Lalla Khanatha bint Bakkar (Arabic: خناثة بنت الشيخ بكار المغافري) (1668–1754), was one of the wives of Sultan Moulay Ismail (r. 1672–1727), and acted as his de facto First Minister and Secretary.
After his death, she remained active in the political governance of Morocco during the unstable situation which followed as the mother of Sultan Moulay Abdallah (r.
Thus, he circled from the Souss (here meaning the Sahara) and the oasis of Touat to the provinces of Sakia El Hamra, there the Sultan received embassies from the M'ghafra tribe and allegiance from Grand Sheikh Abu Bakkar Al M'gharfi, the chieftain.
[8] Moulay Ismail had thousands of slave concubines in his harem, four legal wives he constantly replaced by divorce and hundreds of children.
In 1721, she acted as a mediator between the Sultan and the British ambassador Charles Stewart, during the negotiations about a peace treaty between Morocco and Great Britain, which was successfully completed in 1722 with her assistance.
[12] The confusion residing in Charles Stewart addressing her as "Powerful Lady, Mother of Muley Abdallah"[12] and both women have a son bearing that name.
[citation needed] She also wrote a commentary of Al-Isaba fi Marifat as-Sabaha, a book which authored by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, and also several letters to the inhabitants of Oujda, advising and consoling them on their plight as neighbors of the Ottoman Turks.
In Kitâb Elistiqsâ, the author Al-Nasiri gave tribute to Lalla Khnata on the date of her death:"On 6 djoumâda I, died the noble lady Khenâtsa Elmgafriya, daughter of Bekkâr and mother of the Sultan (God have mercy on her!)
[21] The novel, La Reine Khanatha, épouse de Mawla Ismail, by Amna Ellouh[22] (thanks to which she won the Moroccan Prize for Literature in 1954).