Mohammed el Kebir

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (February 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,168 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Mohamed el-Kebir]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Mohamed el-Kebir}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Mohammed ben Othman, also known as Mohammed el Kebir was the bey of the Western Beylik from 1776 to 1796. He is best-known for re-conquering Oran and Mers El Kébir from the Spaniards. He was known as a reformist.

Biography

He was the son of a bey of Titteri called Othamn al-Kurdi who was of mixed Kurdish-Algerian ancestry.^[1] His date of birth is unknown, although it is known that the Khaznadar (treasurer) of the dey estimated him to be between 40 and 45 years old when he met him in 1779. Mohammed was appointed caïd of Flitta, an important position in the western beylik. He was appointed as khalifa (supreme military commander) of the Western Beylik in 1768, and in 1775 during the reign of Ibrahim of Miliana he valiantly led more than 4,000 fighters from the Western Beylik during the Spanish Invasion of Algiers in 1775.^[2] He played no small part of the battle and is said to have led a brilliant cavalry charge against the Spanish troops camped around El Harrach.^[3] In 1776 Ibrahim of Miliana died, but despite his wild popularity and great honor, Mohammed was discarded in favor of a very rich and influential man called "Hadj Khrellil".

Hadj Khrellil died in 1779, after which Mohammed became bey of