A Woman Traveller in the Moorish Sanctum: A Look at Emily Keene, Shareefa of Wazzan’s My Life Story

Emily Keene’s My Life Story (1911) is a unique travel account as it is written by an Englishwoman, which puts the travelogue in the ambit of female travel narratives. She married a Moorish notable, Sidi Al-Hadj Abd al-Salam, the Shareef of Wazzan, spending, hence, more than four decades amongst the Moors in pre-protectorate Morocco or the “Land of the Furthest West”. For more than four decades, Keene managed to live on the cusp of two starkly different cultures, civilizations, religions and societies. Keene was fascinated by the atavistic Moroccan customs and the metaphysical world of the Moors. The man she married epitomized these purely aspired elements. Keene was mesmerized and enchanted by the Moors, their culture and traditions, but at the same time she adhered to her own culture, moving, hence, between two acutely different identities. As an Englishwoman in the Moorish sanctum, Keene was virtually seen by most of the Moors as a Christian from “Bilad al-Nassara” or an “Abode of Disbelief”.