Cast in Stone

Media metadata | Métadonnées multimédias

Abdelkader ibn Muhieddine

has biography | a une biographie

Abdelkader ibn Muhieddine was born in El Guettana, near Mascara in Algeria, on September 6, 1808. Coming from a family of scholars, he excelled in his studies. French troops took Algiers in 1830 and arrived in Oran in 1831. Abd el Kader and his father participated in the first battles against the invasion. In 1832, Abd el Kader was named sultan by the western tribes, and took on the title of emir. He established himself as an essential interlocutor of the French army and negotiated treaties through which he increased his influence in Algeria. As France's strategy and objectives in Algeria changed during the 1830s, Abd el Kader became a target, due to his resistance to French colonization. Marshal Bugeaud conquered his original town of Mascara in 1841. After a period in Morocco, Abd el Kader defeated the French army at the Battle of Sidi-Brahim in 1845. In 1847, Abd el Kader surrendered to the French army , to General Louis de Lamoricière, and negotiated his exile in Islamic territories. The French government went back on this clause, and imprisoned Abd el Kader and his entourage in France: in Toulon, Pau, and finally in Amboise, from 1848 to 1852. Twenty-seven members of his entourage died in Amboise during their captivity. Abd el Kader was released by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1852, on condition that he took an oath to abandon his anti-colonial struggle in Algeria. Abd el Kader then left for Turkey and then Syria, where he distinguished himself as a defender of religious peace and through his philosophical writings. He died in Damascus on May 26, 1883. His memory was used differently by different regimes, sometimes to justify French colonization with the image of a sovereign accepting his defeat, sometimes to build a national narrative of Algerian unity after the country’s independence.

was born | est né

6 September 1808

died in | est mort par

26 May 1883

has nationality | a la nationalité

Algeria

has type | est de type

depicted

is referred to by | est référencé par

Faucourt, Camille et Hudowicz, Florence (dir.), Abd el-Kader, Paris, Errance et Actes Sud, 2022.