Ismail controlled a fleet of corsairs based at Salé-le-Vieux and Salé-le-Neuf (now Rabat), which supplied him with European Christian slaves and weapons through their raids in the Mediterranean and all the way to the Black Sea.

He also made Meknes his capital and undertook the construction of an enormous citadel and palace complex next to its old city which included several grand residences, gardens, monumental gates, mosques, and more than forty kilometers of walls.

[8][9] After the death of the Saadi sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, Morocco entered a period of unrest, during which his sons fought with one another for the throne, while the country was parcelled up by the different military leaders and religious authorities.

While the siege of Fez continued,[alN 7] Ismail turned northwest to face Khadir Ghaïlan, who had taken control of the Habt region (the Gharb and Khlout plains and part of the Jebala territory) with the help of the Ottoman Regency of Algiers.

[alN 11] Between 1678 and 1679, Moulay Ismail attempted an expedition over the Amour mountain range into the region of Cherg, accompanied by a large contingent of Arab tribes, including the Beni Amer.

[L 2] Around the end of Ramadan 1678–1679, Ismail's three brothers, Harran, Hashem, and Ahmed, and three of his cousins revolted with the help of the Sanhaja confederation of Aït Atta and the tribes of the Toudra [fr] and Dadès valleys.

[Arc 4] On their return journey, a blizzard struck the force as it crossed the Atlas at Telwet or Elglâoui on the Jbel Ben Deren, destroying nearly three thousand tents, part of the army, and the booty.

[L 11][L 9] In 1681, while the siege of Tangiers was still ongoing, Moulay Ismail sent part of his army under the command of Omar ben Haddou El-Bottoui to conquer the city of La Mamora.

Ismail immediately sent a large force to the south of the country to face Ahmed and prepared an expedition against the Ottomans, which did not end up taking place because the Turkish army withdrew.

[alN 21] Ismail's army was very numerous and equipped with mortars, ballistae, cannons, and other siege weapons, which were dragged by Christian slaves all the way from Moulouya to Ksar Beni M'Tir.

Only the Black Guard, the Oudaias, the Ait Imour (a guich tribe), and the Rifans, while the Fezzans began a holy war against Ceuta[alN 22]The Guerouans learned this the hard way.

In Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri's Al-Istiqsa, it is reported that Moulay Ismail provided 10,000 horsemen to Ali ben Ichchou, the caid of the Zemmour and Bni Hakem tribes and told him "I do not want you to return until you have fallen upon the Gerrouans and unless you bring back to me a heads for each man here."

[alN 23] Jean-Baptiste Estelle, the French consul in Salé wrote to his minister, the Marquis de Torcy in 1698:[17] ... that the vast extent of the Sharifan Empire is a single unit from the Mediterranean to the Senegal river.

[L 20] In 1720, Philip V of Spain, who wanted to get revenge on Morocco for having aided the Grand Alliance in the War of the Spanish Succession, sent a fleet commanded by the Marquess of Lede to raise the siege of Ceuta which had been ongoing since 1694 and to force the Moroccans to give up on retaking the city.

[C1903 4][39] However, researcher such as Richard Bordeaux Parker opined that frequently-told stories about the ten of thousands of Christian slaves' forced labours and the large dungeons where they were kept were exaggerated from the accounts of European ambassadors who visited Isma'il's court.

[L 17][L 4] According to Germain Moüette, a French captive who lived in Morocco until 1682: He is a vigorous man, well-built, quite tall but rather slender... his face is a clear brown colour, rather long, and its features are all quite well-formed.

His expression, which seems quite soft, is not a sign of his humanity – on the contrary, he is very cruel...[L 22]"A faithful and pious follower of his religion",[C1903 5] he attempted to convert King James II of England to Islam, sending him letters whose sincerity and religious feeling are inarguable.

[C1903 6] Dominique Busnot, who was generally critical of Ismail, asserted that "he had a great attachment to his Law and publicly practiced all the ceremonies, ablutions, prayers, fasts, and feasts with scrupulous precision.

I give you this advice for the sake of my conscience and to be justified in charging you on the day of judgment.Moulay Ismail chose Meknes as Morocco's capital city in 1672 and carried out an extensive building program there that resulted in the construction of numerous gates, mosques, gardens, and madrasas.

This was followed by Madinat er-Riyad, the residence of the viziers, governors, caids, secretaries, and other high functionaries of Ismail's court, which the historian Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri called 'the beauty of Meknes'.

[alN 9] In the 16th century, these tribes had formed the core of the Saadi army,[55] against the Jashem Arabs of Rharb who were part of Banu Hilal and included the Khlout and Safiane, who had supported the Marinid dynasty of Fez.

After he reconquered Marrakesh in 1674, Ismail encountered a poor shepherd of the Udaya called Bou-Chefra and learned that his people had been forced to leave the desert because of the drought and were originally Banu Maqil like himself.

[alN 33] The Jaysh al-Udaya became a major portion of Sultan's army, governed by the principle of makhzen in which land was granted to soldiers in exchange for military service.

According to the historian Simon Pierre, "After the Alaouite conquest, the people of the Maghreb had been despoiled and disarmed and, except for one Berber tribe and the Rifians, only the Abid al-Bukhari and the Udaya exercised the monopoly on violence.

[58] The kasbahs ensured the defence of the eastern border, where there was a heavy Moroccan military presence, but they also protected the main lines of communication within the kingdom and facilitated the control of unsubjugated tribes,[Arc 9] by continuously raiding them.

[61] According to the writings of the French Trinitarian priest Father Dominique Busnot, Moulay Ismail had at least 500 concubines and at least 600 living children in 1704, which did not include his daughters by his four principle wives.

[62] Historian Abd al-Rahman Ibn Zaydan recorded children of around 68[61] wedded wives[61] and 8 unnamed slave concubines from the royal birth registers kept during the reign of Sidi Mohammed III.

[63] The historian Al Zayani, who was in charge of royal protocol under Sultan Sidi Mohammed III, recounts that with his own eyes he saw the exhaustive list of Moulay Ismail's children and that his descendants occupied 500 houses in Sijilmasa.

The historian Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri, who recorded the whole history of Morocco in this period, declared: The evildoers and troublemakers no longer knew where to shelter, where to seek refuge: no land wanted to bear them, no sky would cover them.

[alN 34]Moulay Ismail accomplished the political reunification of the whole country, the formation of its main military force – the Black Guard or Abid al-Bukhari, as well as the Jaysh al-Rifi, and recaptured several coastal cities from the Europeans.