Sent by a Saadi Sultan to establish the Anglo-Moroccan alliance, Moroccan diplomat Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun is believed to have inspired the character of William Shakespeare's Moorish hero Othello.
In the 1880s, British lawyer Abdullah Quilliam sailed to Tangier for a vacation. In the city he was impressed by Islam and Muslims and decided to renounce Christianity for the religion. Back to Liverpool, the man helped build one of the first mosques in the UK.