By: Jabrail Gadgiev (Imam Shamil Library)

Recently, social media has experienced a wave of hysteria over the arrival of migrants into Cueta, an autonomous city owned by Spain, bordering Morocco.

On the one hand, the typical white nationalist slop is being propped up in order to once more downplay the inevitable self-inflicted demographic collapse due to the Europe-invented liberal ideology.

On the other, eyebrows have been raised in regards to the true motive behind these recent events. The sudden territorial dispute over the North African city began at a time when Spain was already under fire by the Western media, even if the Muslim world does have a rightful claim over said territory.

Indeed, Spain’s disposition towards Israel has been overtly oppositional, while Morocco has been warming up to the Zionist establishment more and more over the years. This sorry state of affairs has proven to be a pattern for many Muslim nations in the neocolonial matrix, but it was certainly not always how things were.

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In some ways, the Moroccan sultanate of the late 19th century was already detached from the rest of the Muslim world in the east, which was under Ottoman authority. Dogged insistence at professing independence through driving out any and all Turkish presence within the borders of Morocco persisted over centuries, with both Istanbul and Fez ultimately claiming the title of the seat of the Khilāfah. Because of this simultaneous claim to leadership of the believers, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, sultans of the Sharīfian dynasty refused any official diplomatic relationship with the ‘Sublime Porte’:

“In practical terms, this refusal to enter into relations with the Ottoman regime … meant that the only possible contacts between the two were unofficial and quasi-secret.”[1]

This was less of a problem for Morocco when the gears of Ottoman expansion had begun to slow down by the 17th and 18th centuries, but by that point both states were facing a greater enemy at their doorstep in the form of the colonial empires.

The situation had become dire by the late 1800s, as the French had already made inroads into Algeria and Tunisia. The administration of the sultan Abdülhamid II (رَحِمَهُ ٱللَّٰهُ) attempted to begin a relationship with the Makhzan (Moroccan government), but to no avail.

This would occur multiple more times, and each time Abdülhamid was rebuffed by his Moroccan counterpart. While this occurred, the ʿUlamāʾ of Morocco began to undergo disillusionment with the monarchy that maintained no relationship with the fellow Muslim Ottomans while entertaining European embassies.

It is here that the hero of our story, the Mujāhid ʿĀlim Shaykh Muḥammad Bin ʿAbd al-Kabīr al-Kattānī (رَحِمَهُ ٱللَّٰهُ), comes into the picture.

The Makhzan would initially ignore the growing pressure from the side of the Ottoman caliphate and continue attempting to develop relationships with Europe, under what seems to be the flawed assumption that they would avoid being colonized by doing so.

By 1904, the French had launched a diplomatic offensive aiming to secure protectorateship over Morocco. In a testament to the influence and respect the traditional religious establishments held across all echelons of premodern Islamic society, al-Kattānī and a body of scholars from the city of Fez felt obligated to speak out. Drawing up a comparison for the Moroccan sultan ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz with sultan Abdülhamid, who was skillfully drawing the line in regards to European meddling;

“… the Moroccan sultan (on the other hand) was compromising away the independence of his country. Specifically, al-Kattānī and his supporters urged that the makhzan dismiss all its European advisors (most of whom were French), and replace them with Arabic-speaking Muslims from the Near East (Ottoman territories) …”[2]

The French, alarmed at this sudden act of resistance, requested aid from the British and put pressure on ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz to not move forward with these demands. The Germans intervened, leading to what is now known as the Algeciras Conference in 1905. This ended in a diplomatic failure for both Germany and Morocco, and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz would reinstate the European advisors and continue maintaining diplomatic ties to the West.

Around a year after the Algericas Conference ended, France would invade Morocco on the shores of Casablanca despite the sultan’s acquiescence to their previous demands.

During this conflict, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s brother ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ would attempt to overthrow the sultan and take the throne, with popular support through a campaign to abolish many un-Islamic institutions of the time:

“They cited grounds for his deposition: the imposition of burdensome taxes in place of the lawful alms (Zakāh), the establishment of a bank dealing in usury, and his permitting foreign influence to spread across Morocco. ”[3]

The ʿUlamāʾ of Fez including al-Kattānī would support the replacement of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz on this basis, with knowledge that Morocco was on the cusp of occupation by the disbelievers if no dramatic action was taken. Demonstrating the priorities of the Islamic leadership of the time, al-Kattānī would explicitly inscribe international Islamic unity into his drafting of demands in return for support for ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ:

“…

 

4. That foreigners (non-Muslims) not be consulted in the affairs of the nation.

 

5. Should necessity call for union or mutual support, let it be with our brothers of the House of Osman [the Ottomans] and the like among the remaining independent Islamic kingdoms.

 

…”[4]

Although ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s replacement proved successful, relations between ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ and al-Kattānī had already deteriorated.

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For starters, al-Kattānī refused to sanction armed violence and harsh treatment against the supporters of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who were also fellow Muslims. He also persisted in warning against weakening in the jihad against the enemy, sliding into the hands of the colonial apparatus, and disapproved of ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ’s opening of taverns and brothels. As historian Susan Miller surmised:

“By reinstating unpopular taxes, by adopting an ambivalent attitude toward jihad, and by failing to curtail European influence, ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ’s ambition to restore the prestige of the sultanate had the opposite effect.”[5]

ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ, for his part, increased in his distrust towards al-Kattānī due to his growing support among the local populace and insistence on jihad. In March of 1909, al-Kattānī was captured by the sultan and brutally murdered in front of his family:

“Taken to the palace, al-Kattānī’s band were punished in the cruelest manner possible, their hands cut off and the wounds rubbed with salt … the master himself was beaten before his wives and children until he expired, and his corpse was thrown into an unmarked grave …”[6]

A month later, al-Kattānī’s contemporary sultan Abdülhamid II was overthrown by the secular nationalistic Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), bringing his 30 year reign to a close. Thus, the potential for a unified Islamic Ummah to resist colonial encroachment came to a dramatic end.

Morocco would shortly thereafter fall to the French invaders, and the rest is history.

The story of pre-colonial Morocco and al-Kattānī’s martyrdom serves as a lesson for us today, and elucidates the importance of genuine scholarship, jihad on the path of Allah ﷻ and unity of the Muslim Ummah.

And Allah ﷻ knows best.

Notes

[1] Edmund Burke III, “Pan-Islam and Moroccan Resistance to French Colonial Penetration, 1900–1912,” Journal of African History 13, no. 1 (1972): 97–118. p. 102.

[2] Ibid, p. 106.

[3] Rashid Boutarbouch, “‘Ulamā’ Nāṣiḥūn: Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Kabīr al-Kattānī (2/1)” [Advising Scholars: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Kabir al-Kattani (2/1)], al-Jamā’a, accessed August 7, 2026, https://web.archive.org/web/20170116210640/http://www.aljamaa.net/ar/document/8600.shtml.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Susan Gilson Miller, A History of Modern Morocco (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 78.

[6] Ibid, p. 68-69.