Episode 99: The Final Days and Legacy of Ahmed Al-Raisuni

Historical Scene in Tamrout: Ahmed Al-Raisuni (standing, center), the influential Jebala leader, hosts a tense and significant meeting in his stone dwelling in Tamrout during the Spanish protectorate era. While his health is visibly failing, his presence remains commanding. Seated on the floor, from left to right, are a foreign journalist recording the event, a loyal local elder, and a Spanish military officer, illustrating the complex diplomatic and adversarial relationships of the time. Documents and writing implements, including the ornate silver letter opener seen in image_3.png, rest on the table. The sunlit doorway reveals the rugged Jebala mountains, the theater of Al-Raisuni's long resistance. This moment captures the intersection of personal resilience, tribal authority, and colonial power.

Episode 99: The Legacy of Ahmed Al-Raisuni and Colonial Dynamics

This episode explores the complex historical narrative surrounding Ahmed Al-Raisuni, a prominent Moroccan leader during the Spanish protectorate era. Drawing from various historical accounts, memoirs, and critical analyses—including texts by Al-Bouachi and Sidi Ahmed bin Al-Amin Al-Chefshauoni—the text examines Al-Raisuni's military campaigns, his diplomatic and adversarial interactions with colonial powers, the differing perspectives of foreign writers versus local historians, and his final days in Tamrout.

...against him for the weakest of reasons, especially when a conflict arose between him and the Spanish Colonel in the beginning, and the Raisuni made his spies crack down on him, calling him a "coward," then he moved on in his speech and said: "He was a cunning, intelligent, diplomatic man, except for his deceit and lack of loyalty to foreigners, and the speed of his fluctuations made him enter into eternal enmity with Colonel Silvestre, and made him cut off and not doubt that he was a sworn enemy to the sons of Spain, despite the fact that the Colonel wanted to grant him the position of Khalifa in the North instead of his khilafah over the city of Asilah and the Jebala tribes." However, the conflict between him and the Colonel intensified and escalated until an armed conflict broke out between Spain and the mountain tribes led by leader Al-Raisuni. It is known how those tribes were volatile in their affairs, and if they were with him at that pace, he would be excused when he treated them with harsh treatment, (1) to curb their masses; because the man was expert in their affairs by virtue of his frequent friction with them, to the extent that he burns with rage to deter their rebelliousness, and whoever lives in such a manner finds it difficult for someone else to yield for the first time and surrender to the Rif men just by the call. Because of that, when they reached him until his stronghold with machine guns, machine guns, and hand grenades when his strength was consecutive, he was able to stand in their face with what he was accustomed to of successive setbacks that made his heart forged steel; so that events did not take him however their cruelty was. If the miserable man does not care about miserable life, he does not hesitate to unleash a torrent of insults and hurl them in the faces of his victorious opponents. This is what the journalist recounted, who was an eyewitness in the camp of the Raisuni: "We entered upon him and sat down squatting in front of him, so he burst into tears in the camp of the Raisuni, saying: Why did you come to me? If you are fighting the Christians, I am a Muslim and you are our faces: Why do you bring these innocent Muslim souls to our side and your side, while we are Muslims, and there is no reason for..."

...there is no doubt about the matter that the critic does not dispute that the Raisuni could face a foreign enemy fighting colonialism, and it is natural for foreign hands to intervene in secret through foreign politicians who inhabit the city of Asilah and others, to corrupt his men, partisans and followers in the jihad rather, he has inside him between his family and tribe as I pointed out to it in its proper place, and it is known to everyone who wages the free national war against the enemies of the homeland and religion, and if that was the case, it is not strange for the foreign hand to make what is more useful than that. Rather, the wonder of that is how the personality of leader Al-Raisuni was silent in the face of all this style or other for nearly thirty years without weakening, and the personality of leader Al-Raisuni was never doubted, until he was taken from his house and exiled from his hometown in the last days of his life; and his death was inevitable in Tamrout.

for I am wronged in it, standing for the right of self-defense, and you are in it oppressors. What do you say before God in wasting it without right?" And no one of the commanders entered, nor what the dry speech said that first passed between him and the commanders who entered upon him, and what the journalist said is devoid of his speech, except his saying: "I am now in the judgment of death, and I have fought my wars for the sake of death, so my horse fell under me, and my saddle and my sole were taken from me, and nothing of what remains is to be taken now," and he refused to eat or drink because he was sick and kept repeating his hope that death would hasten him.

Then Al-Bouachi adds, saying: This presentation aims to establish a balance between the elements that the man's religion ruled and made him of the dominant elements, and between the other elements; which are the sons of the free Mujahideen, who are represented in the form of the weak, the poor, the needy, the jurists, the scholars, and the righteous, alongside his large family, which is represented in my tribes of Beni Arous and its dignity alongside the Al-Raisouni family, and all these see that the pious Mujahideen man over his homeland and religion is the protector of the righteous, the reformer taking the right for the weak and the oppressed.

This is expressed by the chief of the noblemen, the jurist scholar Sidi Ahmed bin Al-Amin Al-Chefshauoni, in a publication he printed in the year 1386 AH corresponding to 1966 AD, in which he says: We have followed this simple research, God willing, with another report to another chief, in which we restrict ourselves to mentioning what was established before the protectorate during the era of the late Sultan Mulay Abdul Hafid, who appointed him with his back as the agent of the leader Sharif Mulay Ahmed Al-Raisouni over the Jebala tribes. Perhaps we find in what he advanced, and especially his family in this field, what convinces historians supported by historical evidence, and especially regarding the primary elements, until the follower becomes convinced that the original source written by foreigners is tainted with hatred, malice, hatred and falsification, and that the word of thievery issued by their pens is inspired by those deep-seated hatreds that filled their souls in order to carry out what he did against him seeking to obstruct his influence in northern Morocco, and that from the beginning of his movement with the kidnapping of the American national Perdicaris, his son-in-law Farley, the English journalist Harris, and the English Colonel Maclean, trainer of the Moroccan army, and his retention of them for what he took from them to strengthen the side of his revolution, and to make the occupiers feel through these bold acts that Morocco is in it for its men.

Then Al-Bouachi said about the final stage of the life of Sharif Al-Raisouni, which followed the withdrawal of Spanish troops from their occupied positions in the mountains of Chefchaouen, Wadi Laou, and others, considering the historical sequence: This is because we place the statements about him in the balance, not considering the reference to his military life, in that period to complete the elements we are pursuing, and what we see of his health from the disease of cowardcy (1) until his lower limbs swelled and his flesh split, and he leaked with water and not as they imagine.

Let everyone who browses our book know this: that leader Al-Raisuni, the owner of the full beard, recurring jellabas, and the hood on his head, played a diplomatic role with the General Resident in Tetouan, and when his deceit was revealed to him in turn with burning anger and committed suicide from the office of the General Residency in Tetouan, and those are the works he presented to the homeland that the patriot must boast about, not to describe him with treachery, scheming, and lack of loyalty to foreigners, as the critic Hajj Ahmed Al-Bouachi says in his book "The Rif War of Liberation". So citizens must beware of their heedlessness.

(1) Cowardcy in the language is applied to two meanings, so if it is from the chapter of a broken word, it means fatigue and tiredness, i.e., swelling of his belly and bones. And if it was from the quadrilateral Ajban, it means full of anger at his enemies, which is incumbent upon the Raisuni afflicted with both matters, and if that was full of anger at his victorious enemies, after his inability because of the disease that befell him from the ability together, and if we assumed that they were able to come at him at the time of ability, and he was fighting peers, none of them could repeat his name with evil on his tongue, let alone make the victorious one over him put their hands between their hands and direct their glances to him and their sarcastic biting words.

Conclusion

In summary, the provided texts present a multifaceted and heavily contested view of Ahmed Al-Raisuni, balancing critical colonial narratives against strong local defenses of his legacy. While some accounts depict him through the lens of political friction, severe illness, and foreign opposition, supporters and historians like Sidi Ahmed bin Al-Amin Al-Chefshauoni argue that such foreign-authored accounts are tainted by bias, hatred, and falsification. Ultimately, Al-Raisuni remains a pivotal figure in the history of northern Morocco and the Jebala tribes, remembered for his decades-long resistance against colonial influence up until his final days in Tamrout.

Summary

Historical Perspective: Details the conflicts between leader Ahmed Al-Raisuni and Spanish colonial forces, highlighting his fierce resistance and resilience against successive setbacks.
Foreign Accounts: Examines critical foreign observations—such as those by journalists and colonial figures—which local historians argue are tainted by bias and falsification.
Final Days: Recounts Al-Raisuni's later years, severe illness, and eventual final days in Tamrout under the Spanish protectorate.

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أرشيف الطاهر اللهيوي | الذاكرة التاريخية Taher Lhioui Archive | Historical Memory