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In 1766, the Moroccan ambassador Ahmad ibn al-Mahdi al-Ghazzal
embarked on an unprecedented visit to Spain during a time of eased
tensions between the two countries. The sultan Sidi Muhammad ibn
'Abdallah wanted the return of Muslim prisoners and sacred Islamic
texts, while the Spanish king hoped to improve trade and security
across the Strait of Gibraltar. With royal welcome and escort,
al-Ghazzal traveled for several months in order to meet with Carlos
III at his summer palace north of Madrid. There they negotiated a
historic treaty, and then the Moroccan ambassador made his way back
to Marrakesh, where the treaty was ratified in the presence of the
Spanish ambassador Jorge Juan and hundreds of freed Muslim
captives. In total, the trip lasted a year and covered more than
fifty Spanish cities and towns. Most remarkable, however, is the
fact that al-Ghazzal's travelogue, in which he recorded the
experience in great detail and moving prose, has been lost to
history. This first full translation with critical introduction
recovers his voice. It offers insight into the dawn of modern
diplomacy and its overlap with literature; it looks at
eighteenth-century Europe through Arab eyes; and, it explores the
deep nostalgia that the Islamic past of Andalusia provoked for a
Moroccan traveler who traced his family ties to exiles of the
region. Finally, al-Ghazzal's visit has further significance as the
neglected backdrop to one of Spain's most canonical
eighteenth-century works, the Moroccan Letters of Jose Cadalso.
Thus, the world literature approach of the present introduction
also reimagines the pluralism of Cadalso's "foreign gaze" through
the encounters of the actual ambassador in his own words.
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