Igherm
The Tamazight term for fortified collective village or granary, broadly synonymous with ksar in usage but sometimes specifically denoting communal grain storage structures in the Anti-Atlas.
Igherm is the Tamazight term for a fortified village. Across most of southern Morocco it functions as the direct equivalent of the Arabic ksar, and the two terms are used interchangeably depending on whether the speaker is operating in Tamazight or Arabic.
In the Anti-Atlas region, however, the term carries a more specialised meaning. There, igherm often denotes a fortified collective granary, distinct from the residential village. These granaries — sometimes also called agadir — were built communally to store the harvests of the surrounding settlements, organised around a central courtyard with stacked storage cells (ghorfa) accessible only to their owners. The structure functioned as both a vault and a social institution.
The terminological overlap between igherm, ksar, and agadir reflects the fact that fortified collective architecture in the Maghreb served multiple functions simultaneously: residence, defence, storage, ritual, and the management of communal property. Different regions emphasised different functions, and the vocabulary followed.