Abd-ur-Rahman

Abd-ur-Rahman, sultan of Fez and Morocco, born 1778, succeeded his uncle in 1823. His first four years of rule were occupied in quelling insurrections. Next, some danger to the state of Morocco was threatened by the refusal of Austria to pay the tribute for safety against pirates; but the sultan wisely adjusted the dispute by relinquishing this sort of blackmail, formerly levied by Morocco on European ships in the Mediterranean. The religious war under Abd-el-Kader against the French in Algeria involved the sultan in its movements. The piratical habits of his subjects brought him to the brink of war with more than one European state. He died in 1859.—The same name, also spelt Abd-al-Rahman and Abderrahman, is the name of the leader of the Saracens defeated at Tours in 732 by Charles Martel (q.v.), and of the first Ommiad calif of Cordova (755-788). See CALIF, SPAIN (p. 601); also AFGHANISTAN.