Commander of the Faithful

The general’s remarks are excerpts from a much longer self-defense presented in Dupuch’s treatise, Abdelkader au Amboise (pp. 72-79) that includes heated exchanges between deputies over the treatment of their famous prisoner. For Lamoricière’s comparison of the religious sentiment with the principal of legitimacy in prerevolutionary France, see Churchill, Chapter twenty, p. 273 of French version. Also Aouli, Redjala, Zoummeroff (Islam-Occident: les voies du respect, de l’entente, de la concorde p. 398) referencing Zoummeroff’s private collection of documents.

An abbreviated portrait of Lamoricière can be found in Islam-Occident: les voies du respect, de l’entente, de la concorde, by Georges Hirtz (PSR edition, 1998). This concise volume presents snapshots of four figures from 19th-century Algeria who demonstrated through attitude and behavior how Christians and Muslims can live in harmony with each other. They include emir Abd el-Kader, General Lamoricière and a fascinating Christian-Muslim couple, Aurelie Picard and Sheik Ahmed Tidjani, head of the Tidjani Brotherhood that was centered at the zawiya of Ain Madhi (besieged by Abd el-Kader in 1838). Aurelie Picard never gave up her Christian faith nor did she ever wear a veil during her long marriage, consecrated in Algiers in 1872 by Cardinal Lavigerie in a civil ceremony.

Chapter Two: Lords of the Tent

This chapter draws heavily from three sources: the French version (which is more readily available) of Churchill’s, The Life of Abd el Kader (ex Sultan of Algeria); General Melchior Joseph Eugene Daumas, The Horses of the Sahara and Ways of the Desert, both of which have been translated into English by Sheila Ohlendorf; and Professor Bruno Etienne’s Abdelkader.

The description of Abd el-Kader’s birth and dialogues with his parents and teachers are drawn from Part I, pp. 21-103 of Abdelkader. Prof. Etienne is married to an Algerian, is steeped in Algerian culture, a fluent Arabist and has made Abd el-Kader a life work. I have incorporated his mixture of original research, which includes making use of an oral tradition still alive in the regions where Abd el-Kader is a favorite son, his deep knowledge of the culture and his well-grounded imagination that has rightly stressed the importance of Abd el-Kader’s upbringing and close relationship with his parents based on the principles of obedience, hierarchy and Divine Law.

General Daumas approached the subject of the Arab horse and way of life as a culturally engaged intelligence officer and a practical cavalry commander looking for remounts and ways to improve the endurance of French horses in the field. Horses of the Sahara has gone through nine editions and is a classic of its genre. His long friendship with Abd el-Kader, which began in 1833 as a French representative to Abd el-Kader’s court and embryonic nation state in Mascara following the Desmichels Treaty, continued for over thirty years. Abd el-Kader, was the source of much of his information.

The description of Abd el-Kader’s youth, his love of hunting, his family and his education come from the emir’s recollections provided to Col. Charles Henry Churchill (chapter one), and are the basis for embellishments by other biographers of the emir.

Chapter Three: Unity and Complexity

The story of Abd el-Kader’s defence of the honor of his cousin and future wife, Kheira, is retold in many books and is based in the oral tradition recorded and used by Etienne. Churchill (chapter two) and Etienne (Part I, chapter two) are the principal sources for the description of his pilgrimage with his father, Muhi al-Din. Highlights of the teachings of Abd el-Kader al-Jilani (also a Muslim patron saint of travelers) were drawn from al-Jilani’s own work, The Secret of Secrets (Islamic Texts Society, Golden Palm Series), translated by Shayk Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi al-Halveti.

Al-Jilani was born in 1077 in a region of present day Iran called al-Jil. It seems he had an unusual youth, marked by a mystical experience: an angel in the form of a beautiful young man accompanied him everyday to school and walked him back home. To this angelic companion, al-Jilani attributed his remarkable memory and ability to learn in a day what other students did in a week. Finally, one day plowing a field behind an ox, he reported that the ox turned its head and spoke:‘You are not created for this.’ He ran to his widowed mother and asked her to send him to Baghdad where he could follow the path of truth and ‘acquire knowledge, to be with the wise and to those close to Allah.’ (Such people in Islam are called “friends of God” because, like Christian saints, they are considered faithful mirrors of Divine Will who can inspire less worthy believers.) His teachings, especially chapters four (On Knowledge) and ten (On Veils of Light and Darkness) have a strong bearing on Abd el-Kader’s writings and theory of knowledge expressed in his Letter to the French written in 1855. When asked one day what he had received from God, al-Jilani answered: “Good conduct and knowledge.”

Chapter Four: Arrival of the Infidels

Descriptions of the French adventure are drawn from the memoirs of Pellissier de Reynaud, a French officer who participated in the invasion and a prolific memoirist. Also useful was Churchill (chapter two); chapters seven and eight in Abd el-Kader (Aouli Rejala and Zoummeroff), and for good general background, Larbi Icheboudene’s Alger.

Drawing on numerous contemporary sources — French and Arab — Icheboudene makes convincingly clear that the popular French schoolboy explanation for the attack (a reprisal for a diplomatic insult) doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Charles X was in serious political trouble at home and needed a diversion. According to Hamdan Khodja (le Miroir), who was an eyewitness in the court of Dey Hussein, the insult delivered by Deval was an intentional provocation. In contrast to the official valuation of forty-eight million francs given the French government, Hamdan Khodja estimates the treasury’s true value at 150-700 million francs.

Chapter Five: The Obedient Son

Yale University’s Jennifer Pitts has rendered a great service by translating de Tocqueville’s insightful essays on France’s divisive and bumbling occupation of Algeria (Writings on Empire and Slavery, pp 17, 25). Churchill remains the principal source for all authors (chapters 2-3), embellished by Col. Azan in Vista Clayton’s 1975 lively book, The Phantom Caravan. Clayton’s book is the sole popularization of the emir’s life written by an American, while Raphael Danziger’s Abd al-Qadir and the Algerians (written for a PhD thesis) might be the preferred source for scholarly researchers.

The emir’s own autobiography, contains the dialogue attributed to his father when Muhi al-Din abdicates in favor of his son. It reads like a disjointed stream of consciousness, intelligible only to someone very familiar with the details of his campaigns and life.

Churchill’s description of the phases of Abd el-Kader’s “enthronement” is generally accepted, but is disputed by Mochtar Darrar, the former mayor of Mascara and local historian. Though he believes the plebiscite by the tribes held in the valley occurred on November 21, before the homage given by local leaders in the beylicat, I have stayed with the traditional narrative. Thanks to Darrar’s insights, however, I have omitted a detail in Churchill usually retained by other authors. It describes Abd el-Kader receiving his homage seated in a gilded Spanish chair (booty from the recapture of Oran in 1792). This seems an unlikely prop, given his Bedouin culture and ascetic nature.

Rouina. Like the Mongols and the jerky they ate on horseback, the Arab horseman’s ability to live for days on rouina gave them the enormous advantage of speed over the heavily weighted French soldier and his cumbersome baggage train. As Napoleon brilliantly demonstrated, generalship and speed can compensate for smaller mass, confirmed in basic physics by the formula: F(force) =M(mass) x (V) velocity.

Chapter Six: France’s New Ally, 1834

Adolph V. Dinesen was a Danish artillery officer serving in the French army in the late 1830s. Thanks to a translation undertaken by Editions ANEP and The Abd el-Kader Foundation in 2001, Dinesen’s memoir, published in Danish in 1840, was made available to the Francophone world. His work, Abd el-Kader et les relations entre les francais et les Arabs en Afrique du Nord, was a useful source for this chapter, especially the description of the festivities following the conclusion of the Desmichels Treaty. Pages 57-60 provide an extensive excerpt from commander de Torigny’s report of his trip accompanying the emir back to Mascara with one hundred rifles and a thousand pounds of gunpowder. Dinesen also provides additional details about the emir’s puritanism, legal rulings and private life (pp. 80-82).

In L’Emir Abdelkader by Abdelaziz Ferrah, the author uses an imaginary dialogue with the emir as a device for getting inside his head. He makes it clear that the emir deeply regretted what happened (pp. 61-62). Ben Tahar was the cadi of Arzew, a much-respected scholar and friend of Muhi al-Din. His undoing was his failure to repent and repudiate his commitments to Boyer. According to an Arab source (Tulu’saad as suud, by Ismail el-Mazari) this was the first instance of eye gouging being used to torture a person, and the practice was never allowed by the emir, though what the Koran does permit would itself qualify as torture by most lights.

Abd el-Kader’s autobiography makes clear that dissension among the tribes was a greater problem than fighting the French. His tribal enemies were constantly spreading rumors that he was acting in bad faith, could not be trusted and had no authority.

Chapter Seven: Building an Islamic Nation

Dinesen is a useful source (pp. 61-84) on the organization of the emir’s nation building efforts and makes reference to his brother Mustafa’s opposition to his leadership. Denisen’s Danish memoir was discovered by the Algerian ambassador to Denmark in 19 — and translated by The Abdelkader Foundation in Algiers, at the urging of Idriss Jazairy, then president of the Foundation.

According to Denisen and Lamoricière (Emerit p.182), the rebellion against the emir by members of his own family was based on their hostility to his peace treaty with the Christians, bearing in mind that Arabs considered all Europeans, whether believers or not, to be Roumi — hence Christians. The Arab word for a Christian originates from the confounding of Romans and Christians following the conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity. After the fall of Rome, the Roman association with Christianity was maintained by the Holy Roman Empire, which gave rise to the claim of moral supremacy by the Papacy under Pope Gregory VII (1073-1085). The so-called Holy Roman Empire was created by disgruntled lords and clerics to reform a Catholic Church which had fallen into an appalling state of fragmentation, chaos and debauchery (R.R.Palmer, p.33-34; History of the Modern World).

Quoting Palmer: “In this world people have no nationality, they do not live in a state; they live in a church. Society itself is a great religious community (Umma-like). Its leaders are clergy to which all educated people belong…all are living in the religious community and preparing their souls for eternal life.” Gregory’s ideal was not a “world state” rather a “spiritual counterpart under the discipline of a centralized, morally reformed Papacy that would judge and guide human actions.” Indeed, the consciousness of medieval Europe modeled Islamic consciousness before the intrusion of European concepts of nationality in the 19th century.

Churchill, chapter five, p.94 (of French version), quotes the emir’s discourse to the Beni Amer chiefs in the mosque after signing Desmichels treaty. The number of 15,000 horseman comes from Churchill, and represents about the maximum the emir ever fielded at once. For excerpts of letters from the emir to the Comte d’Erlon, see Aouli et. al. (chapter nine).

For more details on the organization of the emir’s army, his Autobiography pp. 76-80 reveals more details than those in found in Churchill.

Chapter Eight: The Wheel Turns

For the battle of Machta and the aftermath, Denisen pp. 90-93. There is a considerable discrepancy between Dinesen and Churchill about the number of troops involved on both sides. Churchill cites 5,000 French infantry versus the 2,500 mentioned by Dinesen. Dinesen credits Abd el-Kader with having 10,000 cavalry and 2,000 infantry at the start of the three-day battle that began in the Moulay Forest, whereas Churchill reports only 2,000 cavalry and 800 regular infantry. It is likely the discrepancy arises from Dinesen using French sources, which would be prone to exaggerate the size of the opposing forces, and in Churchill, the emir doing likewise in overestimating the size of the French forces.

Dinesen did not begin his service with the French until 1837, two years after the battle, though many of his sources must have come from French soldiers who served at the time, as his memoir was published twenty years before Churchill’s. It is unfortunate that his book (in the translated version) does not contain any bibliography. His memoir was especially appreciated by The Abdelkader Foundation located in Algiers, in large measure because it lacked the sneering attitude of many French writers toward Arabs and Arab culture. The author’s admiration of the emir was untainted by the condescension and incomprehension often found in the French writings. French authors, even those admiring of the emir’s generalship, had difficulty imagining a leader who was not only devoutly and sincerely immersed in his faith, but for whom defending that faith was the equivalent of a Frenchman defending his country. To a Frenchman and most Europeans and Americans, then and still today, to die for one’s religion is “fanaticism,” while to die for one’s country is noble patriotism.

The scene of the piles of French heads and the emir’s reaction is described in Churchill (p. 104). Churchill and Pellissier de Reynaud are the main sources for details of Clauzel’s punitive expedition to Mascara and subsequent occupation of Tlemcen.

Chapter Nine: “He Looked Like Jesus Christ”

Dinesen is believed to have been among those soldiers mustered for the ceremony at Tafna. His tour with the French Army of Africa was from 1837 to 1839. His account of the encounter between the emir and Bugeaud (Abd-el-Kader , pp. 134-137) is one of the most detailed with only minor differences from that of Azan and Churchill. Dinesen’s description of the emir appears to be based on Bugeaud’s own report to the Minister of War. Unlike many of the French accounts of this event, Dinesen describes the encounter as the birth of a nation. To some Algerians, this makes him an ally of those who see the emir as a proto-nationalist, prefiguring a secular state. Others would argue that he was foremost an Islamic Arab nationalist whom today would be called an “Islamist,” which is what the emir would likely call himself as well. Organizing his revived Arab nation according to the dictates of Islamic law was certainly a given, regardless of the label contemporary partisans of the debate assign to the emir.

Chapter Ten: An Uneasy Peace

Marcel Emerit gives us the most thorough account of the Menonville-Zaccar episode (pp. 155-167 in l’Algérie à l’Epoche d’Abd-el-Kader). By adopting the mantle of Commander of the Faithful, the emir’s authority was rooted in confrontation with the infidel invaders. Azan, Warnier and others saw this as the flaw in the emir’s authority. (Yet, what other mantle was there for a marabout?) Peace was problematic because it required the emir to punish other Muslims in the name of an authority which was not accepted by those who did not want to be part of the emir’s new state, did not believe in his divine calling, or simply saw no reason for paying taxes in peacetime. The emir saw treaties as intervals of French weakness that gave him an opportunity to strengthen his nascent confederation and prepare for new hostilities.

Chapter Eleven: The Emir’s Frenchman

Leon Roche’s account of his years living with the emir is thought by many to be a self-serving and unreliable source, as he wrote his memoirs after being employed as Gen. Bugeaud’s trusted secretary and interpreter. Was he actually a spy as Ben Allal, one of the emir’s caliphs believed immediately, or was he a romantic adventurer and rogue? He may well have been both. He had worked as a translator for the French army to quench his heart, inflamed by the loss of Khadija. It is not impossible to imagine that his obsession with Khadija became known within the army, as he undoubtedly talked about his loss with colleagues. This may have led to his being recruited to serve French interests while engaged in his quixotic escapade. If he was in fact a spy, the secret was well kept among the French officer corps who viewed him suspiciously long after he crossed back into French lines and had proven himself useful to Bugeaud.

It is assumed his memoir was self serving (they all are), yet it also reflected a deep respect for the emir, one that continued well after Abd el-Kader was released from prison. There is no question that his experience living tooth by jowl with the emir yielded highly valuable knowledge for the French military, but his two-volume memoir should be labeled: “Use with Caution.”

Chapter Twelve: Jihad, 1839-1840

Emerit, Roches, Churchill provide the principal sources for this chapter. Marcel Emerit (L’Algérie à l’epoche…) is particularly useful, as his work is actually an edited collection of original documents, most of them reports from French officers to their superiors. The description of the meeting between Commander de Salles and the emir to obtain his approval of the agreement signed by his minister Miloud Ben Arrach is drawn from in his report to Marshal Valée (pp. 168-172). Pellissier de Reynaud (pp. 366-67) Annales, Livre xxix, is the source for the emir’s response to Valee’s appeal to keep the peace after sending a column through the disputed territory.

Chapter Thirteen: Total War

The best source for the account of the prisoner exchange and the meeting between abbé Suchet and the emir can be found in Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, vol. 14 ( pp. 81-111) published in 1842 in Lyon. It contains a letter of September 10, 1841, from Suchet to the vicar-general of Algiers that is a fascinating piece of cultural reportage from a man who was protected only by his cleric’s robes and the emir’s aman as he roamed about in territory that was officially hostile. It has been now been issued as a reprint and is readily available in the bishopric’s library in Algiers. Suchet’s Lettres curieuses et édifiantes sur l’Algérie (Cahier no. 3, reprinted in diocesan bimonthly Rencontres July/ Aug, 2002) with the Centre d’Etudes Diocésain d’Alger is full of fascinating first hand descriptions of the country and people by this hardy man of God.

Adrien Berbrugger’s memoir published under the title Négotiations entre Mgr l’évêque d’Alger et Abd-el-Kader pour l’échange des prisonniers (Delahaye, Paris, 1844) provides a detailed description of the first negotiation to exchange prisoners between the emir’s caliph, Mohammed Ben Allal Sidi Embarek and Bishop Dupuch in Boufarik. Bugeaud’s philosophy of warfare required to achieve victory and lasting benefit for France is contained in Par L’Epée et Par le Charrue, écrits et Discours de Bugeaud (esp. no. 27). These writings can be found in a collection entitled Colonies et Empires, les classiques de la colonization, published under the direction of Ch-André Julien in 1948, by Presses Universitaires de France.

Chapter Fourteen: Trail of Tears, 1843

There are many accounts of the capture of the smala, but perhaps the most complete, from the French point of view, is contained in Edmound Jouhaud’s book Yousouf (Editions Robert Lafont, pp. 94-110), the celebrated Mamelouk slave who rose to be a general in the French Army of Africa. Aside from Lamoricière, Yusuf was the emir’s most-dangerous opponent in this war of rapid movement and cultural savoir faire. I am grateful to Mohammed Ben Allal for drawing my attention to Mustafa Lacheraf ’s book, L’Algérie: Nation et Sociétié (Editions Francois Maspero, 1965), which contains excerpts from General Changarnier’s memoirs citing the failed attempts of the French to pry away Ben Allal from the emir (pp.104-105). Mohammed Ben Allal, a direct descendent of the caliph, is the family historian and today lives in his ancestral villa in Kolea.

Chapter Fifteen: Mischief Makers, 1844-1847

Correspondence between the emir and his caliph, Ben Salem, is found in Churchill (pp. 250-253 of French version). Churchill’s chapter eighteen describes the Bou Maza phenomenon and its fallout. Perhaps the best material on Lieutenant Col. Montagnac, his unauthorized sortie that led to the French setback at Sidi Brahim, the disagreements between Ben Thami and Bou Hamidi and subsequent massacre of French prisoners is found in Paul Azan’s monograph, Sidi Brahim, published by Horizons de France, Paris, 1945. The exchange between an indignant Bugeaud and a worldly-wise emir is found in Aouli, Redjala and Zoummeroff (p. 377). The Bou Maza phenomenon is taken from Wilfrid Blunt, The Caged Hawk, chapter eighteen.

Chapter Sixteen: Men of Honor

Aouli, Redjala, Zoummeroff provided the curious detail about Ben Salem’s son, Cherif, who was studying in France and persuaded his father to quit the fight (p. 378). The same authors give a more detailed accounts (pp. 379-383) of the emir’s relationship with Sultan Abderrahman; also the tenacious resistance of the Beni Amer, who having defected to the sultan, later sided again with the emir, and the Abd el-Kader’s stunning victory against a much larger Moroccan force on the Moulouya River (reminiscent of Bugeaud’s victory at Isly against much larger forces). Churchill, chapter twenty, provides the basis for virtually all other accounts of the encounter with Lamoricière, Montauban and the Duc d’Aumale at Djemaa Ghazaouet.

Chapter Seventeen: Betrayal

Vista Clayton (The Phantom Caravan pp. 240-49), drawing upon Azan, describes the family members and companions of the emir, as well as the crossing to Toulon, Daumas’ attempts to bribe the emir to release France from the agreement made with the Duc d’Aumale. Julien provides the detail about the Europeans who were married to Arabs in the Emir’s entourage (Histoire de l’Algérie Contemporaine, p. 207) surprising Col MacMahon. Bruno Etienne (pp. 221-229) and Aouli et. al. (pp. 389-407) provide additional details about their reception at Fort Lamalgue. Charles Poncey’s account of his visit with the emir in Toulon is found in le Bulletin Trimestriel de la Société des Sciences, Belles Lettres et Arts of the department of the Var, 1850, no. 4. In his preamble, Poncey reports the emir having three wives when he arrived in Toulon (Kheira, Baraka, Aicha) and acknowledges that the emir’s brother-in-law, Ben-Thami was the executioner of the French prisoners.

Chapter Eighteen: The View Is Most Magnificent

The reactions of the locals to the news that their cherished Chateau Pau would have the Arab prisoners living in it came from the archives of the Chateau Pau museum. Many details of his occupation were also presented in documents compiled for a colloquium about the emir in 2004. One of the documents was a transcription of Madame la Marechale de Grouchy’s note about her visit to the chateau to see the famous prisoner and his family.

Chapter Nineteen: A Prison Fit for a King

Etienne is good at weaving in the emir’s spiritual state of mind (pp. 228-244) during his captivity, bringing out the intense religious dialogue with Christians that he carries on; Aouli, Redjala, Zoummeroff (pp. 409-424).

The visit, and politics thereof, of the Marquis of Londonderry’s meeting with the emir is in Wilfrid Blunt, The Caged Hawk (pp. 244-47). The journal, La Semaine, (no.4, February, 2004) provides an accounting of the emir’s entourage and list of all who died at Amboise, as well as general conditions at the chateau — mostly derived from Charles Gabeau, one of the team of military interpreters and admirer of the emir.

Chapter Twenty: Liberation

Churchill and Alexander Bellemare, the emir’s new interpreter in Paris, provide the primary sources for most of the standard narrative. Etienne and Aouli add various embellishments.

Chapter Twenty-One: The Emir’s Letter

The excerpt of emir’s letter of gratitude to Sister Natalie was found in the brochure L’Emir Abd El-Kader à Amboise, prepared by J-L Sureau and A. Feulvarc’h for the archives of the Dominicans of the Grande Bretèche in Tours. His more philosophical letter, known as Lettre aux Francais, has been republished most recently (2007) by Phébus with a preface by Antoine Sfeir, a well-known French specialist on Middle Eastern politics, and introduction by René Khawam, the translator of the letter.

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Road to Damascus

Mount Lebanon: A Ten Year’s Residence from 1842-1852 Vol.I, is very instructive of both the local culture complexities and Churchill’s own personality, which reflects in equal measure his learned and colorfully opinionated views. The Balkans Since 1453 (Holt Reinhardt, 1961) by L.S. Stavrianos is a useful textbook, especially for the post Crimean War period and the interplay of European and local interests in the Middle East (chapter seventeen, p. 320, for British trade data). Again, C-H Churchill, chapter twenty-three, on “correcting” and Syrian Christian gloating in the aftermath of the Treaty of Paris.

Chapter Twenty-Three: One For All

Bellemare (Abd-el-Kader, pp. 222-230) provides one of the most detailed accounts of the emir’s role in the events of July (and that of his sons and fellow Algerians) and Lanusse’s confidence in his warnings despite the skepticism of his peers and smooth denials of the governor. On the aftershock, punishments and causes, M. Mechaga’s memoir (Murder, Mayhem…pp. 244-270, translated by W.Thackston) was very useful as a source of insight into the political climate and motives of different actors in the drama. Also New York Times on-line archives yielded copies of stories it published in the 1860s until the emir’s death.

The controversial (among Muslims) subject of Abd el-Kader’s membership in the Masons (Grand Orient de France, or GODF) can be resolved to a large extent, I believe, by clarifying what “membership” entailed. It is clear that the emir was not a regular participant at lodge meetings whether in Cairo or in Damascus, or anywhere. He enjoyed intellectual exchange with other Masons which took place most often on the comfortable divans at his residence in Damascus. Even if his membership was purely “honorific,” it was still real. He is officially inscribed in the registers of the GODF in Paris and its affiliate in Damascus. He is listed in the book Ten Thousand Famous Masons (Macoy Publishing & Masonic Supply Co, with a Foreword by Harry S Truman, 1957) compiled by William Denslow and can be found on line. There were few Jews and no Zionist agenda at the time of the emir’s recruitment into the society. Educated Muslims (outside the emir’s family) I have spoken with, including Algerians, acknowledge that members of Masonic Lodges in the Middle East generally constituted an intellectual elite who could freely exchange ideas in confidence, nor are they shocked at the idea of the emir belonging to a lodge. The issue is mainly one of contemporary politics and “image.” (See T. Zarcone, Mystiques, Philosophes et Francs-Macons en Islam, p. 232.)

Chapter Twenty-Four: Distinguished Misfits

Portraits of Sir Richard Burton and Lady Jane Digby rely on Byron Farwell’s Burton and Fawn Brodie’s The Devil Drives for the former, and Leslie Blanch’s The Wilder Shores of Love for the latter. Isabel Burton’s memoir, The Inner Life of Syria, was the main source for contextual flavor as well as the close relationship between Digby and Abd el-Kader.

According to Setty Simon-Khedis, the emir had five wives at the time of his death — Khadijah, mother of Omar; Aicha, mother of Sakina; Shafika, mother of Abdelmalek; Mabroukah (an Ethiopian or Sudanese), mother of Abdallah and Kheira, his cousin and favorite wife.