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Papers by Peter Kitlas

The Journal of North African Studies, 2024

Aḥmad al-Ghazzāl was a Moroccan scribe and litterateur who served as Sultan Muḥ ammad III's (r.... more Aḥmad al-Ghazzāl was a Moroccan scribe and litterateur who served as Sultan Muḥ ammad III's (r. 1757-1790) chief diplomat to Spain from 1766 to 1775. In this capacity he wrote over thirty letters to his Spanish and other foreign counterparts around the Mediterranean. We use these letters to examine how al-Ghazzāl strategically employed Middle Arabic, defined as a written variety that incorporates both classical and colloquial elements, as part of an effective diplomatic agenda. His use of Middle Arabic combined previously established norms with innovations that have up to now not been documented in this period or genre. Proposing a historical-linguistic analysis, we argue that al-Ghazzāl's innovative rhetorical strategies offer insight into both spoken and written Arabic in the early modern period and developments in diplomatic thought and practice from a North African perspective.

Journal of Early Modern History, 2022

Aḥmed al-Ghazzāl served as the Moroccan court’s diplomatic negotiator with Spain between 1766 and... more Aḥmed al-Ghazzāl served as the Moroccan court’s diplomatic negotiator with Spain between 1766 and 1775. In this role, he communicated regularly with his Spanish counterpart, the Marqués de Grimaldi, leaving behind nearly forty official letters, an unparalleled number in the Moroccan royal archives – the Mudīriyyat al-Wathā’iq al-Malakiyya (MWM). Nevertheless, al-Ghazzāl’s career is consistently overshadowed by his abrupt dismissal from the court of Muḥammad III (r. 1757–1790). Putting into conversation al-Ghazzāl’s letters and a riḥla (travelogue) he composed, in which he describes his 1766 mission to Spain, this article reconsiders al-Ghazzāl’s role in articulating Moroccan diplomatic practice and thought through his advocacy for commensurable inter-religious diplomacy. It demonstrates that a focus on al-Ghazzāl’s Islamic conceptual frameworks and terminologies offers a way to explore non-European diplomatic practices, shedding light on a more diverse group of early modern diplomat...

Dissertation, Princeton University, 2021

The front matter and acknowledgements from my 2021 Dissertation

Encyclopedia of Islam III, 2020

Mawly al-Rashd b. al-Sharf b. Al b. Muammad b. Al was the first Alaw sultan (r. 1069-82... more Mawly al-Rashd b. al-Sharf b. Al b. Muammad b. Al was the first Alaw sultan (r. 1069-82/1659-72) of Morocco. As in the case of the Sad dynasty (r. 916-1069/1510-1659), the Alaw claim to the sultanate was founded on their sharfian lineage, that is, as descendants of the prophet Muammad. In the inland trading town of Sijilmsa, Mawly al-Rashd's ancestor, asan Shuraf (or al-asan al-Dkhil; d. 676/1277), had founded a f lodge (zwiya) several generations before the Alaw ascension to power. In the power vacuum left by the fractured Sad state, the sharfian members of this zwiya began to gain local political influence. The Alaws reinforced their power by controlling the trade networks originating in Sijilmsa and asserting their sharfian authority. Continuing in this fashion, Mawly al-Rashd made the Alaw sultanate self-sustaining politically and economically, by taking control of a broader network of internal trade routes and by asserting Alaw political authority in the north, by expelling local strongmen with European alliances.

The Journal of North African Studies, 2019

An introduction to a special section in the Journal of North African Studies that I edited, based... more An introduction to a special section in the Journal of North African Studies that I edited, based on an interdisciplinary conference convened at Princeton University in 2016: Jazirat al-Maghrib Graduate Student Symposium

Abstract: In 1779 the Sultan of Morocco, Muḥammad bin ‘Abdallah (Muḥammad III r. 1757-1790), sen... more Abstract: In 1779 the Sultan of Morocco, Muḥammad bin ‘Abdallah (Muḥammad III r. 1757-1790), sent an ambassadorial delegation to Spain to ransom Ottoman-Algerian prisoners. The delegation was led by Muḥammad bin ‘Uthman al-Miknāsī (d. 1799) who left a detailed account of the mission in his extant text Al-Iksīr fī fikāk al-asīr (The Elixir that will Liberate the Prisoner). When juxtaposed on the historical record, al-Miknāsī’s travelogue illustrates how Muḥammad III and the Moroccan religio-political elite navigated the complex Mediterranean web of religious identity, political allegiance, and ethnicity. Positing a division between ‘temporal’ and ‘spiritual’ sovereignty, increases our understanding of how Muḥammad III substantiated his authority on multiple levels in relation to Spain, Ottoman-Algeria, and the Sublime Porte in Istanbul. While previous scholarship has focused on a religio-political aggression against the Christian Europeans, this article employs al-Miknāsī’s travelogue to demonstrate how Muḥammad III halted religio-political aggression against Dār al-Kufr (Abode of Infidelity) and questioned the unity within Dār al-Islām (Abode of Islam).