Mark Häberlein has written the first book-length study of an intercultural event that he frames, with Edoardo Grendi, as a history of the “exceptional normal”: the visit in 1783 of a Moroccan embassy to the Imperial Habsburg court in Vienna led by Sidi Mohammed ben Abdul Malek, the pasha of Tangier. Häberlein’s microhistorical approach to this diplomatic encounter offers valuable nuance to David Do Paço’s work on the long-term presence of Muslims in the city (L’Orient à Vienne au dix-huitième siècle, Oxford, 2015). Häberlein picks the one and only visit of a diplomatic delegation from Morocco and argues that it reflects “characteristic phenomena and processes of the late eighteenth century in an exemplary manner” (165–66).

Häberlein meticulously reconstructs how Habsburg ruling circles controversially discussed possible reactions to this Moroccan diplomatic initiative while the ambassador was already on his way to Vienna (ch. 1). He describes how representations in the media roused the interest of Vienna’s population even before the delegation arrived (ch. 2). He showcases how the court protocol reflected the Habsburg administration’s stance on Morocco’s status among other Muslim countries and its perceived degree of foreignness (ch. 3). The author proceeds to discuss how the visitors’ sociability and participation in cultural activities in Vienna was portrayed in German-language media sometimes as proof of a supposed “oriental backwardness,” but at another time instrumentalized as a critique against the journalist’s own society (ch. 4). The last sections are concerned with the diplomatic outcomes of the embassy (ch. 5) and its aftermath: the return journey of the ambassador to Morocco accompanied by a Habsburg Sprachknabe, a language student from the Oriental Academy in Vienna, and discussions about the ratification of the concluded treaty (ch. 6).

Throughout the book, Häberlein points to ambiguities in the reception of the Moroccan guests. The Habsburg court, having initially hesitated to receive the embassy at all, strove to keep the visit as cost-efficient and pragmatic as possible; the Viennese public’s response, however, was much more emphatic. Häberlein refers to “material transfers” that happened in the background, such as a deal to deliver weapons to Morocco, but for the public in Vienna and the German-speaking world which relied on newspaper reports for information about the embassy, the diplomatic event was mainly about sumptuous ceremonies, gifts, and “exotic” strangers (126). Häberlein underlines the agency of the Viennese population in shaping the sojourn of the Moroccan ambassador. They were not mere bystanders, he argues, but instead actively informed this diplomatic event both retrospectively in media and on the spot. Häberlein points to this influence as an example of how distant and immediate communication forms could often overlap in a late-eighteenth-century European city with 200,000 inhabitants (22–24). Providing a nuanced picture of the divergent discourses that the Moroccan guests provoked among the German-speaking public in Central Europe is a key point of Häberlein’s study.

In chapter 3, Häberlein describes in great detail Mohammed’s audience with the emperor as he found it recorded in official reports from the Viennese Habsburg archives. After the audience, Häberlein concludes, all participants were highly satisfied with the ceremony (97). One wonders, however, whether these documents should be read as an indication of how the Habsburg court wanted the audience to have happened—regarding ritual details that constitute status and precedence—rather than as pieces of evidence for what truly happened. Interestingly, in other contexts Häberlein questions the veracity of these representations of the ceremonial process by pointing to a visual depiction of the event. This colored copperplate engraving suggests that during the audience the official Habsburg translator, whose inability to speak Arabic was notorious, was aided by a Habsburg Sprachknabe, who the official reports seem not to mention (94–95). Indeed, official documents such as those Häberlein draws on from the imperial archives—which are full of doubtful tropes such as envoys who are “highly satisfied” after diplomatic ceremonies—can be questioned by comparing them to other representations of the same event.

Häberlein’s well-written 167-page text is accompanied by a detailed map of the ambassador’s travel route and several illustrations in color. The author has conducted in-depth research in Habsburg archives and German-language contemporary media and skillfully integrates longer or shorter quotations and pictures to support his arguments. Some scholars have also looked at Moroccan embassies using Arabic sources. While there apparently is no substantial number of Arabic documents on that specific Viennese embassy (26), there are several edited—and often also translated—reports composed by Moroccan ambassadors sent to Europe. Some of them have been studied and translated by Nabil Matar. There are also two insightful recent articles by Peter Kitlas on Moroccan diplomats and their missions in Europe (Mediterranean Studies 23, no. 2, 2015: 170–94; Journal of Early Modern History 27, 2023: 526–53). Based on the travelogues of diplomats Al-Ghazzāl and Al-Miknāsī, Kitlas discusses to what extent concepts of a supposed binary between the southern and northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea or the dāru l-ḥarb and the dār al-islām shaped these ambassadors’ mindsets in the late eighteenth century. Taking a comparative perspective can give a sense of the set of discourses, aims, and expectations that might have informed the participants of Moroccan diplomatic delegations sent to European courts. Besides that, interesting parallels become visible. Al-Miknāsī’s comment on his effort to liberate Muslim captives although they stem from the Ottoman regency of Algiers and not from Morocco is read by Kitlas as evidence of Morocco’s assertion of “spiritual sovereignty” over its North African neighbors (2015: 187). When Häberlein mentions that at a stop in Genoa during the delegation’s trip home, ambassador Sidi Mohammed concludes a deal to liberate 132 Muslims in exchange for the release of eighteen Christian captives detained in Tunis—and not in Morocco (139), it seems possible to conceive this Moroccan embassy to Vienna as indeed part of a “diplomatic initiative” toward several European countries (17) but also as part of a broader project where religious and temporal claims are intertwined.

In sum, Häberlein’s work is a valuable contribution to the growing literature on intercultural diplomatic encounters across the Mediterranean. The book adds further insights into Muslim presence in early modern Europe and the reception and perception of foreign visitors in German-speaking lands.