Bou Hamara

Bou Hamara ( Arabic بوحمارة 'Father, owner of the donkey'; born around 1860 in Ouled Youssef ; died September 2, 1909 in Fez ) was a Moroccan warlord who claimed to be caliph .

Life

Bou Hamara grew up as Jilani (read: Dschīlānī) Zerhouni, also Jilali Ben driss Zerhouni el Youssefi, with the Berber tribe of the Zerhouni on Jbel Zerhoun . He studied in Fez, Tlemcen , Algiers and Paris , surveying engineering . For some time he was secretary of Mulai Omar, the caliph of Fez and brother of Mulai al-Hassan I , where he had access to the seraglio and was powerful. Due to intrigues at court, he was accused of forgery, lost his post as a clerk and was imprisoned. When he was released, he went to Algeria .

Mulai Mohamed

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In 1901 he came back to northeast Morocco from Algeria as a traveling preacher riding a donkey and claimed to be Mulai Mohamed , the firstborn son of Sultan Mulai al-Hassan I and thus the older half-brother of the then ruling Abd al-Aziz , which was a claim to the throne implied. The propaganda of the Sultan gave him the name Bou Hamara . As the firstborn son of the caliph, he made a claim to the caliphate , presented himself as a defender of Islam and made anti-French agitation. Bou Hamara settled in Selouane in the province of Nador in 1902 . He succeeded in winning up to a fifth of the Sultanate of Morocco to his side. His following was in the northeast, mainly in Taza and Oujda . In November 1902, Abd al-Aziz left Fez for Rabat , the start of this Harka had been delayed because of a beginning uprising by the supporters of Bou Hamara. But the situation seemed to have calmed down and an army of the sultan was sent to Taza to quell the uprising. Abd al-Aziz had appointed his brother Mulai el-Kebir as commander-in-chief. To Walter Burton Harris ' objection that this was a child, the Sultan replied: "That's true, but my other brothers had already been commissioned with expeditions and now it's Mulai el-Kebir's turn, he hasn't had the opportunity to get any money to earn". On December 22, 1902, an army of the Francophile sultan, led by Abdel Aziz's uncle, Mulai Abdelsalam el-Amarani, suffered a defeat. Abdelsalam el-Amarani was able to find a bag of money and the pills from Dr. Flee Verdon. Bou Hamara now controlled the north and east of Morocco: Ghiatis, Nekor , Aït Ouriaghel , Taza, Aknoul, Selouane. He ruled ruthlessly and persecuted Jews, some of whom fled his territory. He let opponents soak in gasoline and set them on fire in the evening.

Taking Taza

Taza was taken by troops under El Menebhi on January 29, 1903 for the Francophone Abd al-Aziz. Many Bou Hamara supporters have had their heads cut off. This was also erroneously announced by Bou Hamara, but he had escaped the slaughter in Taza. In 1903, as a prisoner of Ahmed ben Mohammed el-Raisuli , Walter Burton Harris found the Dahir (sultan's decree) in a kitchen cupboard belonging to Raissuli, with which Bou Hamara el Raisuli appointed governor of the hill tribes of north-west Morocco.

Caliph of the Compañía Española de Minas del Rif

As Mulai Mohamed, Bou Hamara sold the ore mining rights to the Beni-bu-Ifrur massif to the Compañía Española de Minas del Rif . He was "kidnapped" on August 8, 1908 by the most powerful Berber tribe near Melilla , the Banu Waryaghal (Aith Waryaghar in the Berber language), from the mining camp of the Compañía Española de Minas del Rif .

castling

This "kidnapping" was on the one hand the prelude to the Guerra de Melilla , on the other hand it contributed to the change of power in Fez. In 1908, Abd al-Aziz left Fès and moved very slowly towards Marrakech on a Harka . His half-brother Mulai Abd al-Hafiz , in turn, made a harka from Marrakech to Fez. It was possible to prevent a meeting of the armies of the competing caliphs. Shortly before Marrakech, the Harka of Abd al-Aziz plundered their own camp and looked for outstanding pay. Abd al-Aziz fled to the coast and surrendered to Mulai Abd al-Hafiz. Like Bou Hamara, Abd al-Aziz had prescribed the caliphate to unbelieving believers . Mulai Abd al-Hafiz tried to discredit Bou Hamara by having another Moulay Mohammed perform in a mosque, but this was answered with disapproval. The ulama of Marrakech criticized the dependence on the Europeans. As it was feared that Bou Hamara would expand his sphere of influence to Fez, attacked Mulai Abd al-Hafiz and his army, supported by French artillery including military advisers, in which a marabout was hit and Bou Hamara was captured. 400 of his followers were put in chains and driven on the way to Fez, 160 of them arrived. In Fez, 32 had one hand and the opposite foot amputated in public, and the remaining 128 were imprisoned.

destruction

In Fez, Bou Hamara was shown on a camel for two weeks in a lion cage in which he could not stand up. Afterwards he could no longer stand up and was placed in the feeding trough of the lions of the Sherif . When Bou Hamara began to recite the Shahada , he was shot in the head with a pistol . To avoid marabout worship, his body was burned in the curtains of the sultan's harem . The French consul in Tangier, Monsieur de Nyon, reported in a letter to François Guizot in the Ministère des Affaires étrangères de France (MAEF) on February 6, 1842, that the heads of rebels were salted as trophies and attached to various city gates.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Review of Morocco that was , in the New York Times, February 12, 1922 The Opera Bouffe Kingdom of Barbary
2. ^ Walter Burton Harris, Morocco That Was , William Blackwood 1921, Paperback: Redwood Burn Ltd. Trowbridge, Wiltshire, 1983 pp. 67 f.
3. ↑ Harris p. 89f.
4. ↑ Le Glay, Maurice. La Mort du Rogui , Berger-Levrault, Paris, 1926
5. ↑ David Littmann Jews under Muslim Rule- II: Morocco 1903-1912 (PDF; 1.8 MB) p. 6 f
6. ^ Harris p. 75
7. ^ CR Pennell Morocco Since 1830: A History C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000 p. 140
8. ^ Harris p. 120
9. ↑ lintegral LA FIN TRAGIQUE D'UN ROGUI
10. ^ CR Pennell Morocco Since 1830: A History C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 2000 p. 48