Rule
He ruled from 1672 to 1727 succeeding his half-brother Moulay Al-Rashid who died after a fall from his horse. The then twenty-six year old Moulay Ismaïl inherited a country weakened by internal tribal wars and royal successions. Meknes, the capital city he built, is sometimes called the "Versailles of Morocco", because of its extravagance. Some of the stones were plundered from the ancient Roman ruins at Volubilis.
He has also been given the epithet "The bloodthirsty" for his legendary cruelty. In order to intimidate rivals, Ismail ordered that his city walls be adorned with 10,000 heads of slain enemies. Legends of the ease in which Ismail could behead or torture laborers or servants he thought to be lazy are numerous. Within the 20 years of Ismail's rule, it is estimated 30,000 people died.
During Moulay Ismaïl's reign, Morocco's capital city was moved from Fez to Meknes. Like his contemporary King Louis XIV of France, Moulay Ismail began construction of an elaborate imperial palace and other monuments.
In 1682 he sent Mohammed Tenim as an ambassador to Louis XIV, and he even made an offer of marriage to Louis XIV's beautiful legitimised daughter Marie Anne de Bourbon. Marie Anne refused.
Read more about this topic: Ismail Ibn Sharif
Famous quotes containing the word rule:
“The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.”
—Diogenes of Sinope (c. 410–c. 320 B.C.)
“Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“Your discovery of the contradiction caused me the greatest surprise and, I would almost say, consternation, since it has shaken the basis on which I intended to build my arithmetic.... It is all the more serious since, with the loss of my rule V, not only the foundations of my arithmetic, but also the sole possible foundations of arithmetic seem to vanish.”
—Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)