28. A Tough Moroccan Pirate Queen
Lalla Aicha bint Ali ibn Rashid al Alami is better known to history as Sayyida al Hurra (1485 – 1561), which means “free noblewoman” in Arabic. She had been born into a prominent Muslim family in Granada, but when that kingdom fell to the Spanish Reconquista in 1492, her family fled to Morocco. The Moroccan sultan granted Sayyida and her husband, and their Reconquista refugee followers, the ruins of Tetouan, a city destroyed by Spaniards. The couple and their followers rebuilt and restored Tetouan, and after her husband’s death in 1515, Sayyida became its queen – the last queen in Islamic history to rule independently.
In addition to ruling Tetouan, Sayyida was also a pirate queen who terrorized the region’s waters. Islamic records are oddly silent about her, but she was a tough woman and a powerful figure of the era. After years of widowhood, Sayyida wed the sultan of Morocco. However, she was determined to emphasize her independence and demonstrate that she would not cede her power and position. So she refused to leave Tetouan for the wedding. The sultan had to come to her – the only time in Moroccan history that a sultan married outside his capital.