CHAPTER  THE EIGHTH
A   MOORISH   TYRANT

(EARLY  FILAlI  PERIOD)
1649-1727

BY the close of the thirteenth century almost all trace
had been  lost in  Morocco  of the Idreesi shareefs
who had founded the Empire, for though here and there
survived   some   solitary  member  who  was  to
Origin of the        transmit  a  somewhat  doubtful   claim   to   the

Filali Shareefs.                                                       r        m        1       1     1                      •     1

present day, that family had been entirely
dispersed by the Berbers who had since ruled the land.
But the presence of descendants of Mohammed is
believed by his followers to exisure prosperity, and the
troubles of the Maghrib were attributed by some to
the lack of such bringers of fortune. So certain enter¬
prising spirits of Tafilalt (or, as it was then called,
Sajilmasa), when they made their pilgrimage to Mekka,
ov. 1300. invited a shareef of Yanboi en-Nakhil—of
the family of Abu Taleb, to whom Mohammed >had granted
that district—to settle amongst them.^ The invitation
was accepted by one El Hasan bin Kasem, thereafter
surnamed Ed-Dakhil—^'the Penetrator," i,e., of the new
home.*

* "As for the popular legend that they paid his father the weight of his
son in silver, that is one of the vain fables which have neither tail nor head.
God knoweth better than any what is the real truth." ^

1 El UfrAni, pp. 480-483 ; En-NAsiri, vol. iv., p. 3.         2 El UfrAni, p. 482.

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