# Sayyida al-Hurra, Moroccan Queen

An episode of [Stuff You Missed in History Class](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/283605519), 17 Aug 2026, 36 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/cfb428ef-eafc-44d0-9d09-ae2701747e6f/987ca9c7-7e7c-451a-98bf-b4a5016146b6/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=fb626e1f-112c-4246-a40d-ae2701747e7d

A lot of European accounts of Sayyida al-Hurra’s life characterize her as a pirate, but that really isn't accurate. She was a a leader of a city-state and a queen of a sultanate. Research: • Ali, Adam. “The Pirate Queen of the Mediterranean: The Story of Al-Sayyida al-Hurra.” Medievalists.net. https://www.medievalists.net/2022/08/pirate-queen-mediterranean-al-sayyida-al-hurra/ • Britannica Editors. "Barbarossa". Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Jan. 2026, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Barbarossa. Accessed 29 July 2026. • El Haimeur, A. (2024). Sayyida Alhurra: A forgotten North African queen and war leader: A forgotten North African queen and war leader. Africana Annual, 1(1), 44-60. https://doi.org/10.17161/africana.v1i1.19207 • Hellman, Rick. “Researcher reclaims 16th century Moroccan woman leader from obscurity.” University of Kansas. 4/17/2024. https://news.ku.edu/news/article/researcher-reclaims-16th-century-moroccan-woman-leader-from-obscurity • Lebbady, “Women in Northern Morocco: Between the Documentary and the Imaginary.” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, No. 32. 2012. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41850741 • Mourtada-Sabbah, Nada and Adrian Gully. “'I Am, by God, Fit for High Positions': On the Political Role of Women in al-Andalus.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies , Nov., 2003, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Nov., 2003). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3593222 • Rafferty, John P.. "From Pirate to Admiral: The Tale of Barbarossa". Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 Jun. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/story/from-pirate-to-admiral-the-tale-of-barbarossa. Accessed 29 July 2026. • Sparkes, Jason Idriss. “Sayyida al‑Hurra: An Early Modern Decolonial Muslim Exemplar.” Religions 16: 1362. 2025. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel16111362 • Verde, Tom. “Malika VI: Sayyida Al-Hurra.” AramcoWorld. 1/4/2017. https://www.aramcoworld.com/articles/2017/malika-vi-sayyida-al-hurra • Williams, Terry. “Pirate Profile: Sayyida al-Hurra.” Queen Anne’s Revenge Project. 5/25/2020. https://www.qaronline.org/blog/2020-05-25/pirate-profile-sayyida-al-hurra See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
[0:04] Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
[0:14] Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. I was looking back over
[0:18] Speaker 1: the year at the episodes that I've researched and written
[0:21] Speaker 1: of this show, and I felt like it was just
[0:25] Speaker 1: a little too heavily concentrated in the seventeenth through twentieth centuries,
[0:30] Speaker 1: maybe eighteenth through twentieth to be more fair, I feel you, Yeah,
[0:35] Speaker 1: So I on purpose went to look for something from
[0:38] Speaker 1: a little longer ago than that, and I landed on
[0:41] Speaker 1: Sayda Alhura, who has been on my short list for
[0:44] Speaker 1: quite a while and who lived in the fifteenth and
[0:47] Speaker 1: sixteenth centuries. We've talked about her very briefly on the
[0:51] Speaker 1: show before that was back in twenty sixteen, and that
[0:54] Speaker 1: very brief conversation was mostly about how we didn't have
[0:58] Speaker 1: a lot of information. There are some new English language
[1:03] Speaker 1: papers that have been published about her since that time,
[1:06] Speaker 1: but there are still a lot of unknowns about her.
[1:10] Speaker 1: A lot of European accounts of Sayda Alhurra's life characterize
[1:15] Speaker 1: her as a pirate, and that is how we described
[1:17] Speaker 1: her in that incredibly brief conversation in twenty sixteen that
[1:21] Speaker 1: was mostly about not knowing anything after getting into this
[1:24] Speaker 1: research more. I don't really think pirate is the best word,
[1:29] Speaker 1: or if any, It just doesn't tell the whole story
[1:31] Speaker 1: very well. Sayda Alhurra is a title, and it has
[1:36] Speaker 1: been translated from Arabic in multiple ways that all have
[1:39] Speaker 1: connotations of being honored, noble, or powerful, as well as independent.
[1:45] Speaker 1: Similar titles have also been used for other powerful Muslim
[1:49] Speaker 1: women in history, including Arwa al Sulaihi, who ruled Yemen
[1:53] Speaker 1: in the twelfth century. Some scholars have concluded that Sayida
[1:57] Speaker 1: Alhura's given name was probably Fatama or Aicha. A couple
[2:02] Speaker 1: of sources say that it might have been Lallah, but
[2:04] Speaker 1: that is also a title with a meaning along the
[2:07] Speaker 1: lines of lady. There is also an argument that, even
[2:11] Speaker 1: though it is typically a title, Alhurra was her given
[2:15] Speaker 1: name because it appears that way on her second marriage contract.
[2:20] Speaker 1: If that is the case, she may have been named
[2:23] Speaker 1: after an earlier woman who had earned that same title.
[2:28] Speaker 1: Sayeda Elhurra's father was Mulay Ali Ibin Rashid, and mulay
[2:33] Speaker 1: is another title. It essentially means prince. He was a sharif,
[2:38] Speaker 1: meaning he traces lineage back to the family of the
[2:40] Speaker 1: prophet Mohammed. His ancestors included King Idris the First, who
[2:45] Speaker 1: founded the first independent Muslim dynasty in what is now Morocco.
[2:50] Speaker 1: At different points in his life, Ali Ibin Rashid lived
[2:54] Speaker 1: in both Morocco in northern Africa, and in Granada on
[2:58] Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula. That included serving Sultan Mohammad the Eleventh
[3:03] Speaker 1: in Granada starting in about fourteen sixty. While he was
[3:07] Speaker 1: in service to the Sultan, he married Sayda Alhurra's mother,
[3:10] Speaker 1: Zora Fernandez. She grew up near Kadiz and she had
[3:14] Speaker 1: converted from Catholicism to Islam. Ali Ibn Rashid founded the
[3:20] Speaker 1: Moroccan city of chef Chowin in fourteen seventy one. Today,
[3:25] Speaker 1: Chef Chawin is known as the Blue City because so
[3:28] Speaker 1: many of the buildings in the Medina are blue, but
[3:31] Speaker 1: those very very distinctive blue walls and roofs are a
[3:35] Speaker 1: more recent development, with a lot of different stories about
[3:38] Speaker 1: how and why the color came to be used. At first,
[3:43] Speaker 1: Chef Chawen was mainly a kasbah or fortress meant to
[3:46] Speaker 1: help defend northern Morocco from the Portuguese after Ferdinand and
[3:50] Speaker 1: Isabella conquered Granada in fourteen ninety two. It also became
[3:54] Speaker 1: a home to an increasing number of Jewish and Muslim
[3:58] Speaker 1: refugees who were fleeing from what is now Spain. We
[4:02] Speaker 1: should back up for a second for some context on
[4:04] Speaker 1: all of that. First, defending northern Morocco from the Portuguese.
[4:09] Speaker 1: So Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, of course face each
[4:12] Speaker 1: other across the Strait of Gibraltar, and this strait is
[4:16] Speaker 1: strategically very important for its connection between the Mediterranean Sea
[4:20] Speaker 1: and the Atlantic Ocean, and for connecting Northern Africa to
[4:24] Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula and then the rest of Europe. Seuta
[4:28] Speaker 1: is on a small isthmus on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco,
[4:32] Speaker 1: and that has been an important military and commercial port
[4:35] Speaker 1: for thousands of years. Portugal gained control of Ceuta in
[4:40] Speaker 1: fourteen fifteen and from there started trying to claim additional
[4:44] Speaker 1: territory in Morocco. Most of the cities that the Portuguese
[4:49] Speaker 1: tried to occupy were on the coast, and Chefhawin is
[4:52] Speaker 1: about sixty kilometers or thirty seven miles inland in the
[4:55] Speaker 1: Riff Mountains. This landscape and the distance from the coast
[4:59] Speaker 1: of offered some additional protection from the Portuguese and as
[5:04] Speaker 1: for Spain conquering Granada. Starting in the eighth century, Muslims
[5:09] Speaker 1: from Tangier and other parts of northern Africa conquered most
[5:13] Speaker 1: of the Iberian Peninsula. The region under Muslim control became
[5:18] Speaker 1: known as Al Andalus. Christians started trying to retake the
[5:22] Speaker 1: peninsula almost immediately, but these efforts were largely unsuccessful until
[5:27] Speaker 1: the eleventh century. The Christian reconquest, known as the Reconquista,
[5:32] Speaker 1: escalated after Pope Innocent the third declared a crusade in
[5:36] Speaker 1: twelve twelve, and by the middle of the thirteenth century,
[5:39] Speaker 1: the Nazrid Kingdom of Granada was the only part of
[5:42] Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula still under Muslim control. Ferdinand the third
[5:47] Speaker 1: of Castile recognized Granada as a vassal state in twelve
[5:51] Speaker 1: thirty eight, but conflict between Muslims and Christians and among
[5:55] Speaker 1: different Muslim factions within Granada continued. Then in four fourteen
[6:00] Speaker 1: ninety two, Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella of Aragon and
[6:04] Speaker 1: Castile conquered Granada and that ended the Reconquista. That same year,
[6:10] Speaker 1: Ferdinand and Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree, which forced all
[6:14] Speaker 1: Jewish people living in their territory to convert to Christianity
[6:19] Speaker 1: or be expelled. We did an episode about all of
[6:22] Speaker 1: that in twenty fourteen. Earlier in the Reconquista, Muslim community's
[6:28] Speaker 1: surrender terms had typically included that they could continue to
[6:31] Speaker 1: practice their religion, but the reality was that Muslims faced
[6:36] Speaker 1: increasing persecution as more and more of the Iberian Peninsula
[6:39] Speaker 1: came under Christian control. Ferdinand and Isabella also moved away
[6:44] Speaker 1: from this at least nominal religious tolerance, and in fifteen
[6:48] Speaker 1: oh two Muslim residents of Castille were ordered to convert
[6:52] Speaker 1: to Christianity or leave. Muslims living in Aragon got the
[6:57] Speaker 1: same order in fifteen twenty six. Say It Elhura was
[7:01] Speaker 1: born in the midst of all of this change and conflict.
[7:05] Speaker 1: Various sources put her birth at some time between fourteen
[7:08] Speaker 1: eighty five and fourteen ninety five, and her brother Ibrahim
[7:11] Speaker 1: was born in fourteen ninety, so all just within a
[7:14] Speaker 1: few years of the fall of Granada. While the date
[7:18] Speaker 1: of her birth is unclear and sources are kind of
[7:21] Speaker 1: contradictory about whether she was born in Morocco or in Granada.
[7:25] Speaker 1: We do know she was raised in Schefshawan, which grew
[7:29] Speaker 1: from a fortress to a multicultural and multi lingual community.
[7:33] Speaker 1: Its leadership was Muslim. It was part of a Muslim sultanate,
[7:37] Speaker 1: but it was also home to Christians and Jews, and Moriscoes,
[7:41] Speaker 1: which is the term for Muslims who had been forced
[7:43] Speaker 1: to convert to Christianity. Arabs, Europeans, Africans, and people from
[7:49] Speaker 1: a number of Amazik tribes also known as Berbers also
[7:52] Speaker 1: lived there. This wasn't completely egalitarian or peaceful. There were
[7:57] Speaker 1: clear privileges associated with being Muslim, and there could be
[8:01] Speaker 1: conflicts among these different religious and cultural groups, but Chef
[8:06] Speaker 1: Chouin grew into a diverse and thriving community even in
[8:10] Speaker 1: the face of this ongoing conflict with Portugal. Said al
[8:14] Speaker 1: Hurra was a Sufi Muslim, and she was educated by
[8:18] Speaker 1: some of Chef Chawin's most respected scholars. She learned multiple languages,
[8:23] Speaker 1: including Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese. In fifteen ten, she married
[8:27] Speaker 1: the governor of Tetuan, Mulay al Mandrie. There's a bit
[8:31] Speaker 1: of debate about which Mulay Almandri this actually was. Some
[8:36] Speaker 1: sources argue that it was Abu Hassan al Mandri, also
[8:40] Speaker 1: known as Ali Almandri, who refounded the city of Tetuan,
[8:44] Speaker 1: while others argue that it was actually Mohammed Almandri, who
[8:48] Speaker 1: was either his grandson or nephew and became governor of
[8:52] Speaker 1: Tetuan later so. Tetuan is a port on the Mediterranean
[8:56] Speaker 1: coast of Morocco, north of Chefchaoan and south of Ceta.
[9:00] Speaker 1: Today it's the UNESCO World Heritage Site. It had been
[9:04] Speaker 1: an important port connecting Morocco to al Andalous starting around
[9:08] Speaker 1: the time of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula.
[9:12] Speaker 1: Tetuan was destroyed by a Castilian force in fourteen hundred
[9:16] Speaker 1: and then by a Portuguese force in fourteen thirty seven.
[9:20] Speaker 1: Tetuan was rebuilt for the third time in fourteen eighty four,
[9:24] Speaker 1: and it functioned as a largely independent city state within
[9:28] Speaker 1: the Watacid Sultanate. Like Chefhawin, Tetuan became home to people
[9:33] Speaker 1: who wanted or were forced to leave the Iberian Peninsula
[9:37] Speaker 1: after the fall of Grenada and the expulsion of Muslims
[9:40] Speaker 1: from Spanish territory. This caused some difficulties, including violence between
[9:45] Speaker 1: the newcomers, who were largely from the Iberian Peninsula, and
[9:49] Speaker 1: the Jabala Confederation who lived in the region. These groups
[9:54] Speaker 1: eventually came to terms, though, especially when it came to
[9:57] Speaker 1: trying to repel Portuguese invasions. Sayda Alhera's marriage was a
[10:02] Speaker 1: political one. It brought together the ruling families of Chefhauen
[10:07] Speaker 1: and Tituin. Both of these were vassal states of the
[10:10] Speaker 1: Wattsid Sultanate, and that was who ruled northern Morocco. This
[10:15] Speaker 1: united two very powerful families and two powerful vassal states.
[10:20] Speaker 1: It combined their forces to both resist European incursions into
[10:24] Speaker 1: Morocco and to try to unite various ethnic groups and
[10:27] Speaker 1: tribes and different factions within Morocco. It's likely that Sayida
[10:32] Speaker 1: al Here's education and upbringing allowed her to assist and
[10:35] Speaker 1: advise her husband in his role as governor, starting from
[10:39] Speaker 1: the very beginning of their marriage. Over time, she became
[10:43] Speaker 1: an informal co ruler, with that authority becoming more formal
[10:48] Speaker 1: when her husband was away on diplomatic or military matters.
[10:52] Speaker 1: Since Tetuan was a port, this probably also allowed her
[10:56] Speaker 1: to learn more about maritime and naval matters. Alhurra's husband
[11:01] Speaker 1: died in around fifteen nineteen. His brother wanted to take
[11:06] Speaker 1: control of Tetuan, but her brother Ibrahim, who had become
[11:10] Speaker 1: vizier to Sultan Ahmad al Waitasi in Fez, named her
[11:15] Speaker 1: as Albandrie's successor. It really was not typical for women
[11:20] Speaker 1: to take on this level of power, but Sayda Alhura
[11:23] Speaker 1: seems to have earned the people's trust they accepted her
[11:26] Speaker 1: in that position. The overall prominence of her family may
[11:30] Speaker 1: have played a role in this as well, and it
[11:32] Speaker 1: is likely that this is when she earned the title
[11:36] Speaker 1: of Saida Alhurra, if it indeed is a title in
[11:39] Speaker 1: her case. We will talk more about her story after
[11:42] Speaker 1: we paused for a sponsor break. When Sayda Alhurra became
[11:55] Speaker 1: governor of Tetuan, in addition to the ongoing conflicts with
[11:59] Speaker 1: Portugal and Spain, Morocco was facing an economic decline. Earlier,
[12:05] Speaker 1: we mentioned Portugal capturing port cities along the Mediterranean coast.
[12:10] Speaker 1: That was largely the work of Portuguese Prince Henrique d'avis,
[12:14] Speaker 1: who is known in English as Henry the Navigator. That
[12:18] Speaker 1: moniker comes from his funding of exploratory voyages down the
[12:22] Speaker 1: Atlantic coast of Africa, which he mostly did not personally
[12:26] Speaker 1: participate in. He just paid for these voyages, traded for
[12:30] Speaker 1: goods and precious metals, and enslaved people along the African coast,
[12:35] Speaker 1: as well as capturing territory and establishing forts and ports.
[12:40] Speaker 1: European sea voyages down the African coast continued after Henry
[12:44] Speaker 1: the Navigator's death in fourteen sixty, including through the voyages
[12:49] Speaker 1: of Vasco da Gama of Portugal, who rounded the Cape
[12:52] Speaker 1: of Good Hope in fourteen ninety seven. Vasco de Gama
[12:56] Speaker 1: was not the first European to sail around the southern
[12:58] Speaker 1: tip of Africa, but he was the first to successfully
[13:02] Speaker 1: go from there to the Indian subcontinent. Ultimately, his voyages
[13:07] Speaker 1: helped establish a maritime trade route between Western Europe and
[13:11] Speaker 1: South Asia. A sea route to India reduced the need
[13:15] Speaker 1: for goods to be moved across Africa and through Morocco
[13:19] Speaker 1: when being transported to and from Western Europe. So as
[13:24] Speaker 1: more goods traveled by sea, the Moroccan economy started to
[13:27] Speaker 1: decline and its merchant class started to shrink. That was
[13:31] Speaker 1: in addition to the ongoing conflicts with European powers over
[13:35] Speaker 1: territory and growing divisions within Morocco about whether to continue
[13:41] Speaker 1: fighting them. For example, after the death of Sayda al
[13:45] Speaker 1: Hurra's father, her brother Ibrahim took his place in Schifshawan
[13:49] Speaker 1: and took a more conciliatory approach with the Portuguese. This
[13:54] Speaker 1: included signing an armistice with the governor of Ceuta in
[13:57] Speaker 1: fifteen thirty eight. In the face of all of this,
[14:01] Speaker 1: said Alha needed to find a way to protect Tetuan
[14:05] Speaker 1: and help it prosper. According to some accounts, she teamed
[14:09] Speaker 1: up with two Ottoman privateers, Orushe and Haisi Reis. Reis
[14:15] Speaker 1: is another title used in the Ottoman Empire for naval officers.
[14:20] Speaker 1: Orushe and Hiser were both known by a number of
[14:22] Speaker 1: names and titles, and are sometimes conflated into one. Pirate Barbarosa,
[14:28] Speaker 1: also known as red Beard. Barbarosa actually means red beard
[14:32] Speaker 1: in Italian, but simply calling these men pirates does not
[14:37] Speaker 1: really seem correct. They were born on the island of
[14:40] Speaker 1: Lesbos in what's now Greece, which was Ottoman's territory. At
[14:44] Speaker 1: the time, their father was a potter, and they and
[14:47] Speaker 1: their other brothers started out in that trade before becoming sailors.
[14:51] Speaker 1: Orushe and Hzier were both experienced at sea by the
[14:55] Speaker 1: end of the Reconquista, and eventually that experience did start,
[14:59] Speaker 1: including attacking Spanish and Portuguese ships in the Mediterranean. Soon
[15:04] Speaker 1: they were hired as privateers in service of Corcud, who
[15:08] Speaker 1: was one of the sons of Ottoman Sultan by AzID
[15:11] Speaker 1: the second. Corcud was executed in a dispute over the
[15:15] Speaker 1: line of succession in fifteen thirteen, so for a time
[15:18] Speaker 1: these brothers didn't really have any official backing. But in
[15:22] Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen, the Emir of Algiers asked for their help
[15:26] Speaker 1: dealing with the Spanish, and after Orush's force captured the
[15:30] Speaker 1: city from them, the Ottomans named him governor. Spain later
[15:34] Speaker 1: retook the city and Orushe was killed in fifteen eighteen,
[15:38] Speaker 1: but Hyzer's force drove the Spanish out once again in
[15:41] Speaker 1: fifteen twenty nine. Eventually, Suliman the Magnificent, who we covered
[15:46] Speaker 1: on the show in twenty fourteen, made Hezer governor of Rhodes.
[15:51] Speaker 1: His forces later captured to Nice and afterwards, Suliman named
[15:55] Speaker 1: him Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Empire. He was later
[15:59] Speaker 1: named Chi Chief Governor of Ottoman North Africa, and he
[16:02] Speaker 1: died in Constantinople in fifteen forty six. In addition to
[16:07] Speaker 1: attacking and harassing Spanish and Portuguese ships and settlements before
[16:12] Speaker 1: his death, Oruche Reiz carried Muslim and Jewish refugees from
[16:16] Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula to Morocco. That took place mostly between
[16:20] Speaker 1: fifteen oh four and fifteen ten, and he earned the
[16:23] Speaker 1: nickname Baba Oruche or Father Oruge for doing this. Sayeda
[16:28] Speaker 1: Alha was part of this effort to rescue people who
[16:31] Speaker 1: were trying to flee the peninsula. Sources are a little
[16:35] Speaker 1: contradictory about exactly what Sayeda al Hua's relationship was with
[16:40] Speaker 1: Oruche and Hazir. In some accounts she actively hired them
[16:44] Speaker 1: as privateers, and others it was more like she allowed
[16:48] Speaker 1: her own leaders and commanders to work with them, or
[16:51] Speaker 1: she just tacitly allowed them to operate out of Tetuan.
[16:56] Speaker 1: There are other similarly contradictory descriptions of her work with us,
[17:00] Speaker 1: their privateers and pirates in the Mediterranean. She also built
[17:04] Speaker 1: a shipyard which the Ottoman Empire both used to build
[17:08] Speaker 1: ships and as a port to attack the Portuguese in
[17:11] Speaker 1: the Spanish, and she expanded the fleet that her husband
[17:15] Speaker 1: had amassed, one that both defended Morocco and attacked and
[17:19] Speaker 1: captured its enemies. This included capturing Europeans and holding them
[17:24] Speaker 1: for ransom. There's documentation of prisoners of various nationalities being
[17:29] Speaker 1: held in prison in Tetuan, and Sayda al Here's negotiations
[17:34] Speaker 1: with those home nations to get them released. That ransom
[17:38] Speaker 1: money and the cargo from captured ships helped Tetuan really
[17:42] Speaker 1: thrive economically. As for calling them pirates, it is definitely
[17:47] Speaker 1: true that Arush and Hyzer didn't always have some kind
[17:51] Speaker 1: of official authorization for what they were doing at sea.
[17:55] Speaker 1: Sometimes they did, but sometimes they were acting on their own.
[17:58] Speaker 1: But sayde al Herro was the official authorization. She was
[18:03] Speaker 1: governing Tetuan, and this was a time when a lot
[18:05] Speaker 1: of leaders and governments hired civilians to attack their enemies
[18:09] Speaker 1: at sea in addition to or instead of their own navies.
[18:14] Speaker 1: Some sources framed Sayda Alhura's enslaving of prisoners or imprisoning
[18:19] Speaker 1: them and then ransoming them back to their countries of
[18:22] Speaker 1: origin as sort of a dividing line, making her a
[18:26] Speaker 1: pirate rather than just a leader who was legitimately using
[18:30] Speaker 1: maritime mercenaries to defend her territory. But at this point,
[18:34] Speaker 1: taking enemies prisoner and ransoming them back to their native
[18:39] Speaker 1: countries was relatively common. A lot of countries were doing
[18:43] Speaker 1: this long before they became famous as corsairs. One of
[18:47] Speaker 1: Oruche and Tazir's brothers was killed by the Catholic military
[18:52] Speaker 1: order known as the Knights Hospitaller while on a trading voyage,
[18:56] Speaker 1: and Oruche was captured and imprisoned by them. Bi Bill
[19:00] Speaker 1: Hazir paid a ransom to get him out. Spain and
[19:04] Speaker 1: Portugal were also kidnapping and enslaving Africans, and over the
[19:08] Speaker 1: course of the sixteenth century, every major European power was
[19:12] Speaker 1: involved in trafficking people out of Africa. In the paper
[19:17] Speaker 1: Said al Hura and early modern decolonial Muslim exemplar, doctor
[19:22] Speaker 1: Jason Idris Sparks points out that a lot of what
[19:25] Speaker 1: said Alhurra was doing seems pretty comparable to the actions
[19:29] Speaker 1: of her contemporary Queen Elizabeth I, including Elizabeth hiring privateer
[19:34] Speaker 1: Francis Drake and eventually knighting him. Beyond that, a big
[19:39] Speaker 1: motivating factor for both Sayid al Hura and the Barbarossa
[19:44] Speaker 1: Brothers was defending Muslim territory, including their own homes, against
[19:49] Speaker 1: European incursions or retaliating against attacks on Muslims on the
[19:54] Speaker 1: Iberian Peninsula during their lifetimes. The brothers home of Lesbos
[19:59] Speaker 1: was all so attacked and besieged during wars between the
[20:03] Speaker 1: Ottoman Empire and Venice. We've already talked about how Sayda
[20:07] Speaker 1: Alhura grew up in a place that was home to
[20:10] Speaker 1: refugees who had to flee the Iberian Peninsula, and after
[20:14] Speaker 1: her marriage, her home of Tetuan was continually under threat.
[20:18] Speaker 1: We talked in our recent Flying Gang episode about the
[20:22] Speaker 1: rise of piracy in the Caribbean in the eighteenth century
[20:26] Speaker 1: being tied to international disputes and economic factors, But all
[20:30] Speaker 1: of the stuff that we have been talking about seems
[20:33] Speaker 1: a lot more directly personal to Sayida Alhura and the
[20:37] Speaker 1: Barbarossa Brothers than the Caribbean was to a lot of
[20:41] Speaker 1: the European pirates who operated out of there. More broadly,
[20:45] Speaker 1: accounts from the Arab world are more likely to frame
[20:48] Speaker 1: said l her actions in her work with privateers as
[20:52] Speaker 1: a legitimate form of warfare, and it also may have
[20:55] Speaker 1: had religious elements, including a religious obligation to protect Muslims
[21:00] Speaker 1: and Muslim lands. A depiction of her at the Kasbom
[21:04] Speaker 1: Museum in chef Shaoin calls her a princess of Jahad,
[21:08] Speaker 1: a term that combines both struggle and duty in the
[21:11] Speaker 1: context of Islam, framing her so called piracy as a
[21:15] Speaker 1: holy war that she had a spiritual mandate to take
[21:18] Speaker 1: on Before we move on, the northern coast of Africa,
[21:23] Speaker 1: known at the time as the Barbary Coast, became very
[21:27] Speaker 1: heavily associated with piracy and the idea of Barbary pirates.
[21:32] Speaker 1: The number of pirates operating in this area really increased
[21:36] Speaker 1: in the early sixteen hundreds, and that was decades after
[21:39] Speaker 1: the deaths of Said al Hura and Urush and Hizier Race.
[21:43] Speaker 1: But some of the cities that the brothers captured and
[21:46] Speaker 1: transferred to the Ottoman Empire became known as part of
[21:50] Speaker 1: the Barbary states, which employed state sponsored piracy, which you
[21:55] Speaker 1: could also call privateering against European and later America in ships.
[22:01] Speaker 1: Sometimes the Barbarossa Brothers in particular are characterized as really
[22:05] Speaker 1: planting the seeds of this flourishing of quote Barbary piracy.
[22:10] Speaker 1: Many European powers paid tributes to the Barbary states so
[22:15] Speaker 1: their ships would be left alone, but the US did
[22:18] Speaker 1: not want to do that, ultimately leading to the nineteenth
[22:20] Speaker 1: century Barbary Wars. These wars ended with an overall victory
[22:25] Speaker 1: for the United States with treaty terms that put an
[22:28] Speaker 1: end to these tribute payments, but piracy continued from the
[22:32] Speaker 1: northern coast of Africa until the French conquest of Algeria
[22:36] Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty. Oh we'll talk about more about Sayd
[22:39] Speaker 1: al Hura after a sponsor break. To get back to
[22:52] Speaker 1: Sayd al Hura. She governed Tetwan for more than twenty years,
[22:56] Speaker 1: and during that time the city state really prospered, and
[23:00] Speaker 1: fifteen forty one, roughly two decades after the death of
[23:03] Speaker 1: her first husband, Sultan i'm Ed al Waitasi of Fez,
[23:07] Speaker 1: asked to marry her. At this point, she would have
[23:10] Speaker 1: been in her fifties or maybe early sixties. Typically, the
[23:15] Speaker 1: sultan's bride to be would travel to Fees to be
[23:18] Speaker 1: married there. It was a sultanate within capital somewhere else.
[23:22] Speaker 1: They would travel to that capital and then they would
[23:24] Speaker 1: remain there in the capital after the wedding. But Sayda
[23:28] Speaker 1: al Hura refused to leave Tetuan. The Sultan traveled to
[23:32] Speaker 1: her and after the wedding she stayed where she was
[23:36] Speaker 1: and continued to rule Tetuan. This is not how it
[23:40] Speaker 1: normally worked at all. I have a story for what
[23:43] Speaker 1: is a normal wedding on her behind the scenes. Like
[23:47] Speaker 1: her earlier marriage, this one was political. As we said earlier,
[23:51] Speaker 1: while Tetuan was a vassal state of the Watasea Sultanate,
[23:55] Speaker 1: it operated largely as an independent entity. So this was
[23:59] Speaker 1: a marriage between the Sultan and the leader of one
[24:02] Speaker 1: of the Sultanate's most prosperous and powerful vassal states. By extension,
[24:07] Speaker 1: it also made a connection between the Sultan and said
[24:10] Speaker 1: al Hura's family home of chef Schawin. This drew comparisons
[24:15] Speaker 1: to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, uniting the kingdoms
[24:19] Speaker 1: of Aragon and Castile, and that's seen as the foundation
[24:22] Speaker 1: of Spain as a modern state. More generally, said Alhura
[24:27] Speaker 1: was probably the most powerful woman in Morocco and the
[24:31] Speaker 1: what is It Sultanate, which controlled northern Morocco, was trying
[24:35] Speaker 1: to strengthen itself against the Saudi Sultanate, which ruled western
[24:40] Speaker 1: Morocco from its capital in Marrakesh. But as this was happening,
[24:45] Speaker 1: Said al Hura's rule in Tetuan started to slip. Ongoing
[24:49] Speaker 1: disputes with the Portuguese city of Ceuta ultimately led Ceuta
[24:54] Speaker 1: to cut off trading ties with Tetuan. This didn't totally
[24:58] Speaker 1: cut off Tetuan's wealth by any stretch, but the city
[25:01] Speaker 1: did see a drop in prosperity. Then, in fifteen forty two,
[25:06] Speaker 1: Sayd Alhura's son in law, mulay Ahmed al Hassan Almandri,
[25:10] Speaker 1: overthrew her in a coup. He cut ties with the
[25:14] Speaker 1: whitestied Sultanate and apparently expected the Saudis to take over.
[25:19] Speaker 1: That is ultimately what happened. The Saudis captured Fees in
[25:24] Speaker 1: fifteen forty nine, and they moved the capital of the
[25:28] Speaker 1: sultanate Twufees. In sixteen oh three, the family of Said
[25:32] Speaker 1: Alhara's late first husband and at least one of her
[25:36] Speaker 1: surviving brothers, sided with the Saudis. During all this, the
[25:41] Speaker 1: Sadis retook a lot of the territory in Morocco that
[25:44] Speaker 1: Portugal had seized and occupied. While Sayid Alhara was not
[25:48] Speaker 1: directly involved with this, her ongoing maritime efforts against the
[25:52] Speaker 1: Spanish and Portuguese are seen as helping set the stage
[25:56] Speaker 1: for the Sadis to reclaim more territory. Morocco also fought
[26:01] Speaker 1: off the Ottoman Empire's attempt to take control in the
[26:04] Speaker 1: sixteenth century, and remained an independent sultanate until after the
[26:08] Speaker 1: French conquest of Algeria in eighteen thirty that we mentioned earlier.
[26:13] Speaker 1: After that, international disputes in and around Morocco escalated, including
[26:18] Speaker 1: the Scramble for Africa by the European powers, and Morocco
[26:22] Speaker 1: ultimately becoming a protectorate of France in nineteen twelve. Morocco
[26:27] Speaker 1: regained its independence in nineteen fifty six. Meanwhile, Ceuta was
[26:32] Speaker 1: Portuguese territory during Sayda al Hurra's lifetime. It was passed
[26:38] Speaker 1: to Spain in fifteen eighty. Ceuta and Mittia, on the
[26:43] Speaker 1: northern coast of Morocco both continue to be Spanish presidios today.
[26:48] Speaker 1: Ceuta has been in international news as we are recording this.
[26:53] Speaker 1: When the episode comes out, that will be two weeks
[26:55] Speaker 1: in the past, and I do not know how the
[26:57] Speaker 1: situation will have developed by them. She was overthrown by
[27:01] Speaker 1: her son in law, said al Hurrah, was stripped of
[27:03] Speaker 1: her possessions, and she returned home to chef Chowin. She
[27:07] Speaker 1: still had family there. We don't know much about her
[27:10] Speaker 1: life after that, but we do know that she died
[27:13] Speaker 1: on July fourteenth, fifteen sixty one. At that point she
[27:16] Speaker 1: would have been in her sixties or seventies. According to
[27:20] Speaker 1: some accounts, she retired to a Sufi lodge in chef
[27:23] Speaker 1: Chowin had spent the rest of her life focused on
[27:26] Speaker 1: spiritual and religious pursuits. As far as we know, she
[27:30] Speaker 1: never had any children. There is some speculation that one
[27:34] Speaker 1: reason for the lack of documentation about her life and
[27:38] Speaker 1: rule of Tetuan is that later leaders of the city
[27:41] Speaker 1: found her legacy threatening or they didn't want to acknowledge
[27:45] Speaker 1: how much it had flourished while she a woman was
[27:48] Speaker 1: in charge. A lot of the contemporary or near contemporary
[27:53] Speaker 1: mentions of her are from Europeans, which is also connected
[27:56] Speaker 1: to why she is so often framed as a pirate,
[28:00] Speaker 1: rather than as the leader of a city state or
[28:02] Speaker 1: the queen of the sultanate. As we said at the
[28:06] Speaker 1: top of the show, there have been some papers about
[28:08] Speaker 1: Sayid Alhera in recent years. One is the paper by
[28:12] Speaker 1: doctor Jason Idriss Sparks that we mentioned earlier. It was
[28:16] Speaker 1: published in the journal Religions in twenty twenty five, and
[28:19] Speaker 1: it makes a case that Sayid Alhura is an early
[28:22] Speaker 1: example of decolonial thought. Another is by doctor Amal Elheimer
[28:27] Speaker 1: of the University of Kansas. She grew up in Morocco
[28:30] Speaker 1: and traveled there to look for information on Sayda Alhura.
[28:35] Speaker 1: She found primary and secondary sources that weren't available in English,
[28:39] Speaker 1: and then translated those herself and talked to historians in
[28:43] Speaker 1: Morocco who knew more about her. In addition to this
[28:47] Speaker 1: more recent academic work, in twenty sixteen, there was a
[28:50] Speaker 1: TV series about Sayda Alhura on Moroccan television. I don't
[28:56] Speaker 1: know much more about that other than that it happened. Uh.
[29:01] Speaker 1: I'm so glad you picked this one. Oh good, because
[29:05] Speaker 1: she's interesting to me. Do you have listener mail for us?
[29:09] Speaker 1: I do have listener mail viewers from Netflix I'm gonna
[29:11] Speaker 1: have to read it from my phone because of reasons.
[29:15] Speaker 1: This says, Hi, Ho, Holly and Tracy Kell here from
[29:19] Speaker 1: the Morocco trip. I hope you're both doing well, I call.
[29:23] Speaker 1: I didn't on purpose pick this because it's Kel from
[29:26] Speaker 1: the Morocco trip. That is a coincidence. But we love Kel,
[29:30] Speaker 1: but we love Kel, Kel said, I meant to write
[29:32] Speaker 1: in about sneakers, and then Unearthed happened and I had
[29:35] Speaker 1: to write you about Shakespeare, and so now you get both.
[29:38] Speaker 1: Shakespeare first. I was very excited to hear the news
[29:41] Speaker 1: on Unearthed about the firm location of Shakespeare's London house,
[29:46] Speaker 1: which I had somehow missed. I did my MFA in
[29:49] Speaker 1: staging Shakespeare, and we spent two weeks each year studying
[29:54] Speaker 1: at the reconstructed Globe and poking about southern hot Tip.
[29:58] Speaker 1: Look up the pronunciation of that if you don't already
[30:01] Speaker 1: know it. One fun thing about England is that the
[30:04] Speaker 1: country is so old and their structures have been in
[30:06] Speaker 1: the same place for so long that you often run
[30:09] Speaker 1: into situations like this. They'll locate something of historical interest
[30:13] Speaker 1: but can't excavate because there is a different building of
[30:16] Speaker 1: historical interest built on top of it. There may not
[30:20] Speaker 1: be anything to excavate with this building, but this is
[30:24] Speaker 1: the case with the actual Shakespeare's Globe Theater. They found
[30:28] Speaker 1: the location of the foundations and half of it is
[30:30] Speaker 1: under a car park, but the other half is under
[30:33] Speaker 1: a building that is also landmarked eighteenth century if I
[30:37] Speaker 1: remember correctly. They can't do any excavating without disturbing the
[30:41] Speaker 1: nearby structure, even though we'd love to dig around and
[30:44] Speaker 1: the Globe's dirt nearby. There are also the foundations of
[30:48] Speaker 1: the Rose Theater, where Shakespeare performed prior to the building
[30:52] Speaker 1: of the Globe and later a rival theater. Its foundations
[30:56] Speaker 1: were discovered when they went to build a huge office
[30:59] Speaker 1: building in the eighties. Actors from Laurence Olivier to Dustin
[31:03] Speaker 1: Hoffman and Judy Dench were out protesting trying to keep
[31:06] Speaker 1: them from bulldozing the site. In the end, they built
[31:10] Speaker 1: the building over top of the theater, but altered the
[31:12] Speaker 1: structure at the bottom to preserve the foundations. It's pretty
[31:15] Speaker 1: spectacular engineering, and now we have a viewing space can
[31:19] Speaker 1: continue to research and they sometimes put on events. A
[31:22] Speaker 1: quick note on sneakers and swing dancing since i've talked
[31:26] Speaker 1: so much about Shakespeare and early modern theaters, I could
[31:29] Speaker 1: go on all day. First of all, thank you for
[31:32] Speaker 1: explaining to me why all my British friends call them plimsols. Second,
[31:38] Speaker 1: I wondered if you knew that Ked's slash plimsol styled
[31:42] Speaker 1: shoes were the favorite shoes of former podcast subject Frankie Manning,
[31:47] Speaker 1: Whitey's Lyndy Hoppers and other swing dancers. The picture used
[31:51] Speaker 1: on the cover of his autobiography is of him and
[31:53] Speaker 1: another dancer doing an airstep, and both of them are
[31:56] Speaker 1: wearing that style of shoe. These shoes are still favored
[31:59] Speaker 1: by swing dancers today, although in a twist I find hilarious,
[32:03] Speaker 1: we often have to put leather on the soules so
[32:05] Speaker 1: they will spin daring turns. The rubber grip on the
[32:09] Speaker 1: bottom of today's shoes is often too much for dancing,
[32:13] Speaker 1: but I assume that the material slash texture was different
[32:16] Speaker 1: in the thirties and forties and they had the right
[32:18] Speaker 1: amount of traction on the wooden dance floors. A future
[32:21] Speaker 1: podcast on Norma Miller, another of White East Lindy Hoppers,
[32:25] Speaker 1: would be fantastic. I saw her speak at New Orleans
[32:27] Speaker 1: when she was close to one hundred, and she was
[32:29] Speaker 1: a real spitfire, flirting with the guys and still dancing. PS.
[32:33] Speaker 1: We're very excited to be coming to Germany and Checchia
[32:37] Speaker 1: with you this fall. Until then, Kell, so thank you
[32:39] Speaker 1: so much Kel for this email. For a couple reasons. One,
[32:42] Speaker 1: I love all of this about the Shakespeare me too. Great.
[32:46] Speaker 1: I don't think I remembered or maybe didn't know, you
[32:50] Speaker 1: had an MFA in staging Shakespeare. That's great. The other
[32:54] Speaker 1: reason is I meant to talk about wearing kads for
[32:58] Speaker 1: swing dancing in the behind the scenes of the Sneakers episode,
[33:02] Speaker 1: and then I forgot you did. Did we talk about
[33:06] Speaker 1: it in the behind the scenes, No, because I didn't.
[33:09] Speaker 1: Did you swing dance? Do you swing dance? Yeah? So
[33:12] Speaker 1: I never knew. Yeah, this is a thing that I
[33:16] Speaker 1: did a while ago. We were owned by a company
[33:19] Speaker 1: that gave us a health and wellness benefit and you
[33:22] Speaker 1: could get reimbursed for a GEM membership or class you
[33:30] Speaker 1: were taking, and I could get reimbursed for swing dancing classes.
[33:35] Speaker 1: So fun, and I went through multiple levels of swing
[33:38] Speaker 1: dance classes and then I took some Lindy Hop classes.
[33:42] Speaker 1: Lindy Hop was a lot of fun, and people talked
[33:45] Speaker 1: about liking to wear kids for their lending hopping, and
[33:50] Speaker 1: I got a pair of keads that were super cute
[33:53] Speaker 1: and then did find them too grippy on the floor.
[33:59] Speaker 1: When I would go out social dancing, that was the
[34:02] Speaker 1: thing that I did a while. One of the reasons
[34:04] Speaker 1: was to get out of my comfort zone. Yeah, I
[34:08] Speaker 1: am not always comfortable in group settings. I'm not always
[34:10] Speaker 1: good at talking to people. Social dancing was a lot
[34:13] Speaker 1: of fun. I have not done it in many years.
[34:15] Speaker 1: I think the last swing dancing that I did was
[34:17] Speaker 1: when Patrick and I took classes before our wedding and
[34:22] Speaker 1: we danced our first dance at our reception, and I
[34:27] Speaker 1: don't think we have done it since. I also have
[34:31] Speaker 1: very strong memories of that dance. Oh because probably not
[34:35] Speaker 1: for the reason I mean, not that it was very sweet.
[34:37] Speaker 1: Is it because you were afraid the beads were going
[34:39] Speaker 1: to fly off my dress? Yeah? Yeah, yeah they did not,
[34:43] Speaker 1: or if they did not, to an appreciable amount. Well,
[34:47] Speaker 1: I in case any listeners don't know or remember, I
[34:50] Speaker 1: made Tracy's wedding dress. I added a lot of beads
[34:54] Speaker 1: we hadn't discussed. I was like more bead fringe, which
[35:00] Speaker 1: in my defense was terrific, but it was as you
[35:02] Speaker 1: guys were whipping around, I was like, oh, dear Grido,
[35:06] Speaker 1: please don't let beads fly everywhere and make this entire
[35:10] Speaker 1: venue like a hazard for everyone because they were little,
[35:14] Speaker 1: tiny seed beads. But they didn't. They all stayed in place.
[35:17] Speaker 1: I'm happy to report they stayed there. So thank you
[35:20] Speaker 1: so much, Kel for this email and for giving me
[35:24] Speaker 1: the chance to say something that I meant to say
[35:26] Speaker 1: in our behind the scenes episode on Sneakers, which I
[35:30] Speaker 1: forgot to talk about, and for being grand. We love Kel.
[35:33] Speaker 1: I had a great time with Kel in Chef showIn
[35:36] Speaker 1: we can talk more about Chef Showen and the behind
[35:38] Speaker 1: the scenes of this episode. Can't wait. So thanks for writing, Kel.
[35:42] Speaker 1: I look forward to seeing you again. If you would
[35:45] Speaker 1: like to send us a note, We're a history podcast
[35:48] Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot com. If you would like to see
[35:52] Speaker 1: the show notes to this episode, where we list all
[35:54] Speaker 1: of the papers and other resources that we used, including
[35:58] Speaker 1: the two that we specifically mentioned. That is at History
[36:00] Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe to
[36:05] Speaker 1: the show on the iHeartRadio app, but anywhere else you
[36:07] Speaker 1: like to get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History
[36:15] Speaker 1: Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
[36:20] Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
[36:23] Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.

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