Sayyida al-Hurra, Moroccan Queen

A lot of European accounts of Sayyida al-Hurra’s life characterize her as a pirate, but that really isn't accurate. She was a a leader of a city-state and a queen of a sultanate.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 2:29Holly Frey?

  Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 2:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.

• 2:43Holly Frey?

  And I'm Holly Frey.

• 2:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  I was looking back over the year at the episodes that I've researched and written of this show, and I felt like it was just a little too heavily concentrated in the 17th through 20th centuries, maybe 18th through 20th, to be more fair.

• 3:01Holly Frey?

  I feel you.

• 3:02Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah. So I, on purpose, went to look for something from a little longer ago than that, and I landed on Sayeda Al-Hura, who has been on my shortlist for quite a while and who lived in the 15th and 16th centuries. We've talked about her very briefly on the show before. That was back in 2016, and that very brief conversation was mostly about how we didn't have a lot of information. There are some new English-language papers that have been published about her since that time, but there are still a lot of unknowns about her. A lot of European accounts of Sayyida Al-Hurra's life characterize her as a pirate, and that

• 3:44Tracy V. Wilson?

  is how we described her in that incredibly brief conversation in 2016 that was mostly about not knowing anything. After getting into this research more, I don't really think pirate is the best word, or if any, it just doesn't tell the whole story very well.

• 4:01Holly Frey?

  Sayyida Al-Hurra is a title, and it has been translated from Arabic in multiple ways that all have connotations of being honored, noble, or powerful, as well as independent. Similar titles have also been used for other powerful Muslim women in history, including Arwa al-Sulaihi, who ruled Yemen in the 12th century. Some scholars have concluded that Sayyida Al-Hurra's given name was probably Fatima or Aicha. A couple of sources say that it might have been Lala, but that is also a title with a meaning along the lines of lady. There is also an argument that even though it is typically a title, Al-Hurra was her

• 4:43Holly Frey?

  given name, because it appears that way on her second marriage contract. If that is the case, she may have been named after an earlier woman who had earned that same title.

• 4:56Tracy V. Wilson?

  Sayyida Al-Hurra's father was Mulei Ali ibn Rashid, and Mulei is another title. It essentially means prince. He was a sharif, meaning he traced his lineage back to the family of the Prophet Muhammad. His ancestors included King Idris I, who founded the first independent Muslim dynasty in what is now Morocco. At different points in his life, Ali ibn Rashid lived in both Morocco in northern Africa and in Grenada on the Iberian Peninsula. That included serving Sultan Mohammed XI in Grenada, starting in about 1460. While he was in service to the Sultan, he married Sayyida Al-Hurra's mother, Zora Fernandez.

• 5:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  She grew up near Cadiz, and she had converted from Catholicism to Islam.

• 5:46Holly Frey?

  Ali ibn Rashid founded the Moroccan city of Chefchouen in 1471. Today, Chefchouen is known as the Blue City because so many of the buildings in the Medina are blue. But those very, very distinctive blue walls and roofs are a more recent development, with a lot of different stories about how and why the color came to be used. At first, Chefchouen was mainly a kasbah or fortress meant to help defend northern Morocco from the Portuguese. After Ferdinand and Isabella conquered Grenada in 1492, it also became a home to an increasing number of Jewish and Muslim refugees who were fleeing from what is now Spain.

• 6:30Tracy V. Wilson?

  We should back up for a second for some context on all of that. First, defending northern Morocco from the Portuguese. So Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, of course, face each other across the Strait of Gibraltar, and this strait is strategically very important for its connection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and for connecting northern Africa to the Iberian Peninsula and then the rest of Europe. Seuta is on a small ismus on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, and that has been an important military and commercial port for thousands of years. Portugal gained control of Seuta in 1415, and from there started trying to claim additional territory in Morocco.

• 7:15Tracy V. Wilson?

  Most of the cities that the Portuguese tried to occupy were on the coast, and Chefchouen is about 60 kilometers or 37 miles inland in the Rif Mountains. This landscape and the distance from the coast offered some additional protection from the Portuguese.

• 7:32Holly Frey?

  And as for Spain conquering Grenada, starting in the 8th century, Muslims from Tangier and other parts of northern Africa conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula. The region under Muslim control became known as Al-Andalus. Christians started trying to retake the peninsula almost immediately, but these efforts were largely unsuccessful until the 11th century. The Christian reconquest, known as the Reconquista, escalated after Pope Innocent III declared a crusade in 1212, and by the middle of the 13th century, the Nasriid Kingdom of Grenada was the only part of the Iberian Peninsula still under Muslim control.

• 8:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  Ferdinand III of Castile recognized Grenada as a vassal state in 1238, but conflict between Muslims and Christians and among different Muslim factions within Grenada continued. Then in 1492, Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella of Aragon and Castile conquered Grenada, and that ended the Reconquista.

• 8:37Holly Frey?

  That same year, Ferdinand and Isabella issued the Al-Hurra Decree, which forced all Jewish people living in their territory to convert to Christianity or be expelled. We did an episode about all of that in 2014. Earlier in the Reconquista, Muslim communities' surrender terms had typically included that they could continue to practice their religion. But the reality was that Muslims faced increasing persecution as more and more of the Iberian Peninsula came under Christian control. Ferdinand and Isabella also moved away from this, at least nominal religious tolerance, and in 1502, Muslim residents of Castile were ordered to convert to Christianity or

• 9:22Holly Frey?

  leave. Muslims living in Aragon got the same order in 1526.

• 9:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  Sayyida Al-Hurra was born in the midst of all of this change and conflict. Various sources put her birth at some time between 1485 and 1495, and her brother Ibrahim was born in 1490, so all just within a few years of the fall of Grenada. While the date of her birth is unclear, and sources are kind of contradictory about whether she was born in Morocco or in Grenada, we do know she was raised in Chefchouen, which grew from a fortress to a multicultural and multilingual community. Its leadership was Muslim, it was part of a Muslim sultanate, but it was also home to Christians and Jews and Moriscos, which is the term for Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity.

• 10:14Tracy V. Wilson?

  Arabs, Europeans, Africans, and people from a number of Amazigh tribes, also known as Berbers, also lived there. This wasn't completely egalitarian or peaceful. There were clear privileges associated with being Muslim, and there could be conflicts among these different religious and cultural groups. But Chef Chauvin grew into a diverse and thriving community, even in the face of this ongoing conflict with Portugal.

• 10:42Holly Frey?

  Said Al-Hurra was a Sufi Muslim, and she was educated by some of Chef Chauvin's most respected scholars. She learned multiple languages, including Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese. In 1510, she married the governor of Tetuan, Moulay Al-Mandri. There's a bit of debate about which Moulay Al-Mandri this actually was. Some sources argue that it was Abu Hassan Al-Mandri, also known as Ali Al-Mandri, who refounded the city of Tetuan, while others argue that it was actually Mohamed Al-Mandri, who was either his grandson or nephew and became governor of Tetuan later.

• 11:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  So Tetuan is a port on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco, north of Chef Chauvin and south of Saitwa. Today, it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It had been an important port connecting Morocco to Al-Andalus, starting around the time of the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. Tetuan was destroyed by a Castilian force in 1400, and then by a Portuguese force in 1437. Tetuan was rebuilt for the third time in 1484, and it functioned as a largely independent city-state within the Wataseid Sultanate.

• 11:58Holly Frey?

  Like Chef Chauvin, Tetuan became home to people who wanted or were forced to leave the Iberian Peninsula after the fall of Grenada and the expulsion of Muslims from Spanish territory. This caused some difficulties, including violence between the newcomers, who were largely from the Iberian Peninsula, and the Jabala Confederation, who lived in the region. These groups eventually came to terms, though, especially when it came to trying to repel Portuguese invasions.

• 12:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  Said Al-Hurra's marriage was a political one. It brought together the ruling families of Chef Chauvin and Tetuan. Both of these were vassal states of the Wataseid Sultanate, and that was who ruled northern Morocco. This united two very powerful families and two powerful vassal states. It combined their forces to both resist European incursions into Morocco and to try to unite various ethnic groups and tribes and different factions within Morocco.

• 12:58Holly Frey?

  It's likely that Said Al-Hurra's education and upbringing allowed her to assist and advise her husband in his role as governor, starting from the very beginning of their marriage. Over time, she became an informal co-ruler, with that authority becoming more formal when her husband was away on diplomatic or military matters. Since Tetuan was a port, this probably also allowed her to learn more about maritime and naval matters.

• 13:27Tracy V. Wilson?

  Said Al-Hurra's husband died in around 1519. His brother wanted to take control of Tetuan, but her brother Ibrahim, who had become vizier to Sultan Ahmad Al-Watasi in Fez, named her as Al-Mandri's successor. It really was not typical for women to take on this level of power, but Said Al-Hura seems to have earned the people's trust. They accepted her in that position. The overall prominence of her family may have played a role in this as well. And it is likely that this is when she earned the title of Said Al-Hura, if it indeed is a title in her case.

• 14:08Holly Frey?

  We will talk more about her story after we pause for a sponsor break.

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• 15:26Tracy V. Wilson?

  Hey, everybody, it's Tracy from Stuff You Missed in History Class. That's Alan Goya, a planning engineer at AT&T. He's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, defining the fan's experience. And Alan's master plan made it all possible.

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• 16:07Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 16:24Tracy V. Wilson?

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• 17:31Holly Frey?

  We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health vs. Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel them, not to hype them more,

• 18:15Holly Frey?

  but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health vs. Hype on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 18:39Tracy V. Wilson?

  When Said Al-Hurra became governor of Tetuan, in addition to the ongoing conflicts with Portugal and Spain, Morocco was facing an economic decline. Earlier, we mentioned Portugal capturing port cities along the Mediterranean coast. That was largely the work of Portuguese Prince Enrique de Avise, who is known in English as Henry the Navigator. That moniker comes from his funding of exploratory voyages down the Atlantic coast of Africa, which he mostly did not personally participate in. He just paid for. These voyages traded for goods and precious metals and enslaved people along

• 19:20Tracy V. Wilson?

  the African coast, as well as capturing territory and establishing forts and ports.

• 19:26Holly Frey?

  European sea voyages down the African coast continued after Henry the Navigator's death in 1460, including through the voyages of Vasco da Gama of Portugal, who rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1497. Vasco da Gama was not the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa, but he was the first to successfully go from there to the Indian subcontinent. Ultimately, his voyages helped establish a maritime trade route between Western Europe and South Asia.

• 19:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  A sea route to India reduced the need for goods to be moved across Africa and through Morocco when being transported to and from Western Europe. So as more goods traveled by sea, the Moroccan economy started to decline and its merchant class started to shrink. That was in addition to the ongoing conflicts with European powers over territory and growing divisions within Morocco about whether to continue fighting them. For example, after the death of Said Al-Hurra's father, her brother Ibrahim took his place in Shefshawen and took a more conciliatory approach with the Portuguese. This included signing an

• 20:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  armistice with the governor of Sayota in 1538.

• 20:45Holly Frey?

  In the face of all of this, Said Al-Hurra needed to find a way to protect Tetuan and help it prosper. According to some accounts, she teamed up with two Ottoman privateers, Orush and Hazir Raiz. Raiz is another title used in the Ottoman Empire for naval officers. Orush and Hazir were both known by a number of names and titles and are sometimes conflated into one pirate, Barbarossa, also known as Redbeard. Barbarossa actually means redbeard in Italian.

• 21:20Tracy V. Wilson?

  But simply calling these men pirates does not really seem correct. They were born on the island of Lesbos in what's now Greece, which was Ottoman territory at the time. Their father was a potter, and they and their other brothers started out in that trade before becoming sailors. Orush and Hazir were both experienced at sea by the end of the Reconquista, and eventually that experience did start including attacking Spanish and Portuguese ships in the Mediterranean.

• 21:50Holly Frey?

  Soon, they were hired as privateers in service of Korkud, who was one of the sons of Ottoman Sultan Bayazid II. Korkud was executed in a dispute over the line of succession in 1513. So for a time, these brothers didn't really have any official backing. But in 1516, the Emir of Algiers asked for their help dealing with the Spanish. And after Orush's force captured the city from them, the Ottomans named him governor. Spain later retook the city and Orush was killed in 1518, but Hazir's force drove the Spanish out once again in 1529.

• 22:29Tracy V. Wilson?

  Eventually, Suleiman the Magnificent, who we covered on the show in 2014, made Hazir governor of Rhodes. His forces later captured Tunis, and afterwards, Suleiman named him Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Empire. He was later named Chief Governor of Ottoman North Africa, and he died in Constantinople in 1546.

• 22:52Holly Frey?

  In addition to attacking and harassing Spanish and Portuguese ships and settlements, before his death, Orush Raiz carried Muslim and Jewish refugees from the Iberian Peninsula to Morocco. That took place mostly between 1504 and 1510, and he earned the nickname Baba Orush, or Father Orush, for doing this. Said Al-Hurra was part of this effort to rescue people who were trying to flee the peninsula.

• 23:20Tracy V. Wilson?

  Sources are a little contradictory about exactly what Said Al-Hurra's relationship was with Orush and Hazir. In some accounts, she actively hired them as privateers. In others, it was more like she allowed her own leaders and commanders to work with them, or she just tacitly allowed them to operate out of Tetuan. There are other similarly contradictory descriptions of her work with other privateers and pirates in the Mediterranean. She also built a shipyard, which the Ottoman Empire both used to build ships and as a port to attack the Portuguese and the Spanish. And she expanded the fleet that her husband had

• 24:01Tracy V. Wilson?

  amassed, one that both defended Morocco and attacked and captured its enemies. This included capturing Europeans and holding them for ransom. There's documentation of prisoners of various nationalities being held in prison in Tetuan and Said Al-Hurra's negotiations with those home nations to get them released. That ransom money and the cargo from captured ships helped Tetuan really thrive economically.

• 24:30Holly Frey?

  As for calling them pirates, it is definitely true that Orush and Hazir didn't always have some kind of official authorization for what they were doing at sea. Sometimes they did, but sometimes they were acting on their own. But Said Al-Hurra was the official authorization. She was governing Tetuan, and this was a time when a lot of leaders and governments hired civilians to attack their enemies at sea, in addition to or instead of their own navies.

• 25:00Tracy V. Wilson?

  Some sources frame Said Al-Hurra's enslaving of prisoners or imprisoning them and then ransoming them back to their countries of origin as sort of a dividing line, making her a pirate rather than just a leader who was legitimately using maritime mercenaries to defend her territory. But at this point, taking enemies prisoner and ransoming them back to their native countries was relatively common. A lot of countries were doing this long before they became famous as corsairs. One of Orush and Hazir's brothers was killed by the Catholic Military Order, known as the Knights Hospitaller, while on a trading

• 25:41Tracy V. Wilson?

  voyage, and Orush was captured and imprisoned by them until Hazir paid a ransom to get him out.

• 25:50Holly Frey?

  Spain and Portugal were also kidnapping and enslaving Africans. And over the course of the 16th century, every major European power was involved in trafficking people out of Africa. In the paper, Said Al-Hurra, an early modern decolonial Muslim exemplar, Dr. Jason Idris Sparks points out that a lot of what Said Al-Hurra was doing seems pretty comparable to the actions of her contemporary, Queen Elizabeth I, including Elizabeth's hiring privateer Francis Drake and eventually knighting him.

• 26:24Tracy V. Wilson?

  Beyond that, a big motivating factor for both Said Al-Hurra and the Barbarossa brothers was defending Muslim territory, including their own homes against European incursions, or retaliating against attacks on Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula. During their lifetimes, the brothers' home of Lesbos was also attacked and besieged during wars between the Ottoman Empire and Venice. We've already talked about how Said Al-Hurra grew up in a place that was home to refugees who had to flee the Iberian Peninsula. And after her marriage, her home of Tetuan was continually under threat. We talked in our recent Flying

• 27:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Gang episode about the rise of piracy in the Caribbean in the 18th century, being tied to international disputes and economic factors. But all of this stuff that we have been talking about seems a lot more directly personal to Said Al-Hurra and the Barbarossa brothers than the Caribbean was to a lot of the European pirates who operated out of there.

• 27:30Holly Frey?

  More broadly, accounts from the Arab world are more likely to frame Said Al-Hurra's actions in her work with privateers as a legitimate form of warfare. And it also may have had religious elements, including a religious obligation to protect Muslims and Muslim lands. A depiction of her at the Casbah Museum in Shefshawen calls her "a princess of jihad", a term that combines both struggle and duty in the context of Islam, framing her so-called piracy as a holy war that she had a spiritual mandate to take on.

• 28:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  Before we move on, the northern coast of Africa, known at the time as the Barbary Coast, became very heavily associated with piracy and the idea of Barbary pirates. The number of pirates operating in this area really increased in the early 1600s, and that was decades after the deaths of Said Al-Hurra and Orush and Hazir Raiz. But some of the cities that the brothers captured and transferred to the Ottoman Empire became known as part of the Barbary States, which employed state-sponsored piracy, which you could also call privateering, against European and later American ships. Sometimes the Barbarossa

• 28:48Tracy V. Wilson?

  brothers in particular are characterized as really planting the seeds of this flourishing of, quote, "Barbary piracy."

• 28:56Holly Frey?

  Many European powers paid tributes to the Barbary States so their ships would be left alone. But the US did not want to do that, ultimately leading to the 19th century Barbary Wars. These wars ended with an overall victory for the United States with treaty terms that put an end to these tribute payments. But piracy continued from the northern coast of Africa until the French conquest of Algeria in 1830.

• 29:24Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh, we'll talk about more about Said Al-Hurra after a sponsor break.

• 29:32Tracy V. Wilson?

  YouTube Premium takes something you already love, which is YouTube, and makes it even better. The content, the creators, the feeling of finding exactly what you're into for every mood and moment of your day. Premium transforms that experience into a more supercharged, enhanced way to enjoy YouTube. A YouTube Premium subscription gives you access to exclusive YouTube features and benefits, including, but not limited to, ad-free, uninterrupted videos, background play, which lets you keep listening even when your screen is locked. I know when I have a YouTube video playing and I'm walking around the kitchen and I instinctively turn the screen off, having the video stop is annoying. And downloading your videos so you can watch them anywhere, even without a Wi-Fi connection. Whenever

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• 30:45Tracy V. Wilson?

  We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose. And sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, track your sleep. But what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what Health Versus Hype from the American Medical Association and iHeart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel, and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers, and real people trying these trends.

• 31:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  Not to cancel them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them. Because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters. Start asking better questions and listen to Health Versus Hype on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 31:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  Guess who's back in the house? The old gays return for season two of Silver Linings, their hit podcast from iHeart's Ruby Studio in partnership with ViiV Healthcare. Just wait until you hear what hosts Robert McMillan and Jess A. have in store this time around. They strut back down memory lane navigating life, love, loss, and everything that shaped them along the way. And as usual, someone just might break into song. From leather bars to bathhouses, dance floors to drag brunch, nothing stays off limits. These are the kinds of insights that can only come from experience. So listen to your elders, honey, and discover the silver linings you can take with you. All sass, zero filter, and decades of perspective from four friends proving that queer joy

• 32:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  only gets better with age on the podcast that never gets old. Listen to Silver Linings, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 32:48Speaker 07

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• 33:49Tracy V. Wilson?

  To get back to Said Al-Hurra, she governed Tetuan for more than 20 years, and during that time, the city-state really prospered. In 1541, roughly two decades after the death of her first husband, Sultan Ahmed Al-Watasi of Fez asked to marry her. At this point, she would have been in her 50s or maybe early 60s. Typically, the Sultan's bride-to-be would travel to Fez to be married there. There was a Sultanate within capital somewhere else, they would travel to that capital, and then they would remain there in the capital after the wedding. But Said Al-Hurra refused to leave Tetuan. The Sultan traveled to her, and after the wedding, she stayed where she was and continued

• 34:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  to rule Tetuan. This is not how it normally worked at all.

• 34:40Holly Frey?

  I have a story for what is a normal wedding on our behind the scenes. Like her earlier marriage, this one was political. As we said earlier, while Tetuan was a vassal state of the Wadisid Sultanate, it operated largely as an independent entity. So this was a marriage between the Sultan and the leader of one of the Sultanate's most prosperous and powerful vassal states. By extension, it also made a connection between the Sultan and Said Al-Hurra's family home of Chef Chauvin. This drew comparisons to the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, uniting the kingdoms of Aragon and Castile, and that's seen as the foundation of Spain as a modern state.

• 35:22Tracy V. Wilson?

  More generally, Said Al-Hurra was probably the most powerful woman in Morocco, and the Wadisid Sultanate, which controlled northern Morocco, was trying to strengthen itself against the Saudi Sultanate, which ruled western Morocco from its capital in Marrakech.

• 35:41Holly Frey?

  But as this was happening, Said Al-Hurra's rule in Tetuan started to slip. Ongoing disputes with the Portuguese city of Sayuta ultimately led Sayuta to cut off trading ties with Tetuan. This didn't totally cut off Tetuan's wealth by any stretch, but the city did see a drop in prosperity.

• 36:02Tracy V. Wilson?

  Then in 1542, Said Al-Hurra's son-in-law, Moule Ahmed Al-Hassan Al-Mandri, overthrew her in a coup. He cut ties with the Wadisid Sultanate and apparently expected the Saudis to take over. That is ultimately what happened. The Saudis captured Fez in 1549, and they moved the capital of the Sultanate to Fez in 1603. The family of Said Al-Hurra's late first husband and at least one of her surviving brothers sided with the Saudis during all this.

• 36:38Holly Frey?

  The Saudis retook a lot of the territory in Morocco that Portugal had seized and occupied. While Said Al-Hurra was not directly involved with this, her ongoing maritime efforts against the Spanish and Portuguese are seen as helping set the stage for the Saudis to reclaim more territory. Morocco also fought off the Ottoman Empire's attempt to take control in the 16th century and remained an independent Sultanate until after the French conquest of Algeria in 1830 that we mentioned earlier. After that, international disputes in and around Morocco escalated, including the scramble for Africa by the European powers and Morocco ultimately becoming a protectorate of France

• 37:22Holly Frey?

  in 1912. Morocco regained its independence in 1956.

• 37:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  Meanwhile, Sayuta was Portuguese territory during Said Al-Hurra's lifetime. It was passed to Spain in 1580. Sayuta and Metia on the northern coast of Morocco both continue to be Spanish presidios today. Sayuta has been in international news as we are recording this. When the episode comes out, that will be two weeks in the past, and I do not know how the situation will have developed by then.

• 37:57Holly Frey?

  After she was overthrown by her son-in-law, Said Al-Hurra was stripped of her possessions, and she returned home to Chef Chauvin. She still had family there. We don't know much about her life after that, but we do know that she died on July 14, 1561. At that point, she would have been in her 60s or 70s. According to some accounts, she retired to a Sufi lodge in Chef Chauvin and spent the rest of her life focused on spiritual and religious pursuits. As far as we know, she never had any children.

• 38:30Tracy V. Wilson?

  There is some speculation that one reason for the lack of documentation about her life and rule of Tetuan is that later leaders of the city found her legacy threatening, or they didn't want to acknowledge how much it had flourished while she, a woman, was in charge. A lot of the contemporary or near contemporary mentions of her are from Europeans, which is also connected to why she is so often framed as a pirate rather than as the leader of a city-state or the queen of the Sultanate.

• 39:03Holly Frey?

  As we said at the top of the show, there have been some papers about Said Al-Hurra in recent years. One is the paper by Dr. Jason Idris Sparks that we mentioned earlier. It was published in the journal Religions in 2025, and it makes a case that Said Al-Hurra is an early example of decolonial thought. Another is by Dr. Amal El-Himer of the University of Kansas. She grew up in Morocco and traveled there to look for information on Said Al-Hurra. She found primary and secondary sources that weren't available in English and then translated those herself, and talked to historians in Morocco who knew more about her.

• 39:43Tracy V. Wilson?

  In addition to this more recent academic work, in 2016, there was a TV series about Said Al-Hurra on Moroccan television. I don't know much more about that other than that it happened.

• 39:59Holly Frey?

  I'm so glad you picked this one.

• 40:01Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh, good.

• 40:02Holly Frey?

  Because she's interesting to me. Do you have listener mail for us?

• 40:06Tracy V. Wilson?

  I do have listener mail. Viewers from Netflix, I'm going to have to read it from my phone because of reasons. This says, "Hi Ho, Holly and Tracy. Kel here from the Morocco trip. I hope you're both doing well."

• 40:19Holly Frey?

  Hi Kel.

• 40:21Tracy V. Wilson?

  I didn't on purpose pick this because it's Kel from the Morocco trip. That is a coincidence.

• 40:27Holly Frey?

  But we love Kel.

• 40:28Tracy V. Wilson?

  But we love Kel. Kel said, "I meant to write in about sneakers, and then Unearthed happened, and I had to write you about Shakespeare." And so now you get both. "Shakespeare first. I was very excited to hear the news on Unearthed about the firm location of Shakespeare's London house, which I had somehow missed. I did my MFA in staging Shakespeare, and we spent two weeks each year studying at the reconstructed Globe and poking about Souther. Hot tip, look up the pronunciation of that if you don't already know it. One fun thing about England is that the country is so old, and their structures have been in the same place for so long that you often run into situations like this. They'll locate something of historical interest but can't excavate because there is a different

• 41:13Tracy V. Wilson?

  building of historical interest built on top of it." There may not be anything to excavate with this building, but this is the case with the actual Shakespeare's Globe Theater. They found the location of the foundations and half of it is under a car park, but the other half is under a building that is also landmarked 18th century, if I remember correctly. They can't do any excavating without disturbing the nearby structure, even though we'd love to dig around in the Globe's dirt. Nearby, there are also the foundations of the Rose Theater, where Shakespeare performed prior to the building of the Globe and later, a rival theater. Its foundations were discovered when they went to build a huge office building in the eighties.

• 41:58Tracy V. Wilson?

  Actors from Laurence Olivier to Dustin Hoffman and Judi Dench were out protesting, trying to keep them from bulldozing the site. In the end, they built the building over top of the theater, but altered the structure at the bottom to preserve the foundations. It's pretty spectacular engineering and now we have a viewing space, can continue to research and they sometimes put on events. A quick note on sneakers and swing dancing, since I talked so much about Shakespeare and early modern theaters, I could go on all day. First of all, thank you for explaining to me why all my British friends call them plimsolls. Second, I wondered if you knew that Keds slash plimsoll styled shoes

• 42:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  were the favorite shoes of former podcast subject Frankie Manning, Whitey's Lindy Hoppers and other swing dancers. The picture used on the cover of his autobiography is of him and another dancer doing an airstep and both of them are wearing that style of shoe. These shoes are still favored by swing dancers today, although in a twist I find hilarious, we often have to put leather on the soles so they will spin during turns. The rubber grip on the bottom of today's shoes is often too much for dancing, but I assume that the material slash texture was different in the 30s and 40s and they had the right amount of traction on the wooden dance floors. A future podcast on Norma Miller, another of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, would be fantastic.

• 43:24Tracy V. Wilson?

  I saw her speak in New Orleans when she was close to 100 and she was a real spitfire flirting with the guys and still dancing. P.S. We're very excited to be coming to Germany and Czechia with you this fall. Until then, Kel, so thank you so much, Kel, for this email for a couple of reasons. One, I love all of this about the Shakespeare.

• 43:42Holly Frey?

  Me too.

• 43:43Tracy V. Wilson?

  Great. I don't think I remembered or maybe didn't know you had an MFA in staging Shakespeare. That's great. The other reason is I meant to talk about wearing Keds for swing dancing in the behind the scenes of the sneakers episode. And then I forgot.

• 44:02Holly Frey?

  You did?

• 44:03Tracy V. Wilson?

  Did we talk about it in the behind the scenes?

• 44:05Holly Frey?

  No, because I didn't. Did you swing dance? Do you swing dance?

• 44:09Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, so.

• 44:10Holly Frey?

  I never knew.

• 44:11Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah, um, this is a thing that I did a while ago. We were owned by a company that gave us a health and wellness benefit and you could get reimbursed for a gym membership or a class you were taking. And I could get reimbursed for swing dancing classes.

• 44:32Holly Frey?

  So fun.

• 44:33Tracy V. Wilson?

  And I went through multiple levels of swing dance classes. And then I took some Lindy Hop classes. Lindy Hop was a lot of fun. And people talked about liking to wear Keds for their Lindy hopping. And I got a pair of Keds that were super cute. And then did find them too grippy on the floor

• 44:57Tracy V. Wilson?

  when I would go out social dancing. That was the thing that I did a while. One of the reasons was to get out of my comfort zone.

• 45:04Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 45:05Tracy V. Wilson?

  I, uh, I'm not always comfortable in group settings. I'm not always good at talking to people. Social dancing was a lot of fun. I have not done it in many years. I think the last swing dancing that I did was when Patrick and I took classes before our wedding and we danced our first dance at our reception. And I don't think we have done it since.

• 45:28Holly Frey?

  I also have very strong memories of that dance.

• 45:31Tracy V. Wilson?

  Oh.

• 45:32Holly Frey?

  Because probably not for the reason, I mean, not that it wasn't very sweet.

• 45:35Tracy V. Wilson?

  Is it because you were afraid the beads were going to fly off my dress?

• 45:38Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Tracy V. Wilson?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Holly Frey?

  Yeah.

• 45:40Tracy V. Wilson?

  They, they did not, or if they did, not to an appreciable amount.

• 45:45Holly Frey?

  Well, I, in case any listeners don't know or remember, I made Tracy's wedding dress. I added a lot of beads that we hadn't discussed. I was like, more bead fringe, which in my defense was terrific. But it was as you guys were whipping around, I was like, oh dear, Greedo, please don't let beads fly everywhere and make this entire venue like a hazard for everyone because they were little tiny seed beads. But they didn't, they all stayed in place, I'm happy to report.

• 46:16Tracy V. Wilson?

  They stayed there. So thank you so much, Kel, for this email. And for giving me the chance to say something that I meant to say in our behind the scenes episode on sneakers, which I forgot to talk about.

• 46:29Holly Frey?

  And for being grand, we love Kel. I had a great time with Kel in Chef Shawin.

• 46:34Tracy V. Wilson?

  We can talk more about Chef Shawin in the behind the scenes of this episode.

• 46:37Holly Frey?

  Can't wait.

• 46:38Tracy V. Wilson?

  So thanks for, for writing, Kel. I look forward to seeing you again. If you would like to send us a note, we're at [email protected]. If you would like to see the show notes to this episode, where we list all of the papers and other resources that we used, including the two that we specifically mentioned, that is at [email protected]. And you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts.

• 47:12Tracy V. Wilson?

  Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 47:26Holly Frey?

  A rare disease diagnosis can change your life, but it doesn't have to define your future. In season seven of Untold Stories: Life with a Severe Autoimmune Condition, host Martine Hackett continues the conversation with people living with MG, CIDP, and the broader rare disease community, exploring what comes after diagnosis through stories of hope, progress, and connection. Produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Argenx. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 47:57Tracy V. Wilson?

  Whether you're calling the wise women in your life, video calling your girlfriends across the country, or checking in on someone who always knows how to make you smile, staying connected matters. Those small conversations, shared laughs and quick hellos are what keep relationships strong even when life gets busy. Some of the most life-giving conversations start with just a phone call. That's why AT&T guarantees the network you can rely on so you can focus on the moments and people that matter most. That's the AT&T guarantee. AT&T, connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Visit ATT.com/guarantee for details.

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• 49:56Speaker 06

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• 50:03Speaker 00

  Hola a todos. Soy Jamie Lynn Sigler. Cuando me diagnosticaron tenía veintitantos años y todo mi mundo cambió por completo. Pero con el tiempo decidí que no iba a permitir que eso frenara mi vida. Quise tomar las riendas. Y después de hablar con mi médico sobre mis opciones, la elección para mí fue obvia. Boom, eso es Kisimta. Obtenga más información sobre Kisimta o fotumab en Kisimta.com. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.