Mohammed ibn al-Sharif

Sidi Mohammed ibn al-Sharif was the eldest son of Moulay Sharif, founder of the Alawite line, and ruler of Tafilalt: he took up its government from 1636 and was crowned emir on 23 April 1640, and he was killed on 2 August 1664 at the battle of Angad.¹² The Arabic article describes him as a Sufi — the only characterisation of his personal religion in the texts read, and, standing alone, it settles no value in his record — and as the eldest of al-Sharif ibn Ali's sons.³ No article gives his birth year.¹²

Mohammed took up Tafilalt's government from 1636 while his father still lived — withdrawn, then a captive of Abu Hasun al-Simlali, master of the Draa and the Sous: he stormed Tabouasamt by night, bought his father's freedom in 1637 with a huge sum, and drove Abu Hasun's partisans out of Sijilmasa.¹ The Arabic article records that the people of Sijilmasa swore him allegiance in 1050 AH, in his father's lifetime, with the consent of the men of binding and loosing.³

After his coronation as emir in 1640 he defeated Abu Hasun and annexed the Draa, then took Oujda and became sultan of Tafilalt; in 1647 a treaty with the Ottomans of Algiers fixed the two states' border at the Tafna river, and his eastern expedition took the emirate of Tuat in 1652, while his raids reached the region of Tlemcen.¹² Against the Dila zawiya he fought long wars, among them the battle of El Qa'a in 1646, where the Dilaites defeated him and sacked Sijilmasa.²³

The English article quotes the men of the Dila zawiya, his longtime rivals, describing him as a very gyrfalcon, insensible to the simoom of the night and the heat of the summer sun, of famous bravery and solid build, whom none could withstand hand to hand; the historian Mohammed al-Ifrani also described him as a generous man.¹

After his father's death in 1659, rivalry broke out between him and his brother Moulay Rashid; the armies met on the Angad plain by the Beni Snassen on 2 August 1664, and Moulay Mohammed was killed by a bullet in the neck at the hands of his brother's troops, and al-Rashid succeeded him in Tafilalt.¹²³