The Sultan of the Mountains: The Life Story of Raisuli
9781465518682
418 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
The 14th century of Islam has produced a number of remarkable personalities, but none is surrounded with such fabulous glamour as that of Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli Sherif, warrior and philosopher, saint, tyrant and psychologist. This Haroun er Raschid of Morocco is descended from the Prophet through an older branch of the imperial house which now reins in Fez. By race, therefore, he is entitled to the respect of his people and he makes the most of the superstitious awe which has surrounded him since his childhood. Yet his personality is in no way the result of his great descent. Raisuli is a man whose mind, critical and peculiarly impersonal, must often have been at war with his spirit—a spirit steeped in the mysticism of the “baraka,” the traditional blessing which protects his house. Profoundly intelligent, with a knowledge of human nature, whether European or Arab, which is the result of unusual powers of observation, but which, to the Moor, appears supernatural, the Sherif’s audacity is as much mental as physical. He believes in the luck which invariably turns the most adverse circumstances to his final advantage, and is not above staking his remarkable immunity from danger against the credulity of his followers, but below this is the conviction of divine right. His charm, as powerful as it is elusive, is a revelation of the “baraka,” for it is purely spiritual and has no connection with the concentrated energy of his mind. Raisuli represents to the Moors the champion of Islam against the Christian, of the old against the new; yet, from his youth, he foresaw the inevitable intervention of Europe in Morocco and determined to manipulate such intervention to his own ends. The project, though ambitious, was not egoistic, for the Sherif conceives himself an instrument of fate—“This is my land and you are my people. While I live nothing shall be taken from me.” His ancient race is part of the soil of the mountains, and the 1,500 Alani Sherifs, of whom he is the head, are inseparable from the land they alternately oppress and protect. Since there are no years in desert or hills, Mulai Ahmed has little idea of his age. A Spanish authority gives the date of his birth as 1868. Raisuli suggests 1871. As a child he was a student and a lover of books, with no other ambition than to write poetry and be a teacher of law and theology. Adventure first called to him in the guise of a woman seeking redress against the bandits who had despoiled her house. The young Mulai Ahmed went to the hills with a band whose original quixotry was soon merged in lust of war and lust of gold—the two strongest passions in a primitive heart. The Sultan, Mulai Hassan, heard of the tribute levied on his caravans and ordered the arrest of the offenders. By treachery the capture was accomplished, and, for five years, Raisuli existed in the dungeons of Mogador. His imprisonment was probably the turning point of his life, for, with the Moslem heritage of patience and simplicity, he accepted his fate as “the will of Allah” and immersed himself in meditation. It is incredible to the European mind that any human being could support such tortures as the Sherif describes, but “What it is written, that shall a man endure.” Released before he was thirty, Raisuli had known the whole scale of suffering and emotion. His energy of mind and body had crystallized into a determination to wrest from circumstance a stable independence which should be the basis of his power. From this date (about 1900) he judged everything as a means to his ultimate end. The capture of Mr. Harris had neither financial nor political significance, but the American, Perdicaris, was used as a pawn in a great game. His seizure in 1904 forced 70,000 dollars from the American Government and the province of El Fahs from the Sultan.
