Moulay Slimane

Mawlay Sulayman bin Mohammed, known as Moulay Slimane (28 June 1766 – 28 November 1822), was the Alawite sultan of Morocco from 1792 to 1822 ¹. A son of Sultan Muhammad III, he continued his father's centralisation of the kingdom, ended the piracy that had long operated from Morocco's coast, and reversed his father's open commercial policy towards Europe while keeping close relations with the United States ¹.

Sulayman was born to Sidi Mohammed III and one of his wives, a lady of the Ahlaf tribe ¹. His father took significant care over his religious education: he memorised the Qur'an in a zawiya at Safi, studied the biography of the Prophet ﷺ at Ksar al-Kabir, and in Tafilalt from 1783 was taught by exceptional ulama of Fez such as Abd al-Qadir bin Shaqrun and Hamdun bin al-Hajj ¹. The Arabic article adds that his first teacher of the Qur'an was the reciter Abd al-Wahhab Ajana at Safi, that the jurist Hamdun bin al-Hajj was appointed his tutor, and that Moroccan historians agreed he was the son dearest to his father's heart for his devotion to learning; his father is quoted as saying of him that nothing displeasing had ever reached him from Sulayman, and that he was content with him ². He had great respect for the Shari'a ¹.

When his half-brother al-Yazid died at Marrakesh on 17 February 1792, the people of Fez offered Sulayman the throne in March; he accepted on condition that he would not have to fight his brothers, though the ensuing struggle lasted until 1795 and in part until 1798 ^{1 2}. He recovered Oujda and the eastern provinces from the Ottomans in 1798, and the inhabitants of Tuat agreed to pay taxes to the sultan in 1800, extending the Makhzen's authority southwards ¹. In Marrakesh he rebuilt the Ali bin Yusuf Mosque entirely, completing it by 1819 or 1820 ¹.

When news of the French invasion of Egypt and Syria reached Morocco in 1798, with reports of French soldiers looting and abusing the Egyptian population, Sulayman reversed his father's overseas trade policy: commercial ties with Europe were reduced, foreign businessmen were encouraged to leave, and the sultan turned to the Moroccan heartland, extracting the traditional Qur'anic taxes, zakat and ushr ¹. Morocco declared war on the United States during the Tripolitan War in June 1802, but peace was restored in September 1803 when Edward Preble met the sultan at Tangier ¹. In 1821 he presented the United States with a two-storey mud and stone building in Tangier — the country's first acquired property abroad — which housed the American Legation and Consulate for 140 years ¹.

During his reign the Wahhabi movement reached Morocco: Saud ibn Abdulaziz sent letters explaining his call to the rulers of the Islamic countries, and his letter reached Sulayman in 1811 ¹. The Arabic article records that the sultan consulted his ulama and sent a scholarly delegation, with his son Ibrahim, to perform the Hajj and inspect the call at close quarters; the delegation debated with the scholars of the Haramayn and reported that what they had seen accorded with the outward Shari'a, after which the sultan wrote his celebrated letter denouncing excess in the respect paid to the dead ². Inspired by the revivalist movement, he used his authority to condemn music and dance in religious ceremonies and banned pilgrimages to saints' shrines and religious festivals, even having the dome over his father's grave removed in 1812 as excessive ornamentation ¹. Al-Nasiri reports that he wrote a book warning against the Sufis who, in his account, refuted the Sunna and supported innovation, explaining the proper manner of visiting the virtuous, and a sermon urging the oneness of God and condemning innovations, which he ordered distributed in all the Friday mosques, closing the Sufi prayer corners ¹.

In May 1819 the sultan led a great expedition against the Ait Umalu of the Middle Atlas; on the second day of battle his ally Muhammad bin al-Ghazi deserted to the enemy, the tribal contingents abandoned him, and Sulayman himself was captured — and, as a Sharif, shown every respect and released three days later ¹. Rebellions in Fez and Tetuan followed from 1820 to 1822, which he suppressed only with long sieges ¹. Defeated again near Marrakesh in 1822 and left with little power, he entrusted the ulama of Fez to proclaim his nephew Abd al-Rahman sultan after his death; the Arabic article preserves his written will, in which he chose Abd al-Rahman because, he wrote, he neither drank wine, nor committed adultery, nor lied, nor betrayed, nor shed blood or took property without cause ². Sulayman died on 28 November 1822, and Abd al-Rahman bin Hisham succeeded him ¹.

No source read names a legal school for the man himself, and Wikidata carries only the generic value Islam ³. The English article's text calls him a follower of Wahhabism, citing an 1857 bulletin, and its infobox files him as Sunni Islam (Wahhabism) ¹. His documented practice — the consultation of his ulama over Saud's letter, the scholarly delegation of 1811, his letter against excess in venerating the dead, his bans on shrine pilgrimages and on music and dance in ceremonies, the removal of his father's grave-dome, his treatise against Sufi practices and his sermon on God's oneness ^{1 2} — is stated in full in his record. The school of his Alawite court was Maliki; that is dynastic context, not a naming of the man's own school, so his faith is recorded as unknown.

His birthplace is given three ways — Tafilalt in the English article and the Urdu article's lead, Marrakesh in the Arabic article, and Fez in Wikidata and the Urdu infobox ^{4 3} — so his record carries no birth-place edge. The day itself is firm: the Arabic article's 20 Muharram 1180 AH converts exactly to the English article's 28 June 1766 ². His death at Marrakesh on 28 November 1822, paired by the Arabic article with 13 Rabi al-Awwal 1238 AH, is agreed by all three articles and Wikidata ³.