Mulai al-Hassan I.

Mulai al-Hassan I.

Mulai al-Hassan I ( Arabic مولاي الحسن الأول, DMG Mūlāy al-Ḥasan al-awwal ; * 1836 ; † June 7, 1894 at Kasba Tadla ) was Sultan of the Alawids in Morocco from 1873 to 1894 .

After Mulai al-Hassan I, the son of the Alawid sultan Sidi Muhammad IV (1859–1873), had taken over the rule, he tried to centralize the administration and to place the tribes under increased state control. Although the army was modernized , the other reforms were only partially implemented because of the resistance of the tribes. The reason for the state's limited ability to act was certainly the restrictive financial policy with which Mulai al-Hassan I tried to prevent Morocco from becoming overindebted . Otherwise, this would have opened the door to foreign influence, which was evident at the time in the European financial control over Egypt and Tunisia .

Al-Hassan managed to fend off the growing desires of European powers in Morocco. In the Madrid Conference in 1880, for example, the country's independence was guaranteed against the granting of most-favored nation treatment to 13 states. Nevertheless, France and Great Britain tried to establish their protectorate over Morocco in the following years, but failed because of the resistance of the other European powers. Mulai al-Hassan died suddenly in 1894 during a police operation against insubordinate Berber tribes in the Tadla region on the western edge of the Middle Atlas . The Sultan's expedition was supported by the Sufi order of the Sherqawa, which is influential in the region and headquartered in Boujad . Although one of his sons, Abd al-Aziz , had previously been appointed as his successor, the announcement of his death on hostile land could have sparked a succession dispute within the court. His death was therefore kept secret for two days, until the expedition returned to home territory. Bou Ahmed , the sultan's chamberlain , had enough time to introduce Abd al-Aziz (r. 1894–1908) into office.

literature

• Stephan Ronart, Nandy Ronart: Lexicon of the Arab World. A historical-political reference work. Artemis Verlag, Zurich et al. 1972, ISBN 3-7608-0138-2 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M. Th. Houtsma: EJ Brill's first encyclopaedia of Islam 1913-1936. P. 603; also: Note about the place of death in the obituary of the Daily Telegraph for his daughter, Princess Lalla Fatima Zohra, from October 22, 2003, (English); however wrongly Marrakech as place of death in: Moroccan Chamber of Commerce in the United States: Article about the family of the Alawiden ( Memento of the original of August 29, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) 
2. ^ Dale F. Eickelman: Moroccan Islam. Tradition and Society in a Pilgrimage Center. (Modern Middle East Series, No. 1) University of Texas Press, Austin / London 1976, p. 240