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Hassan II الحسن الثاني
Amir al-Mu'minin
King of Morocco
Reign	26 February 1961 – 23 July 1999
Predecessor	Mohammed V
Successor	Mohammed VI
Prime Ministers	See list Ahmed Bahnini Mohamed Benhima Ahmed Laraki Mohammed Karim Lamrani Ahmed Osman Maati Bouabid Azzeddine Laraki Abdellatif Filali Abderrahmane Youssoufi
Born	(1929-07-09)9 July 1929 Rabat, Morocco
Died	23 July 1999(1999-07-23) (aged 70) Rabat, Morocco
Burial	Royal Mausoleum, Rabat, Morocco
Spouse	Princess Lalla Fatima Princess Lalla Latifa
Issue	Princess Lalla Meryem Mohammed VI Princess Lalla Asma Princess Lalla Hasna Prince Moulay Rachid
Dynasty	Alaouite
Father	Mohammed V
Mother	Lalla Abla bint Tahar
Religion	Sunni Islam

King Hassan II (Arabic: الحسن الثاني‎, MSA: (a)l-ḥasan aṯ-ṯānī, Darija: el-ḥasan ett(s)âni); 9 July 1929 – 23 July 1999) was King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999. He was the eldest son of Mohammed V, Sultan, then King of Morocco (1909–1961), and his second wife, Lalla Abla bint Tahar (1909–1992). Hassan was known to be one of the most severe rulers of Morocco.^[1]

Biography

Youth and education

Hassan was educated at the Imperial College at Rabat, and earned a law degree from the University of Bordeaux.

He was exiled to Corsica by French authorities on 20 August 1953, together with his father Sultan Mohammed V. They were transferred to Madagascar in January 1954. Prince Moulay Hassan acted as his father's political advisor during the exile. Mohammed V and his family returned from exile on 16 November 1955.

Prince Moulay Hassan participated in the February 1956 negotiations for Morocco's independence with his father, who later appointed him Chief of Staff of the newly founded Royal Armed Forces in April 1956. In the unrest of the same year, he led army contingents battling rebels in the mountains of the Rif. Mohammed V changed the title of the Moroccan sovereign from Sultan to King in 1957. Hassan was proclaimed Crown Prince on 19 July 1957, and became King on 26 February 1961, after his father's death.

Rule

Hassan's conservative rule, one characterized by a poor human rights record,^[2] strengthened the Alaouite dynasty. In Morocco's first constitution of 1963, Hassan II reaffirmed Morocco's choice of a multi-party political system, the only one in the Maghreb at that time. The constitution gave the King large powers he eventually used to strengthen his rule, which provoked strong political protest from the UNFP and the Istiqlal parties that formed the backbone of the opposition.^[3]

In 1965, Hassan dissolved Parliament and ruled directly, although he did not abolish the mechanisms of parliamentary democracy. When elections were eventually held, they were mostly rigged in favour of loyal parties. This caused severe discontent among the opposition, and protest demonstrations and riots challenged the King's rule. A US report observed that "Hassan appears obsessed with the preservation of his power rather than with its application toward the resolution of Morocco's multiplying domestic problems."^[4]

King Hassan II, on his way to Friday prayers in Marrakesh, 1967.

In the early 1970s, King Hassan survived two assassination attempts. The first, in 1971, was a coup d'état attempt allegedly supported by Libya, organized by General Mohamed Medbouh and Colonel M'hamed Ababou and carried out by cadets during a diplomatic function at the King's summer palace in Rabat during his forty-second birthday party. Important guests, including the Belgian Ambassador Marcel Dupert, were placed under house arrest, and the King himself was taken to a small pavilion.

Rabat's main radio station was taken over by the rebels and broadcast propaganda stating that the King had been murdered and a republic founded. The coup ended the same day when royalist troops took over the palace in combat against the rebels. It was subsequently claimed by the Moroccan authorities that the young cadets had been misled by senior officers into thinking that they were acting to protect the king.

On 16 August 1972, during a second attempt, four F-5 military jets from the Royal Moroccan Air Force fired upon the King's Boeing 727 while he was travelling back to Rabat from France, many bullets hit the fuselage but they failed to bring the plane down. Allegedly, the King himself hurried to the cockpit, took control of the radio and shouted: "Stop firing you fools, the Tyrant is dead!" Eight people were killed when the jets strafed the awaiting reception dignitaries.^[5] General Mohamed Oufkir, Morocco's defense minister, was the man behind the coup and was officially declared to have committed suicide after the attack. His body, however, was found with several bullet wounds.^[6]

In the Cold War era, Hassan II allied Morocco with the West generally, and with the United States in particular. There were close and continuing ties between Hassan II's government and the CIA, who helped to reorganize Morocco's security forces in 1960.^[7] Hassan served as a back channel between the Arab world and Israel, facilitating early negotiations between them. This was made possible due to the presence in Israel of a large Moroccan Jewish community.

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During his reign, Morocco recovered the Spanish-controlled area of Ifni in 1969, and militarily seized two thirds of Spanish Sahara through the "Green March" in 1975. The latter issue continues to dominate Moroccan foreign policy to this day. Relations with Algeria have deteriorated sharply due to the Western Sahara affair, as well as due to Moroccan claims on Algerian territory (Tindouf and Bechar), which unleashed the brief 1963 Sand War. Relations with Mauritania were tense too, as Morocco only recognized it as a sovereign country in 1969, nearly a decade after Mauritania's independence, because of Moroccan claims on the country (see Great Morocco).

Economically, Hassan II adopted a market-based economy, where agriculture, tourism, and phosphates mining industries played a major role.

The period from the 1960s to the late 1980s was labelled as the "years of lead"^[8][9] and saw thousands of dissidents jailed, killed, exiled or forcibly disappeared.

King Hassan II had extended many parliamentary functions^{[citation needed]} by the early 1990s and released hundreds of political prisoners in 1991, and allowed the Alternance, where the opposition assumed power, for the first time in the Arab World.^{[citation needed]} He set up a Royal Council for Human Rights to look into allegations of abuse by the State.

Death

Hassan died of natural causes; he was in his birth town at the age of 70 on 23 July 1999. A national funeral service was held for him in Rabat, with over 40 heads of state in attendance. He was buried in the Mausoleum of Mohammed V. The coffin of Hassan II, carried by King Mohammed VI, his brother Prince Moulay Rachid and his cousin Moulay Hicham, was covered with a green fabric, in which the first prayer of Islam, "There is no god but God", is inscribed in golden writing.^[10]

Honours and decorations

Royal styles of King Hassan II of Morocco
Reference style	His Majesty
Spoken style	Your Majesty

National orders:

• 
  Grand Master of the Order of Muhammad
  


• 
  Grand Master of the Order of the Throne
  


• 
  Grand Master of the Order of the Independence


• 
  Grand Master of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite
  


• 
  Grand Master of the Order of Fidelity
  


• 
  Grand Master of the Order of Military Merit
  


• 
  Grand Master of the National Order of Merit


• 
  Grand Master of the National Order of Prosperity

Foreign orders:

• 
  Grand Star of the Order of Merit of the Austrian Republic
  


• 
  Grand Collar of the Order of al-Khalifa of Bahrain
  


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold of Belgium
  


• 
  Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Cambodia
  


• 
  Knight of the Order of the Elephant of Denmark
  


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of the Nile of Egypt
  


• 
  Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour of France
  


• 
  Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  


• 
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer of Greece
  


• 
  Grand Collar of the Order of Pahlavi of Iran
  


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of the Two Rivers of Iraq
  


• 
  Knight Grand Cross with Collar of Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
  


• 
  Collar of the Order of al-Hussein bin Ali of Jordan
  


• 
  Collar of the Order of Mubarak the Great of Kuwait
  


• 
  Extraordinary Grade of the Order of Merit of Lebanon
  


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of Idris I of Libya
  


• 
  Grand Cross of the National Order of Mali of Mali
  


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of National Merit of Mauritania
  


• 
  Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion
  


• 
  Special Class of the Order of Oman
  


• 
  Grand Cross of the Order of Pakistan, First Class


• 
  Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry of Portugal
  


• 
  Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword of Portugal


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of the Independence of Qatar
  


• 
  Order of Abdulaziz al Saud of Saudi Arabia, 1st Class


• 
  Collar of Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise of Spain
  


• 
  Collar of the Order of Charles III of Spain


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of Merit of Sudan
  


• 
  Wissam of the Order of Oumayid of Syria
  


• 
  Grand Cordon of the Order of the Republic of Tunisia
  


• 
  Grand Collar of the Order of the Seventh of November of Tunisia


• 
  Honorary Knight of the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
  


• 
  Collar of the Order of Etihad (Order of the Federation)


• 
  Yugoslav Great Star
  

Family

King Hassan II in 1983

King Hassan II had five children with his wife Lalla Latifa Hammou, a member of the Zayane tribe, whom he married in 1961:

• 
  Princess Lalla Meryem (born on 26 August 1962 in Rome).


• 
  King Mohammed VI (born 21 August 1963 in Rabat).


• 
  Princess Lalla Asma (born on 29 September 1965 in Rabat).


• 
  Princess Lalla Hasna (born on 19 November 1967 in Rabat).


• 
  Prince Moulay Rachid (born on 20 June 1970 in Rabat).

The king had one other wife, Lalla Fatima bint Qaid Ould Hassan Amhourak (cousin of Latifa Hammou), whom he also married in 1961. They had no children.

The father of Hassan II was Mohammed V of Morocco and his mother was Lalla Abla bint Tahar.
He had five sisters and one brother:

• 
  Lalla Fatima Zohra, born on 29 June 1929 in Rabat, died on 10 August 2014 in Cabo Negro (from the first marriage of Mohammed V of Morocco).


• 
  Lalla Aicha, born on 17 June 1930 in Rabat, died on 4 September 2011 in Rabat (from the second marriage of Mohammed V, with Lalla Abla).


• 
  Lalla Malika, born on 14 March 1933 in Rabat (from the second marriage of Mohammed V).


• 
  Moulay Abdallah, born on 30 July 1935 in Rabat, died on 20 December 1983 in Rabat (from the second marriage of Mohammed V).


• 
  Lalla Nuzha, born on 29 October 1940 in Rabat, died on 2 September 1977 in a car crash near Tétouan (from the second marriage of Mohammed V).


• 
  Lalla Amina, born on 8 April 1954 in Antsirabe, died on 16 August 2012 in Rabat (from the third marriage of Mohammed V of Morocco, with Lalla Bahia, died in August 2012 in Rabat).^[11]
  

Interior of Hassan II Mosque

Publications

• 
  La mémoire d'un roi, Paris, Plon, 1993


• 
  Le Génie de la modération, Paris, Plon, 2000

See also

• List of Kings of Morocco


• History of Morocco

References and links

External links

• 
  Media related to Hassan II of Morocco at Wikimedia Commons


• History of Morocco