Saadi Sultanate

The Saadi Sultanate (Arabic: السعديون, romanized: as-saʿdiyyūn), also known as the Sharifian Sultanate (Arabic: السلطنة الشريفة), was a state which ruled present-day Morocco and parts of Northwest Africa in the 16th and 17th centuries. It was led by the Saadi dynasty, an Arab Sharifian dynasty.

The dynasty's rise to power started in 1510, when Muhammad al-Qa'im was declared leader of the tribes of the Sous valley in southern Morocco in their resistance against the Portuguese who occupied Agadir and other coastal cities. Al-Qai'm's son, Ahmad al-Araj, secured control of Marrakesh by 1525 and, after a period of rivalry, his brother Muhammad al-Shaykh captured Agadir from the Portuguese and eventually captured Fez from the Wattasids, securing control over nearly all of Morocco. After Muhammad al-Shaykh's assassination by the Ottomans in 1557 his son Abdallah al-Ghalib enjoyed a relatively peaceful reign. His successors, however, fought with each other, culminating in the 1578 Battle of Ksar el-Kebir (or "Battle of the Three Kings"), where a Portuguese military intervention on behalf of Muhammad II al-Mutawakkil was thoroughly defeated by Saadian forces. In the wake of this victory, Ahmad al-Mansur became sultan and presided over the apogee of Saadian power. In the later half of his reign he launched a successful invasion of the Songhai Empire, resulting in the establishment of a Pashalik centered on Timbuktu. After Al-Mansur's death in 1603, however, his sons fought a long internecine conflict for succession which divided the country and undermined the dynasty's power and prestige. While the Saadian realm was reunified at the end of the conflict in 1627, new factions in the region rose to challenge Saadian authority. The last Saadian sultan, Ahmad al-Abbas, was assassinated in 1659, bringing the dynasty to an end. Moulay al-Rashid later conquered Marrakesh in 1668 and led the 'Alawi dynasty to establish a new sultanate over Morocco.

The Saadians were an important chapter in the history of Morocco. They were the first Arab Sharifian dynasty to rule Morocco since the Idrisids, establishing a model of political-religious legitimacy which continued under the later 'Alawis, another Sharifian dynasty. They successfully resisted Ottoman expansion, making Morocco the only part of North Africa to remain outside Ottoman suzerainty, but followed Ottoman example by modernizing their army and adopting gunpowder weapons. During the long reign of Ahmad al-Mansur in the late 16th century, Morocco established itself as an ambitious regional power that expanded into West Africa and pursued relations with Europe, including a potential alliance with England against Spain. The Saadians were also significant patrons of art and architecture, with Abdallah al-Ghalib and Ahmad al-Mansur both responsible for some of the most celebrated monuments of Moroccan architecture.

The Saadi dynasty claimed descent from the Islamic prophet Muhammad through the line of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatima Zahra (Muhammad's daughter), and more specifically through Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, grandson of Hasan ibn Ali. Since the early 14th century they had been established at Tagmadert in the valley of the Draa River. In the mid-15th century some of them established themselves at Tidsi in the Sous valley, near Taroudant. They claimed Sharifian origins through an ancestor from Yanbu and rendered Sufism respectable in Morocco. The name Saadi or Saadian derives from "sa'ada" meaning happiness or salvation. Others think it derives from the name Bani Zaydan or that it was given to the Bani Zaydan (shurafa of Tagmadert) by later generations and rivals for power, who tried to deny their Hassanid descent by claiming that they came from the family of Halimah Saadiyya, Muhammad's wet nurse. They are also known as the Zaydanids, based on their putative ancestor Zaydan Ibn Ahmed, a Sharif from Yanbu.

The Saadians were a Sharifian family which had first established themselves in the Draa valley in the 14th century before moving or spreading to Tidsi in the Sous valley in the following century. Here they lived alongside Sufi teachers and marabouts who promoted the doctrines of al-Jazuli. The beginning of the Saadian rise to power took place in the context of weak central rule in Morocco and of Portuguese expansionism along its Atlantic coast. The Wattasid dynasty, which ruled from Fez in the north, had little authority over the south of the country. Under their reign, Portuguese expansion along the Moroccan coast reached its apogee. Many local resistance and jihad movements, often associated with various Sufi brotherhoods or establishments, arose to oppose the European presence.

In 1505 the Portuguese occupied Agadir (on the coast, near the mouth of the Sous river), which they called Santa Cruz do Cabo de Aguer, and from their territory here other European merchants also operated, notably the Genoese. This arrival of European traders and colonisers alarmed the local population and caused the inhabitants of the Sous region to organize themselves politically. According to one recorded tradition, this impetus was made clear when the Portuguese took some tribal warriors captive and demanded that the local tribes choose a leader or representative with whom they could negotiate their release. Either way, in 1510 the Saadian chief Muhammad al-Qa'im (full name: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibnʿAbd al-Raḥman al-Qāʾim Biamr Allāh) was formally recognized in Tidsi by the tribes of the Sous and the Sufi groups as their military leader and political representative. Tidsi remained Al-Qa'im's base for three years until he moved to Afughal in the Haha region in 1513, the burial site of Al-Jazuli. This was done at the invitation of the Shayazima tribe, which had been involved decades earlier in a rebellion against the Wattasids. This associated the early Saadians with both the followers of al-Jazuli and with an implicit opposition to the Wattasids.

In 1513 Al-Qa'im also appointed his elder son Ahmad al-'Araj as his successor and left him as governor in the Sous while he moved to Afughal. The Sous valley was a crucial stage in the trans-Saharan trade routes and, despite the jihad against Portuguese encroachment, European trade also increased in the region, all of which brought great profit to Al-Araj and to the Saadian movement. In 1515 the Saadians helped repel a Portuguese attack on Marrakesh but they were not yet in a position to claim the city for themselves.

Upon Al-Qa'im's death in 1517 he was buried next to Al-Jazuli in Afughal. Al-Araj inherited his father's main position at Afughal, north of the Atlas Mountains, while his younger brother Muhammad al-Shaykh was in turn charged with the Sous, south of the mountains. These two amirs became the true founders of the Saadian dynasty and its growing power. Among other things, Muhammad al-Shaykh also encouraged the production and export of sugar from the Sous, which thereafter became the region's main export. While famine or plague in 1520-1521 interrupted military efforts, Saadian power continue to grow across much of southern Morocco and began expelling the Europeans (Portuguese and Spanish) from their posts in the region. In 1523 open hostilities were declared between the Saadians and the Wattasid ruler in Fes, Muhammad al-Burtuqali. Al-Araj was admitted peacefully into Marrakesh in 1521 upon marrying the daughter of the Hintata leader Muhammad ibn Nasir Bu Shantuf who was occupying the city, but in 1524 or 1525 he had Bu Shantuf assassinated and, with the help of his brother Muhammad and reinforcements, captured the Kasbah, thus finally taking control of the city. At this time, or slightly before, Al-Araj arranged for the remains of his father Al-Qa'im and of Al-Jazuli to be transferred to Marrakesh, founding a new funerary complex (the Zawiya of Sidi Ben Slimane al-Jazuli) and symbolically cementing the city as a spiritual and political capital of the Saadians.