This month in Kickass Women it is my great pleasure to introduce you to Sayyida al Hurra, Islamic pirate queen. She was a woman so badass that her title (Sayyida al Hurra was technically her title, not her name) means “noble lady who is free and independent; the woman sovereign who bows to no superior authority.”
FUCK YEAH, IT DOES. I’m writing that on all my nametags from now on.
According to my best friend Wikipedia, her full name and title was Sayyida al-Hurra bint Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami, Hakimat Titwan. ‘Sayyida’ refers to the daughter of a descendent of Muhammad’ and is an honorific. ‘Hakimat’ means ‘ruler’ and ‘Titwan’ refers to Tetouan, Morocco. She lived from around 1485 to sometime after 1542 – the date and cause of her death are unknown.
She was born in Granada, Spain. When she was born, this was the last Muslim-ruled kingdom in Spain. When it fell during the Reconquista, her family fled to Morocco. She grew up in luxurious surroundings, but was haunted by the thought of the home they had lost. She married a much older man in an arranged marriage when she was sixteen. When her husband died, she became the governor of Tetouan. She married the King of Fes, and she insisted that her husband come to Tetouan to marry her instead of her joining him in Fes, and she continued to live and rule in Tetouan.
Sayyida al Hurra never stopped resenting Spain for overthrowing the Muslims in Granada. She teamed up with the Turkish pirate Barbarossa. His pirate fleet harassed the Spanish and Portuguese in the Eastern Mediterranean and her fleet took over the Western Mediterranean. Anyone who wanted to negotiate regarding prisoners had to deal with her, and she was respected as a leader by the Spanish Christians. She was popular with her own people, who enjoyed the wealth Sayyida’s pirates brought to the area.
Sayidda al Hurra ruled for thirty years. In 1542, her son-in-law overthrew her. We know that he took away her property and titles, but we don’t know what happened to her after that or when or how she died.
Below is one of my sources – a short but incredibly informative video. Enjoy!
Other sources (other than those linked above) included:
“Sayyid al Hurra, Beloved Avenging Islamic Pirate Queen,” by Laura Sook Duncombe for Pictorial
‘scuse me while I go share this with all my Muslim women friends. Most of them will cheer. A couple who have been fed the “women are weak” line will be inspired.
How have there been no books featuring her as heroine? This is vintage Bertrice Small material!
Anyone interested more kickass Muslim women of history needs to look up Noor Inayat Khan, who worked as a British radio operator for the French Resistance in WWII.
Just a few pedantic academic footnotes: modern Hispanists tend to avoid the term “Reconquista” unless used with heavy quotation marks, because the idea that it was a “re” conquest instead of a straight-up conquest is very much a propaganda invention after the fact. The Catholic Monarchs, Fernando and Isabel, had unquestionably imperial ambitions, and while they cast the conquest of Granada as a Muslim/Christian religious conflict, after taking over Granada in 1492 they also annexed the northern (Christian) kingdom of Navarre in 1497, and fought to hold onto Sicily and Naples, which were also Christian. (In spite of their nickname the “Catholic” monarchs, they also had no problem being in conflict with various popes.)
So because language matters, I’d also say that Sayyida al Hurra was not “born” in Granada. She was FROM Granada, which is to say that she would have called herself Andalusi, or Granadina, or possibly Spanish, in the sense of the Roman province of Hispania. Granada was a relatively young city when she was born, about the same age as Boston is now (or about 100 years younger than Santo Domingo), so if anyone of European, African or Asian descent can meaningfully claim to be “from” pretty much anywhere in the Americas or Australia, then Sayyida al Hurra was from Spain. It’s somewhat tragic that she never regained her homeland, but rather than piracy I’d say she waged an unsuccessful military campaign, so “pirate queen” is a bit of a cutesy nickname. The Spanish regularly refer to Francis Drake and John Hawkins as “pirates” but Elizabeth I of England is very seldom called a “pirate queen.”
Thank you, Rebecca! The details of language are so important in the way we frame and understand history.
I dig lady pirates, from my safe pirate-free couch. 🙂
btw I finally got my copy of “Beyond Heaving Bosoms.”
@CarrieS – Thank you for letting me sound off! Medieval and early modern Iberia is my jam, so I always am glad to see it getting some love. 🙂
Thanks, Carrie!
“Sitt”, her title on the portrait is also an honorific meaning “Lady”. And speaking of female Islamic rulers, check out Queen Arwa, she ruled Yemen from 1067 to 1138. I believe that’s longer than Queen Victoria or QE2! I saw the ruins of her palace when I visited Yemen.
@Rebecca, if you’ve got any recommendations on books about early Iberia, I’d love to hear them.
@Karin – yeah, not sure there’s a personal name in there, actually. Bint Ali is “daughter of Ali” and ibn Rashid is “son of Rashid” though in this case it’s a family name for the Banu Rashid, I assume. Al-Alami sounds like it could be a personality characteristic (there’s a name for this sort of personal name in Arabic but I forget it). Anyone with Arabic want to chime in on meaning?
In terms of book recs, do you want fiction (modern or medieval?) or nonfiction, and do you read in Spanish? If nonfiction, you can’t go wrong with anything by Richard Fletcher, though he’s a bit out of date, and sadly not in eBook. For fiction, Tariq Ali’s “Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree” deals with the fall of Granada. (NOT a romance or a HEA, and may make you ugly cry in parts, but good.) For actual medieval stuff, if you can find an English translation of any of the ballads called “romances” (it’s a poetic meter, not a subject matter), they’re fun. And the “Libro De Apolonio” which has a fifteenth century English version by John Gower is the kind of Old Skool crazy sauce that deserves the full RedHeadedGirl review treatment. It makes Bertrice Small look restrained. There is also some Andalusi love poetry available in English, but it’s mostly free translations into English from Spanish translations of Arabic, so while very pretty I can’t vouch for anything like accuracy.
There’s also one romance novel which I’m hoping will be coming out soon, but I’m not sure of details. I’ll let you know when/if I hear more.
Thanks for those recs! I was thinking of non-fiction, but I don’t read Spanish. If there is modern fiction about that era, I’d be interested too. I was just Googling and discovered a mystery series by Caroline Roe, set in medieval Spain. The first book is called “Remedy for Treason”. The main character is a Jewish physician and it’s got some good reviews, with comparisons to the Brother Cadfael mystery series.