خناثة بنت بكار
Lalla Khanatha bint Bakkar
Princess
Bornc.1668
Died1754(1754-00-00) (aged 85–86)
Burial
Moulay Abdallah Mosque's Necropolis, Fes el-Jdid, Morocco
SpouseSultan Moulay Ismail (m. 1678; died 1727)
IssueMoulay Mohammed
Moulay Hafiz
Moulay Mehrez
Moulay Mohammed al-Mutais
Sultan Moulay Abdallah
HouseAlaouite (by marriage)
FatherSheikh Abu Bakkar al-Ghul bin Ali al-Mghafri
ReligionIslam

Lalla Khanatha bint Bakkar (Arabic: خناثة بنت الشيخ بكار المغافري) (1668–1754), was one of the wives of Sultan Moulay Ismail (r. 1672–1727), and acted as his de facto First Minister and Secretary. After his death, she remained active in the political governance of Morocco during the unstable situation which followed as the mother of Sultan Moulay Abdallah (r. 1729–1757).[1]

Life

Origin and marriage

Lalla Khanata's full name was Khanatha bint Sheikh Abu Bakar al-Gul bin Ali bin Abdallah.[2]

She was born to the chieftains of the M'gharfa tribe, part of the Awlad Hassān caste among the Beidanes. The Awlad Hassān were the armed aristocratic caste of the Beidane people and her family of the Awlad Abdalla clan in the M'gharfa tribe. Her father was the Grand Sheikh Abu Bakkar Al M'gharfi, the chieftain of the M'gharfa tribal confederation.

She has also been claimed to be the daughter of the Emir of Brakna.[2] However, historic chronicles record Lalla Khanatha as hailing from Sbouya in Oued Noun.[3][4] Most likely, she was confused with the Brakna princess who appeared before Moulay Ismail in 1690.[5] The historic confusion resided because this princess, perhaps Nassira el-Salwi, is Lalla Khanatha's distant cousin, as hailing from the Oulad Mbarek Hassāns, cousins of the M'gharfa.

She married Moulay Ismail in 1678 and became a Princess henceforth.[6] Her marriage happened when that very year, Sultan Moulay Ismail led a Saharan expedition to counter the influence of his rebellious nephew, Moulay Ahmed ben Mehrez, who had proclaimed himself Emir of Sous in the mid-1670s.[7] His goal was to encircle him to the point of an embargo. Thus, he circled from the Souss (here meaning the Sahara) and the oasis of Touat to the provinces of Sakia El Hamra, there the Sultan received embassies from the M'ghafra tribe and allegiance from Grand Sheikh Abu Bakkar Al M'gharfi, the chieftain. The latter gave his daughter, Khanatha, as bride to the Sultan, to seal his tribe's allegiance.[4] A later version of the events claim that it was following his expedition to Souss and the oasis of Touat to the provinces of Chenguit (in Adrar) on the border of the Sudan region in modern Mauritania, that Moulay Ismail received embassies from all the Maqil tribes populating the Saharan provinces of the country. And to seal their allegiance, Khanatha bint Bakkar was given to him as his bride.[8]

Reign of Sultan Moulay Ismail

Moulay Ismail had thousands of slave concubines in his harem, four legal wives he constantly replaced by divorce and hundreds of children.[9] At some point around 1708[10] his wedded wives were simultaneously: Khnata bent Bakkar herself, Halima Al Sufyaniyah, Lalla Aisha Al Mubaraka and Lalla Umm al-Iz at-Taba. Lalla Khnata and Sultan Moulay Ismail issued children together, among them Sultan Moulay Abdallah.[1]

Khnata bent Bakkar was famous for her beauty, intelligence, and learning. She devoted herself to private study in the palace, and came to be regarded as learned within both Islam and the sciences.

She came to be one of the favorites of her husband, and as such in a position of influence. She was one of the few people from which Moulay Ismail took advice.

She acted as de facto First Minister and Secretary for her husband. In 1721, she acted as a mediator between the Sultan and the British ambassador Charles Stewart, during the negotiations about a peace treaty between Morocco and Great Britain, which was successfully completed in 1722 with her assistance.[11] However, contemporary sources cite Lalla Umm al-Iz at-Taba as the mediator since the author of the correspondence signed her name, implying she authored it.[12] The confusion residing in Charles Stewart addressing her as "Powerful Lady, Mother of Muley Abdallah"[12] and both women have a son bearing that name. To dissipate the confusion, Lalla Khnata's son, the future Sultan Moulay Abdallah frequently signed "Muley Abdallah ould Khanatha bint Bakkar" on legal paper, meaning "Muley Abdallah son of Khanatha bint Bakkar".[13]

Mother of the Sultan

Sultan Moulay Ismail died in 1727. After his death, there followed a period of internal turmoil, in which her husband's ten sons with various wives and concubines competed with each other for power. She supported her own son Sultan Moulay Abdallah and wielded great power and influence in his government during his reign. She was appointed Foreign affairs minister in his government and has been referred to as the first woman in Morocco in such a position.[1][6] Her perhaps biggest contribution was as a diplomat, as she successfully acted as the mediator between her son and his competitors and half brothers during the succession crisis. She has been credited with having led Morocco out of the instability of succession war back to stability.

She was the author of a commentary on the work of Ibn Haggar al-Asqalani: Al-Isaba fi Marifat as-Sabaha and of several letters to the inhabitants of Oujda, advising and consoling them on their plight as neighbors of the Ottoman Turks.[14]

She was buried in the Royal Mausoleum at Fez al-Jadid.

Descendance

From their mariage, Lalla Khanatha and Moulay Ismail had several children. Among them are:

Legacy

Tributes

In Kitâb Elistiqsâ, the author Al-Nasiri gave tribute to Lalla Khnata on the date of her death:

"On 6 djoumâda I, died the noble lady Khenâtsa Elmgafriya, daughter of Bekkâr and mother of the Sultan (God have mercy on her!) who was a woman well versed in science and literature. She was buried in the cemetery of Sharifs in Fes Eljedid."[19]

— Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri, ... [Le livre de la recherche approfondie des événements des dynasties de l'extrême Magrib], vol. IX : Chronique de la dynastie alaouie au Maroc (1906)

In Casablanca, in tribute to her person, a private high school Collège Khnata Bent Bakkar bears her name.[20]

In culture

The novel, La Reine Khanatha, épouse de Mawla Ismail, by Amna Ellouh[21] (thanks to which she won the Moroccan Prize for Literature in 1954).

References

  1. 1 2 3 Zita Rohr (2013). Queenship in the Mediterranean Negotiating the Role of the Queen in the Medieval and Early Modern Eras. Palgrave Macmillan.
  2. 1 2 Bonte, Pierre (2008). Shaykh Bekkar Elmaghafri, Alaouite Saharan expedition (in French). Karthala. p. 251. ISBN 9782811100230.
  3. ↑ Zayyānī, Abū al-Qāsim ibn Aḥmad al- (1734–1833) Auteur du texte (1886). Le Maroc de 1631 à 1812 / de Aboulqâsem ben Ahmed Ezziâni ; publié et traduit par O. Houdas. p. 74. Abdallah went to ... Oued Noun, where he stayed for more than two years with his maternal uncles, the Moâfera.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  4. 1 2 Khnata Bint Bakkar, retrieved 2021-12-30
  5. ↑ Thomas Pellow (1890). The adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, mariner. Robert Brown. p. 140. In the year 1690, ... there came a woman from that people to him.
  6. 1 2 Abd al-Rahman ibn Zaydan (1993). المنزع اللطيف في مفاخر المولى إسماعيل بن الشريف (almanzie allatif fi mafakhir almawla 'iismaeil bin alsharif) (in Arabic). Casablanca: الطبعة الأولى, مطبعة "إديال". الدار البيضاء. p. 394. Princess Lalla Khanatha wife of Sultan Moulay Ismail, among the princesses who contributed in the international life of Morocco ...
  7. ↑ Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1986). Encyclopédie de l'Islam , Fascicle 111 (in French). Brill Archive. p. 883. ISBN 978-90-04-09240-2.
  8. ↑ Trans. from Arabic by Eugène Fumet, Ahmed ben Khâled Ennâsiri. Kitâb Elistiqsâ li-Akhbâri doual Elmâgrib Elaqsâ ["Le livre de la recherche approfondie des événements des dynasties de l'extrême Magrib"], vol. IX : Chronique de la dynastie alaouie au Maroc (in French). Ernest Leroux. p. 76. He received the deputations from all the Ma'qil Arab tribes of this region, from Sahel and South, DIim, Barboùch, Elmgâfra, Ouadi, Mtâ 'Jerrâr, who brought him their submission. At the head of these deputations was the cheïkh Bekkâr Elmgafri, father of the noble lady Khenâtsa ... This cheïkh offered his daughter to the Sultan... Moûlay Ismâ'il married her and had children by her.
  9. ↑ Elisabeth Oberzaucher; Karl Grammer (2014). "The Case of Moulay Ismael - Fact or Fancy?". PLOS ONE. 9 (2): e85292. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...985292O. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0085292. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3925083. PMID 24551034.
  10. ↑ Thomas Pellow (1890). The adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, mariner (PDF). Robert Brown. p. 57. in the Emperor's garden where he and his favorite Queen Hellema Hazzezas (in Englis the beloved) were used to walk ... Muly Zidan, a youth of about eight years of age, and then resident with his mother in the palace of Sherrers ; where she, with thirty-eight of the Emperor's concubines, and several eunuchs, were closely shut up ...
  11. ↑ Mario Klarer (ed.), Piracy and Captivity in the Mediterranean: 1550–1810, Routledge, 2018.
  12. 1 2 Windus, John (1725). A Journey to Mequinez: The Residence of the Present Emperor of Fez and Morocco. J. Tonson. pp. 160–171. Retrieved 2022-12-25..
  13. ↑ Thomas Pellow. The adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, mariner (PDF). p. 299.
  14. ↑ Mohammed Lakhdar, La Vie Littéraire au Maroc sous la dynastie alawite (1075/1311/1664-1894). Rabat: Ed. Techniques Nord-Africaines, 1971, p. 190.
  15. 1 2 3 "Mohammed Al Hassan". geni_family_tree. 1679. Retrieved 2023-07-23.
  16. 1 2 "Hafiz Al Hassan". geni_family_tree. Retrieved 2023-07-23.
  17. 1 2 "Mahraz Al Hassan". geni_family_tree. Retrieved 2023-07-23.
  18. 1 2 "Mohammed Al Mutais Al Hassan". geni_family_tree. Retrieved 2023-07-23.
  19. ↑ Trans. from Arabic by Eugène Fumet, Ahmed ben Khâled Ennâsiri. Kitâb Elistiqsâ li-Akhbâri doual Elmâgrib Elaqsâ [" Le livre de la recherche approfondie des événements des dynasties de l'extrême Magrib "], vol. IX : Chronique de la dynastie alaouie au Maroc (in French). Ernest Leroux. p. 217.
  20. ↑ "Top 10 meilleurs Collège Khnata Bent Bakkar Collège Khnata Bent Bakkar 20490 CASABLANCA". ma.numero-pro.fr (in French). Retrieved 2022-02-13.
  21. ↑ "الملكة خناثة قرينة المولى إسماعيل". Goodreads. Retrieved 2023-12-21.
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