Morocco’s last independent Sultan on why the state fell to the French

Before the French ever arrived with guns and flags, Morocco was already collapsing from within. In a forgotten memoir written in exile, Sultan Moulay Abdelhafid—the last independent monarch before the French protectorate—delivers a scathing posthumous reckoning, blaming the fall not on colonial conquest, but on corruption, betrayal, and the slow death of a state rotting from the inside.

Lalla Batoul, modern Morocco’s first female political prisoner

In 1910, Lalla Batoul was arrested and tortured alongside her husband, the former Pasha of Fez. Her story rose to fame as she was considered modern Morocco’s first female political prisoner.