The prompt for this book was the fascinating public presence of Thami al-Glaoui; the constant references to him in various media and literature over the course of more than a century; realisation of the sheer number of people impacted by him in some way; the thrill, and the accompanying Pavlovian conditioning of uneasiness, that seems to manifest whenever his name is mentioned.

Regardless of the ways in which al-Glaoui has been judged by various people and discourses, his mode of living, his engagement in power relations and webs of loyalty, his actions with respect to the court, the various French agents, the tribal populations of southern Morocco, the local Jewish community, and various international actors: all these contribute to a full engagement with the complex fabric of modern Morocco, its history and its historiographies.

All this notwithstanding, much of the narrations of al-Glaoui’s biography are shrouded in fog and uncertainty. This book is an attempt to clear some of these historiographic and historic mysteries and to retrieve his story from the simplistic and reductionist interpretations that certain historiographies have proffered. I have attempted to provide fresh data and perspectives about the individual, simultaneously reflecting on his story and the various ways in which it has been told, how it continues to evolve, and how the story has influenced processes within Moroccan history and has reciprocally been shaped by them.