Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
up to his boss by offering his sister in marriage, only to lop off Abu Salim's head after the
wedding. He replaced Abu Salim with a Merenid patsy before thinking better of it and
strangling the new sultan, too. This slippery advisor was assassinated by another Merenid,
who was deposed a scant few years later by yet another Merenid - and so it continued for
40 years, with new Merenid rulers and advisors offing the incumbents every few years.
While the Merenids were preoccupied with murderous office politics in Meknès and Fez,
the Portuguese seized control of coastal Morocco.
Whatever happened to Barbary pirates? How did Islam mesh with Berber beliefs? And why
was Morocco the exception to Ottoman rule? Jamil Abun-Nasr unravels these and other Mo-
roccan mysteries in
A History of the Maghreb in the Islamic Period
.
