Islamic cities were walled after their construction with to protect the new settlement as well as ensure the authorities were safe from anyone seeking to undermine their control of areas near and far. Starting from the fact that cities were necessary transit points to reach other areas, gates were opened in the walls as starting points for other cities. This led to gates being named either with reference to a destination they led to or the ethnic group that controlled the area, whether inside or outside the walls. Fez was subject to the same logic of construction as other cities in the Islamic world, which meant that its various gates provide historical indications of settlement around them, but do their names give true evidence? This question is posed to all researchers in the medieval history of the Islamic West.