Anglo-Moroccan relations and the embassy of Ahmad Qardanash, 1706-1708

Local conditions and responses to European expansion were important in the 'interactive emergence of European domination'. However, the comparative lack of sources has tended to obscure what these were. In the early eighteenth century, Morocco was responding to the growth of English power in the Mediterranean; new sources presented here show how Alī b. Abd Allāh al-Hamāmī, one of Sultan Mawlāy Ismāīl's most powerful ministers, tried to co-operate with the English in order to manage their influence and consolidate his own political position. This offered them a potential means to overcome the obstacles that, compared to the North African regencies, made Morocco resistant to European political and economic influence. These efforts, however, were thwarted by a combination of factors. With al-Hamāmī's political credibility threatened, the development of co-operation between the English and a section of the Moroccan elite was undermined, leaving the fundamental dynamics of Anglo-Moroccan relations unchanged.