“Our Sultan Must Preserve His Religion, Just as You Preserve Your Own”: Al-Ghazzāl and the Re-Forging of Islamic Diplomacy in Eighteenth-Century Morocco

Abstract

Aḥmed al-Ghazzāl served as the Moroccan court’s diplomatic negotiator with Spain between 1766 and 1775. In this role, he communicated regularly with his Spanish counterpart, the Marqués de Grimaldi, leaving behind nearly forty official letters, an unparalleled number in the Moroccan royal archives – the Mudīriyyat al-Wathā’iq al-Malakiyya (MWM). Nevertheless, al-Ghazzāl’s career is consistently overshadowed by his abrupt dismissal from the court of Muḥammad III (r. 1757–1790). Putting into conversation al-Ghazzāl’s letters and a riḥla (travelogue) he composed, in which he describes his 1766 mission to Spain, this article reconsiders al-Ghazzāl’s role in articulating Moroccan diplomatic practice and thought through his advocacy for commensurable inter-religious diplomacy. It demonstrates that a focus on al-Ghazzāl’s Islamic conceptual frameworks and terminologies offers a way to explore non-European diplomatic practices, shedding light on a more diverse group of early modern diplomatic thinkers.