Mohammed ben Hadou

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The Moroccan ambassador ben Hadou in London, 1682. The painter of the painting, which is supposed to represent the ambassador during a horse ride in Hyde Park , is unknown

Mohammed ben Hadou , also Mohammad bin Hadou , Mohammad bin Hadu , Muhammad ben Haddu al'Attar or Muhammad ben Haddu Ottur , was a Moroccan ambassador who stayed at the court of the English King Charles II in 1681/1682 . His visit is an attempt to revive the Anglo-Moroccan alliance that existed from the late 16th century to the early 17th century.

Background of the visit

The Moroccan ruler Mulai Ismail , who came to power in 1672 after the accidental death of his half-brother Mulai ar-Raschid , aimed to develop Morocco into a political heavyweight that could negotiate on an equal footing with the influential European countries. In order to force European countries to the negotiating table, he used European prisoners enslaved in Morocco as pledge.

Most of these European slaves came from raids by the barbarian corsairs , who deliberately attacked merchant ships of European trading powers and sold their captives on North African slave markets. Another part of the European prisoners came from European settlements and fortresses on the Moroccan coast, which Mulai Ismail conquered with his troops. The start of intensified diplomatic negotiations between Morocco and England was preceded by the imprisonment of several dozen English garrison members on the Moroccan coast. An English embassy led by Sir James Leslie, which was supposed to negotiate their release, had been unsuccessful in 1680 and was only able to arrange for a Moroccan ambassador to be sent to Great Britain for negotiations. Mulai Ismail selected Mohammed ben Hadou, a Moroccan nobleman who was rumored to be his mother to be one of the enslaved Europeans, as his ambassador.

The visit

Mohammed ben Hadou, Moroccan Ambassador to Great Britain, 1682, unknown painter

Mohammed ben Hadou and his entourage arrived in London on December 29, 1681 and left again on July 23, 1682. As a present, ben Hadou brought two lions and a number of African ostriches to the English king .

His 6 month stay in England was followed with great attention and commented on by the press at the time. Ben Hadou was even occasionally the subject of poems. John Evelyn noted in his diary that ben Hadou was extremely popular in London and called him "the fashion of the season". He described ben Hadou as a very good-looking person with good manners. The riding excursions in London's Hyde Park , which he and his companions undertook and where they dressed in traditional clothing, attracted particular attention .

Ben Hadou initially refused to enter into negotiations and both the English king and his ministers initially refrained from vigorously advancing the fate of the English prisoners. They hoped to win over the ambassador for themselves and hoped that this would lead to greater success in negotiations. Instead, the Moroccans were invited to excursions in the vicinity of London and were guests in Windsor, Newmarket, Oxford and Cambridge, among others. In April 1682 ben Hadou was even accepted into the Royal Society , which was chaired by Christopher Wren at the time .

In the spring of 1682, negotiations finally began between the representatives of the English crown and the Moroccan ambassador. Despite extensive powers of attorney, the result of the negotiations with the English royal court was meager from an English point of view: The English crown was supposed to pay the high sum of 200 Spanish dollars for every Englishman to be bought free, Ben Hadou also made the outcome of the negotiations dependent on the consent of Mulai Ismail. Ben Hadou returned to Morocco in September 1682. Mulai Ismail reacted to his returning embassy with unpredictability that was not atypical of him. On charges of having had sex with prostitutes in London and drank alcohol, he threatened them with severe punishment and was difficult to appease. There was no release of English prisoners who were living in miserable conditions in Morocco.

literature

  • Giles Milton: White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves . Hodder & Sloughton, London 2005, ISBN 0-340-89509-8 .

Single receipts

  1. ^ A b Richard Nash: Wild enlightenment: The borders of human identity in the eighteenth century . Univ. of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA 2003, ISBN 0-8139-2165-1 , pp. 54 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ^ Giles Milton: White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves . Hodder & Sloughton, London 2005, ISBN 0-340-89509-8 , p. 37.
  3. ^ Milton: White Gold. P. 42.
  4. ^ Milton: White Gold. P. 43.
  5. ↑ a b Cynthia Löwenthal: Performing identities on the Restoration stage. P. 215 (books.google.com)
  6. ^ G. Milton: White Gold. 2005, p. 44.
  7. ^ A b Nabil Matar: Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery. P. 38f.
  8. ^ G. Milton: White Gold. 2005, p. 45.
  9. ^ G. Milton: White Gold. 2005, p. 46.
  10. ^ G. Milton: White Gold. 2005, p. 47.
personal data
SURNAME Hadou, Mohammed ben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hadou, Mohammad bin; Hadu, Mohammad bin; Al'Attar, Muhammad ben Haddu; Ottur, Muhammad ben Haddu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Moroccan ambassador
DATE OF BIRTH before 1681
DATE OF DEATH 17th century