Three monumental gates of the Almohad empire still stand in Rabat — Bab Rouah, the partly ruined Bab Zaer, and this one. Bab Oudaia is the ceremonial entrance to the Kasbah of the Udayas, raised around 1195 under the sultan Yacoub al-Mansour at the same moment his masons were starting Hassan Tower on the plateau opposite, and the gates of Marrakech on the other side of the country.

The facade is a single horseshoe arch cut into a squared block of pink Maamora sandstone, framed by two concentric bands of carved palmettes and floral scrollwork, and crowned by a strip of cursive Kufic Qur'anic inscription. The composition is unmistakably Almohad — disciplined, geometric, with surface decoration but no excess. Walk through and the interior immediately doglegs left, then right, before opening onto the residential lanes of the kasbah. The bent entrance is a defensive design borrowed from earlier Maghrebi military architecture, intended to slow attackers from charging straight through.

The gate is free to walk through, and most visitors do so without realising they have just stepped under one of the best-preserved Almohad gates in Morocco. The interior upper chamber above the arch is occasionally opened for temporary art exhibitions, but the standard experience is the passage itself — look up before you step in, and again as you come out. Mid-morning gives direct east-facing light on the sandstone; evenings turn it into a meeting point for locals, with Café Maure on the cliff one street inside.