Sol_Hachuel

Sol Hachuel (Hebrew: סוליקא חגואל; Arabic: زليخة حتشويل; 1817 – June 5, 1834) was a Moroccan Jewish woman who was publicly beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam at the behest of the erstwhile Moroccan sultan Abd al-Rahman. She was executed in 1834, at the age of 17, after being charged with apostasy from Islam — apparently without ever having converted. According to The Jewish Encyclopedia, Hachuel "was a martyr to her faith, preferring death to become the bride of the sultan"; she is considered a tzadeket (saint) by some Jews and is also revered by some Muslims. Jews call her Sol HaTzaddikah (lit. 'Sol the Righteous'), while Arabs call her Lalla Zuleikha (lit. 'Holy Lady Zuleikha').Hachuel's self-sacrifice served as an inspiration to many painters and writers. One of the most detailed accounts, based on interviews with eyewitnesses, is from Spanish writer Eugenio Maria Romero. His book El Martirio de la Jóven Hachuel, ó, La Heroina Hebrea (lit. 'The Martyrdom of the Young Hachuel, or, The Hebrew Heroine') was first published in 1837 and republished in 1838. Hachuel's story was also the subject of a song by French musician Françoise Atlan on the record Romances Séfardies (lit. 'Sephardic Romances').In the 1860s, French artist Alfred Dehodencq painted multiple versions of a work depicting the execution of a Jewish woman in Morocco; one of these paintings was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1861 under the title Exécution d’une juive, au Maroc. Some scholars say that Dejodencq was inspired by the story of Sol Hachuel; however, his friend and biographer, the French philosopher Gabriel Séailles, states explicitly in more than one book that Dehodencq was an eye-witness to the execution he depicted.