Abd al-Qdir, al-amr (Emir Abd el-Kader) (1808-1883)

Abd al-Qdir ibn Muyi al-Dn al-asan, Algerian leader of resistance to the French

conquest in 1832-47, state-builder, scholar, and mystical thinker, was born in 1223/1808, or

according to some sources, 1222/1807, at Guetna ta Oued el-Hammam (the qayna, little

settlement, of wdi al-ammm) near Mascara (al-Muaskar) in western Algeria. His father,

Muyi al-Dn ibn Muf, was the regional head of the Qdiriyya arqa (Sufi brotherhood),

and as a spiritual notability claiming the status of sharfs by descent from the Prophet through

the Idrissids of Fez, the family enjoyed considerable spiritual and genealogical prestige in the

region. Educated as a young man by leading religious scholars and initially destined,

apparently by portents revealed to his father as well as by his own disposition, to a scholarly

and religious vocation,Abd al-Qdir accompanied his father on pilgrimage to Mecca and

Medina in 1826, visiting Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad. But the French assault on Algiers in

June-July 1830, and the tumult into which the country was thrown following the destruction

of the Ottoman deylik (regency), brought urgent new priorities.

In the early stages of the French conquest, western Algeria was torn between

destabilised local hierarchies, with rural revolts breaking out among formerly subject (raaya)

tribes against the former auxiliaries of the Ottoman makhzen (state), and urban lites,

especially in the principal city of Tlemen (Tilimsn), seeking protection from the Moroccan

sultan. Acting in the name of the sultan, after a brief Moroccan occupation of Tlemen was

withdrawn early in 1832, Muyi al-Dn attempted to unite resistance to the French, and on 5

Rajab 1248/22 November 1832, he passed leadership to Abd al-Qdir who was acclaimed as

amr al-muminn (commander of the faithful) near Mascara, and received the baya (oath of

allegiance) from tribal leaders, ulam (scholars) and urban notables there a few months later.
 Abd al-Qdir sought to re-establish order and unite the population under a formally

recognised sovereignty expressed as guaranteeing the rule of law, the protection of persons

and property, and the integrity of Muslim territory against foreign encroachment. Negotiating

a precarious position for his emirate between the authority of the Moroccan sultan and of the

ulam of Fez, the remnants of the Ottoman beylik, the Algerian tribes inland, and the French

on the coast, Abd al-Qdir succeeded between 1832 and 1839 in establishing a state

covering some two-thirds of Algeria in the west and centre of the country, administered

through regional khalfas (deputies), building up the basis of industries in arms and

munitions, and creating a new model (nizam-i cedid) style army to enforce his authority.

This was made possible by successive agreements reached with the French in the Desmichels

(26 February 1834) and Tafna (30 May 1837) treaties, by which French commanders sought

to secure Abd al-Qdirs recognition of French sovereignty and his establishment as a

subordinate, allied ruler of the tribes who could keep order in the interior of the country and

allow the progress of colonisation. For Abd al-Qdir, conversely, the agreements contained

the French presence to coastal enclaves around Algiers and Oran, and appeared to give him

freedom of action across most of the country as well as effective control of foreign trade and

access to arms supplies. These diplomatic successes were achieved in a context of military

stalemate, in which the Algerians could not defeat French armies in pitched battle or secure

cities against them, but the French could not maintain their own over-extended positions

against the Algerians mobile guerilla forces. Establishing a capital deep inland at Tagdempt

on the edge of the steppe, Abd al-Qdir bought time to consolidate his rule, build up his

forces and rally support. But in late October 1839, French troops linked up their territory in

eastern Algeria, newly conquered after the fall of Constantine in October 1837, with Algiers,

crossing territory that Abd al-Qdir, on the basis of the Tafna treaty, had consistently

considered to be his. The ensuing hostilities led the French to adopt a policy of absolute
conquest, seeking to destroy Abd al-Qdirs state by attacking the basis of the Algerian

populations livelihood and forcing an unconditional surrender. Increasing the size of the

French army in Algeria from sixty thousand to over one hundred thousand men between 1841

and 1846, the Governor-General, Thomas-Robert Bugeaud, occupied urban centres and

adopted a policy of flying columns that ravaged the countryside.

After the destruction of his zmala (mobile capital) in May 1843, Abd al-Qdir pursued

his guerilla campaign from northern Morocco, where he was supported by the local

population as a mujhid (fighter for the faith). The sultan, Mawlay Abd al-Ramn (r.1822-

59) could not but be drawn into the war, but his army was defeated by Bugeaud in a pitched

battle on the border at the Wadi Sly (Isly) near Oujda on 14 August 1844, and the French

navy bombarded the ports of Essaouira and Tangier. The Moroccans were obliged to seek

peace, and Abd al-Qdirs continued prosecution of cross-border warfare from Moroccan

territory became increasingly destabilising for the sultanate. Between 1844 and 1847, a war

of words between the amr, claiming to pursue legitimate jihd but accused of spreading

disorder and corruption, and the sultan, accused of betraying the resistance but claiming to act

as a properly legitimate ruler (who alone held the prerogative to declare jihd) in the interests

of the state and community, escalated into civil war. Obliged to return to Algeria, Abd al-

Qdir surrendered to the French on 23 December 1847.

The terms of surrender promised Abd al-Qdir safe conduct to Alexandria or Acre, but

he was instead taken, along with his household and retainers, into captivity in France, first at

Toulon, then in Pau and, from 1848 to 1852, at the chteau dAmboise in the Loire. Released

by the Prince-President Louis-Napoleon (soon to become emperor Napoleon III) in October

1852, the amr sailed to Bursa, where he lived from 1852-55, before settling in Damascus.

Here at last, supported by a pension from the French government and integrated into the

distinguished notability of the city, Abd al-Qdir was able to devote himself to learning,
mysticism, reflection and writing. Although often considered an epilogue to his eventful

political career, it was in many respects in the last thirty years of his life that his most

profound work was accomplished. Already, while in France, he had composed a short,

autobiographical account of his pilgrimage and campaigns, and al-Miqr al-dd li-qa

lisn muntaqi dn al-islm bil-bil wal-ild (The Sharp Scissors, for Cutting the Tongue

of him who Disparages Islam with Falsehood and Heresy), a polemical exposition of reason,

morality, and proofs of Gods existence. In Bursa, he followed this with Dhikr al-qil wa-

tanbh al-ghfil (A Reminder to the Wise and Caution to the Heedless), sometimes known

as Lettre aux Franais, a treatise on contemplative and canonical knowledge addressed to the

president of the Parisian Socit asiatique and published in a French translation in 1858.

Other more minor works included his military regulations drawn up for his new army corps

in Algeria (which notably included stringent directives for the proper treatment of prisoners

of war), a corpus of poetry, and an exchange of letters with the French army officer and early

ethnologist, Eugne Daumas, on Arab horses. But in Damascus he produced his most

important work, Kitb al-mawqif fi l-taawwuf wal-wa wal-irshd (The Book of

Stations in Sufism, in Counsel and in Guidance), a work of Sufi reflection and, on Abd al-

Qdirs own account, of divinely inspired commentary on the Qurn and adth. Influenced

by, and often commenting on or elucidating, the Akbri mystical tradition of Ibn Arab and

especially the latters Futt makkiyya (Meccan Revelations), the Mawqif has been

considered one of the greatest modern works of Islamic mysticism. It can be seen as the

pinnacle of his spiritual and intellectual career.

It is emblematic of the way in which the amrs spiritual and political legacies were

both, already in lifetime, bound up in competing political claims that his intellectual and

philosophical work in Damascus has often been eclipsed by his actions there in defence of the

citys Christians during the riots and massacre of 1860. Several thousand people, including
the European diplomatic community, were sheltered by the amr and his entourage, and Abd

al-Qdir himself faced down the mob, remonstrating with them for acting against Gods law.

Claimed by one biographer as evidence of his passage from Islamic fanaticism to French

patriotism, in fact this action, which made Abd al-Qdir a celebrity in Europe and America,

was entirely consistent, not contrasting, with the deeply learned and canonical approach to his

faith that had sustained his whole life. He died in Damascus on 26 May 1883, and was buried,

according to his wishes, next to the tomb of Ibn Arabi. Celebrated by the French as an

emblem of their civilising influence in the Arab world, by the 1940s the amr had become a

symbol of Algerian nationalism. In July 1966, his remains were repatriated to Algeria and

ceremonially re-interred in the martyrs square of el-Alia cemetery near Algiers.

Bibliography

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(Paris, 1925)

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