenth century. A Portuguese fort was built in 1508 after a commercial conc…