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:
“There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspected.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Men conceive themselves as morally superior to those with whom they differ in opinion. A Socialist who thinks that the opinions of Mr. Gladstone on Socialism are unsound and his own sound, is within his rights; but a Socialist who thinks that his opinions are virtuous and Mr. Gladstone’s vicious, violates the first rule of morals and manners in a Democratic country; namely, that you must not treat your political opponent as a moral delinquent.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“A right rule for a club would be,—Admit no man whose presence excludes any one topic.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)