Emir Abdelkader
Emir Abdelkader was a religious scholar and military leader who led Algerian resistance to the French conquest. Years later, in Damascus, he saved thousands of Christians from violence. He was born on 6 September 1808 at el Guetna, near Mascara, and died on 26 May 1883 in Damascus, in Syria.
Emir Abdelkader was a religious scholar and military leader who led Algerian resistance to the French conquest. Years later, in Damascus, he saved thousands of Christians from violence. He was born on 6 September 1808 at el Guetna, near Mascara, and died on 26 May 1883 in Damascus, in Syria.
As a young man Abdelkader studied the Quran and Arabic, and he travelled with his father, Muhieddine, to Mecca.
From 1832 the young emir led the tribes of western Algeria against the French army. In 1837 he signed the Treaty of Tafna with General Bugeaud, but the war went on until he surrendered in 1847.
France then held him prisoner until 1852, mostly at the château of Amboise. After a stay in Bursa, in Turkey, he settled in Damascus in 1855.
In 1860 violence broke out against the Christians of Damascus, and he protected thousands of them. France gave him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and the Pope and the Ottoman Sultan also honoured him.
Abdelkader's remains came to El Alia cemetery in Algiers in the 1960s. A university in Constantine and a square in Algiers now bear his name.
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