The British bride of Tangier

The book recounts an extraordinary love story between a Victorian English girl, Miss Emily Keene, and Hadj Abdesslam, the Sheikh of the Wazzaniyya tariqa, one of the most powerful Sufi orders in the 19th century Morocco. The story is set against the background of fierce European colonial encroachments in morocco, where Emily and the Shareef were both crucial agents and victims, Tangier, the metropolis where the story takes place, was the seat of European powers, a place of espionage, bitter economic rivalries, and political intrigues. Such rivalries and intrigues had disastrous consequences on the conjugal harmony and felicity of the Anglo-Moorish couple, the status of the Wazzaniyya tariqa as well the territorial integrity of Morocco. -- Back cover.