Lalla Aicha al-Alami للا عائشة العلمي | |||||
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Hakimat Titwan | |||||
Rule | 1515/1519[1] – 1542 | ||||
Predecessor | Sidi Al-Mandri II | ||||
Born | c.1485 - 1495[2] | ||||
Died | 14 July 1561 | ||||
Spouse | Sidi Al-Mandri II (c.1501; died 1519)[3] Sultan Ahmad ibn Muhammad (m.1541; died 1549) | ||||
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Dynasty | Wattasid (by marriage) | ||||
Father | Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami | ||||
Mother | Zohra Fernandez[4] | ||||
Religion | Sunni Islam |
Sayyida al Hurra (Arabic: السيدة الحرة), real name Lalla Aisha bint Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami (Arabic: للا عائشة بنت علي بن رشيد العلمي) (1485 – 14 July 1561),[5] was Hakimat Titwan (Governor of Tétouan) between 1515–1542 and a Moroccan privateer leader during the early 16th century.[6] She became the wife of the Wattasid Sultan Ahmad ibn Muhammad. She is considered to be "one of the most important female figures of the Islamic West in the modern age".[7]
The life of Sayyida al-Hurra can be understood within geopolitical and religious contexts, particularly the struggle between Muslim and Christian empires during her lifetime. The Muslim Ottomans had captured Constantinople in 1453, marking the end of the Roman Empire. Al-Hurra was two years old when the Portuguese started their colonial conquest by capturing some ports at the western coast of Morocco, starting the year 1487. A few years later, Granada fell into the hands of the Catholic Monarchs Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon and forced conversions of Muslims in Spain followed.
Allied with the Ottoman corsair Barbarossa of Algiers,[8] al-Hurra controlled the western Mediterranean Sea while Barbarossa controlled the east.[9] She was also prefect of Tétouan. In 1515, she became the last person in Islamic history to legitimately hold the title of al Hurra (Female monarch) following the death of her husband, who ruled Tétouan. She later married the Berber King of Morocco, Ahmed al-Wattasi, but refused to leave Tétouan to do so. This marriage marks the only time in Moroccan history a king married away from the capital, Fez.[7][10]
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