Several women in Islamic history have excelled in many areas. Some of them were prominent figures in the arts, sciences, literature, etc., while others were great military names, such as Keumalahayati and Sayyida al-Hurra, our character of today’s writings.

Sayyida al-Hurra was born in 1485 to a prominent Andalusian family who fled Granada to North Africa after the Reconquista in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. She was a descendant of Abd as-Salam ibn Mashish al-Alami, a Sufi saint who in turn was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad himself.

Although she is known as Sayyida al-Hurra, which means “The Free Lady”, this is not her birth name, but Lalla Aicha bint Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami.

Aicha would receive a first class education, having knowledges in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as in Islamic theology. An example of the quality of her education as a young lady is the fact that one of her teachers was the great Sufi saint Abdallah al-Ghazwani, of great renown in Morocco.

Sayyida indeed had a high-quality education, but would be remembered not for her contributions to the intellectuality of her time, but for having been the queen of Tetouan (Morocco) and a great lady of the seas.

In 1510 Sayyida was to marry Abu Hassan al-Mandari (also a refugee from Granada), who had been the ruler of Tetouan for 5 years. It turns out that this city at the time had the largest port in Morocco, and was also a strategic location for incursions into Ceuta, as well as an important placement for maritime trade. Due to its importance, and in the 15th century the Portuguese fearing the city’s position decided to attack it, transforming it into rubbles.

According to Leo Africanus1, a 15th-16th century Grenadian diplomat, the city was abandoned for about 80 years until the captain of Granada, al-Mandari decided to restore the place.2 Still according to Leo, the captain would have reconstructed the city ​​walls, a fort was erected and several wars were fought against the Portuguese, attacking Ceuta, Tangier and Aït-Ben-Haddou (Ksar).

Having married a great leader and being a very competent person herself due to the good education she received, Sayyida al-Hurra learned a lot about the administration of the kingdom. Because of this, she was the vice-governor of her husband’s reign, and when he traveled he left the administration of his territories to his wife’s account.

However, the couple would spend little time together, as Hassan al-Mandari would pass away in 1515, and Sayyida taking over Tetouan as its newest queen, something that was very well accepted by the local people who were already used to seeing her governing the territory during her husband’s travels, calling her al-Hurra3, or “the Free One”.

History is full of famous and iconic pirates, and it is not different in Islamic history that has the most famous pirates of all time, such as Jack Ward4 and Barbarossa (Redbeard). But among the list of famous Islamic corsairs is a woman, the Queen Sayyida al-Hurra, legendary lady of the seas.

There is speculation as to why Sayyida al-Hurra would have become a pirate, but it is often claimed that the queen had become a privateer because she never forgot that she had been expelled along with her family from Granada by Spanish Christians.

So that she could have more success in her endeavor to take revenge on the Spaniards who had expelled her and her family from the Iberian Peninsula, Sayyida contacted the legendary Ottoman corsair Hayreddin Barbarossa. It was precisely with her alliance with the pirate that helped build her reputation as a “pirate queen”.

It is worth remembering that Barbarossa’s legacy was not built entirely on his own, but with the help of his older brother named Oruç Reis, the two being the most famous privateers in North Africa. As the two established their bases across the Mediterranean as agents of the Ottoman Empire, they plundered Spanish colonies, battled the Knights Hospitallers and even attacked Pope Julius II’s flagship.

However, Barbarossa’s life was not limited to looting and waging war against his enemies, but he also helped to transport Muslim refugees from Spain to North Africa between 1505 and 1510, which attracted Sayyida al-Hurra’s sympathy and admiration. Thus the alliance between the pirate queen and the Ottoman corsair was born, and together dominating the Mediterranean, attacking ships and cities and capturing some Christians in the process.

Most of the sources about Sayyida al-Hurra are either Portuguese or Spanish, and among them we see the words of Sébastien de Vargas describing her as “a very aggressive and bad-tempered woman about everything”.

According to LEBBADY (2009), Sayyida cannot be considered a pirate, since at that time Morocco did not have a navy, depending on the privateers to defend its territory, whose actions were not limited to the southern coast of Morocco.

Nevertheless, such “piracy” was something common in the 16th century, and it is not by chance that great stories of pirates originate from that time, practiced also by English and other European countries. For instance, England looted the Spanish galleys that returned from the Americas, with the loot being a significant percentage of the incomes of the government of Elizabeth I.

Going further, Lebbady still claims that many of the privateers were from al-Andalus, expelled from their homeland and settling in places like Tetouan (Sayyida’s case) or Salé. Thus, under the command of the pirate queen, the privateers helped bypass the aggressive colonization policy practiced by Portugal and Spain in North Africa, which sometimes enslaved a significant portion of the population. In this sense, the author also affirms that to call Sayyida al-Hurra a pirate is to blame those who were trying to defend themselves from aggressive colonizing powers.

Regardless of whether we call Sayyida al-Hurra a pirate or not, her influence in the Mediterranean was remarkable, and her alliance with the Ottoman corsair Barbarossa was legendary. Thus, we see two legendary figures repelling European invasions in North Africa and also saving their brothers expelled from their places of origin, which was at least extraordinary for any historical era.

NOTES:

[1] Her real name actually was al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi;

[2] Al-Mandari was one of the last defenders of Granada, and by tradition he is considered the founding father of Tetuan;

[3] Title meaning “free/independente woman”;

[4] Jack Ward or Jack Birdy was an english pirate who converted to Islam, also known as Jack Sparrow;

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

VERDE, Tom. Malika VI: Sayyida Al-Hurra. AramcoWorld. 2017; Ibd, Muslim Heritage;

The Way of the Pirates. Sayyida al Hurra – Pirate Queen of Islamic West. [n.d];

PAULA, Frederico Mendes. As-Sayyida Al-Hurra. Histórias de Portugal e Marrocos. 2016;

LLOYD, Ellen. Sayyida Al Hurra – Feared And Respected Pirate Queen Of Morocco Had No-One To Turn At The End. Ancient Pages. 2019;

LEBBADY, Hasna. Feminist Traditions in Andalusi-Moroccan Oral Narratives. Palgrave Macmillan. 2009;

MERNISSI, Fatima. The Forgotten Queens of Islam. University of Minnesota Press. 1997;

FISHER, Humphrey J. Leo Africanus and the Songhay conquest of Hausaland. International Journal of African Historical Studies. 1978.