# Sayyida al Hurra

Lalla Aisha bint Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami (Arabic: للا عائشة بنت علي بن رشيد العلمي), also referred to as Sayyida al-Hurra (السيدة الحرة, transl. The Lady, the Free Woman), was a Moroccan privateer who governed the city of Tétouan from 1515 or 1519 to 1542. As the wife of Moroccan king Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad, who was her second husband, she belonged to the Wattasid dynasty. She is considered to be "one of the most important female figures of the Islamic West in the modern age."
Her exact date of birth is unknown, but various sources estimate her to be born somewhere between 1491-1495. Likewise, there is a lot of discussion surrounding her death; some say she died in 1552, others placed her passing a decade later (1561, 1562)
The era of her life and career was largely marked by a widespread struggle between the Christian world and the Muslim world: the Ottoman Empire had conquered Constantinople in 1453, ending the Eastern Byzantine Empire; the Portuguese Empire had begun conquering ports along the western Moroccan coast around 1487; and the Reconquista had returned the Iberian Peninsula to European Christian rule by 1492, eventually leading to the expulsion or forced conversion of Muslims in Spain.
Al-Hurra split control over the Mediterranean Sea with her ally Hayreddin Barbarossa, an Ottoman corsair who operated in the east while she operated in the west. In 1515, she became the last person in Muslim history to legitimately hold the title "al-Hurra" following the death of her first husband Sidi al-Mandri II, who ruled Tétouan. Her marriage to her second husband marks the only time in Moroccan history that a king married away from the capital city Fez, as al-Hurra refused to leave Tétouan.

## Early life and family

Sayyida al Hurra was born in Chefchaouen around 1491 and 1495 or precisely in 1491, to a prominent Muslim family of Andalusian nobles, who were expelled to Morocco after the fall of Granada, at the end of the Reconquista and settled in Chefchaouen. Her parents were Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami, the founder and emir of Chefchaouen and Lalla Zohra Fernandez from Vejer de la Frontera near Cadiz. A Sharifian, she was a descendant of the Moroccan Sufi saint Abd al-Salam ibn Mashish al-Alami, and through him of Hasan ibn Ali.
Sayyida's childhood was happy and secure, yet clouded by constant reminders of the forced exile from Granada. During her childhood, she was given a first-class education. She was fluent in several languages which included Castilian Spanish and Portuguese. The famous Moroccan scholar Abdallah al-Ghazwani was one of her many teachers. She was married at age 16 to a man 30 years her senior, Sidi al-Mandri II, a grandson or nephew of Ali al-Mandri who was a friend of her father and re-founder and governor of the city of Tétouan, himself an Andalusian Moorish refugee. She was promised to her husband when she was still a child.

## Career
### Governor of Tétouan

An intelligent woman, Al Hurra learned much whilst assisting her husband in his business affairs. She was a de facto vice-governor, with her husband entrusting the reins of power to her each time he made a trip outside the city. When he died in 1515, the population, who had become accustomed to seeing her exercise power, accepted her as a governor of Tétouan, giving her the title of al-Hurra. Spanish and Portuguese sources describe al-Hurra as "their partner in the diplomatic game". Some historians believe that the unusual "degree of acceptance of al Hurra as a ruler" could be attributed to "Andalusian familiarity with female inheriting power from monarch families in Spain such as Isabella I of Castile." Others believe that al-Hurra succeeded as governor because she was "the undisputed leader of pirates of the western Mediterranean".
In 1541, she accepted a marriage proposal from Ahmed al-Wattasi, a Sultan of the Moroccan Wattasid dynasty, who traveled from Fez to Tétouan to marry her. Her marriage with him was the only recorded instance of a Moroccan king marrying outside of his capital. This occurred because al-Hurra was not ready to give up her role as ruler of Tétouan or even to leave the city for the marriage ceremony, forcing al-Wattasi to come to her. It is believed that Sayyida al-Hurra insisted on this to show everybody that she was not going to give up governing Tétouan despite being married to the Sultan.
Sayyida al-Hurra lived a life of adventure and romance. She appointed her brother Moulay Ibrahim as vizier to Ahmed al-Wattasi, Sultan of Fez, and this placed the Rashidis as major players in the effort to unify Morocco against the fast-growing powers of Spain and Portugal.

### Barbary piracy

Sayyida could neither forget nor forgive the humiliation of being forced to flee Granada. In her wish to take revenge on the "Christian enemy", she turned to piracy. She made contact with the legendary Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa of Algiers. Piracy provided a quick income, "booty and ransom for captives", and also helped to keep alive the dream of returning to Andalusia. She was well respected by her Christian enemies as a "queen" who had power over the western Mediterranean Sea, and over the release of Portuguese and Spanish captives. For example, in The Forgotten Queens of Islam Fatima Mernissi mentions Spanish historical documents of 1540, according to which there were negotiations "between the Spaniards and Sayyida al-Hurra" following a successful pirating operation in Gibraltar in which the Muslim pirates took "much booty and many prisoners".

## Later life

After she had ruled for 30 years, her son-in-law Muhammad al-Hassan al-Mandri, who was the governor of Fnideq, overthrew her in October 1542. According to the Yemen Times, "she was stripped of her property and power". Accepting her fate, al-Hurra retired to Chefchaouen. It is said that she died in 1552, near her father's house in Chefchaouen.