Commander of the Faithful

THE PATH TO WORLDWIDE FAME that turned a pious and precocious twenty-five year old Koranic scholar into a figure admired from Iowa to Moscow began with a bungled occupation of Algiers in 1830 by a French army of 30,000 soldiers. Arrogance, ignorance and broken promises spawned a resistance movement [...]
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THE PATH TO WORLDWIDE FAME that turned a pious and precocious twenty-five year old Koranic scholar into a figure admired from Iowa to Moscow began with a bungled occupation of Algiers in 1830 by a French army of 30,000 soldiers. Arrogance, ignorance and broken promises spawned a resistance movement from which Abd el-Kader emerged as France's most tenacious opponent. His strength was rooted in his moral and spiritual authority, keen intelligence, natural warrior abilities and the loyalty of his caliphs. Seventeen years later, massively outnumbered, the emir surrendered to French generals, one of whom was the crown prince, in exchange for exile in the Middle East and his promise never to return to Algeria. His lively intellect, profound piety and dignified stoicism gained him new admirers while imprisoned in a France that had broken the promise of its generals. Freed in 1852, he lived out his remaining years in Damascus where his fame was destined to brilliantly outshine his past adversaries. Abd el-Kader intervened to save thousands of Christian lives threatened by a Turkish instigated pogrom in 1860.Following the dictates of Islamic Law to protect minorities and the moral imperative to resist evil, the emir converted his ample residence into a safe haven for European diplomats and thousands of residents of the neighbouring Christian quarter. Upon his death in 1883, The New York Times hailed him as "one of the few great men of the century."