Khadir Ghaïlan (Library of Congress, Ahmad al Khādir ibn 'Ali Ghaylān; generally known to English-speakers as Gayland or Guyland) was a powerful

warlord A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

during the seventeenth century. He controlled large swathes of the region until his death in September 1672 at the hands of

Moulay Ismail Moulay Ismail Ibn Sharif ( ar, مولاي إسماعيل بن الشريف), born around 1645 in Sijilmassa and died on 22 March 1727 at Meknes, was a Sultan of Morocco from 1672–1727, as the second ruler of the Alaouite dynasty. He was the se ...

. During the 1660s was noted for his clashes with the Anglo-Irish garrison at

Tangier Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the capi ...

. Despite gaining a success over the garrison at the Battle of Tangier (1664) he was never able to seriously threaten the port. He agreed a number of

truce A ceasefire (also known as a truce or armistice), also spelled cease fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be between state ac ...

s with the Governors of Tangier.

Depictions

The play "The Heir of Morocco, with the Death of Gayland" written by

Elkanah Settle Elkanah Settle (1 February 1648 – 12 February 1724) was an English poet and playwright. Biography He was born at Dunstable, and entered Trinity College, Oxford, in 1666, but left without taking a degree. His first tragedy, '' Cambyses, King ...

in 1682 was a political attack on

John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the p ...

, and is entirely fictional in respect of the characters used.

References

Bibliography

* Childs, John. ''The Army of Charles II''. Routledge, 1976. Year of birth unknown 1672 deaths Moroccan people {{Morocco-bio-stub