19
831–946/1428–1549
Morocco and the central Maghrib
|
831/1428 |
Yaḥyā I b. Zayyān al-Waṭṭāsī, Abū Zakariyyā’, at first regent for the Marīnids and then as de facto ruler for them |
|
|
|
|
863–9/1459–65 |
Direct rule of the Marīnid ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq II |
|
869–75/1465–71 |
Rule of the Idrīsid Shorfā in Fez |
|
⊘ 876/1472 |
Muḥammad I b. Yaḥyā I, Abū ‘Abdallāh al-Shaykh |
|
⊘ 910/1504 |
Muḥammad II b. Muḥammad I, Abū ‘Abdallāh al-Burtuqālī |
|
⊘ 932/1526 |
‘Alī b. Muḥammad II, Abu ’1-Ḥasan or Abū Ḥassūn, as rival ruler, first reign |
|
⊘ 932/1526 |
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad II, first reign |
|
⊘ 952/1545 |
Muḥammad III b. Aḥmad, al-Qaṣrī, Nāṣir al-Dīn |
|
954–6/1547–9 |
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad II, second reign |
|
956/1549 |
Sa‘did Sharīfs |
|
961/1554 |
‘Alī b. Muḥammad II, temporary occupation of Fez, second reign |
|
961/1554 |
Sa‘did Sharīfs |
The decline of the Marīnids (see above, no. 16) facilitated the rise of the Banū Waṭṭās, a collateral branch of the Berber Banū Marīn from which the family of ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq I, founder of the Marīnid fortunes, had sprung. The Banū Waṭṭās settled in north-eastern Morocco and the Rīf as virtually autonomous governors for their Marīnid kinsmen, with whose rule they were always closely linked, receiving high offices and other favours from the sultans.
When Morocco fell into anarchy in the 1420s, with extensive Christian attacks on its coasts and with the murder of the Marīnid Abū Sa‘īd ‘Uthmān III, the Waṭṭāsid Abū Zakariyyā’ Yaḥyā, governor of Salé (Salā), proclaimed a young son of the dead sultan as the new ruler (as events proved, the last of the Marīnid line), ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq II, with himself acting as regent. This regency of the Waṭṭāsids in fact lasted until well after the Marīnid reached his majority, and only latterly did ‘Abd al-Ḥaqq manage to throw off their tutelage. However, the Waṭṭāsids returned to power at Fez in 876/1472, now as independent rulers; under them, the city’s splendour to some extent continued as under the Marīnids, and it was during their time that Leo Africanus visited Fez.
Pressure from the Christian powers of the Iberian peninsula was meanwhile growing apace, and the fall of Granada in 897/1492 aroused a fresh wave of Islamic fervour in Morocco, spearheaded by the Sa‘did Shorfā from southern Morocco (see below, no. 20), who moved northwards and seized Marrakech in 929/1523 and Fez in 956/1549. The Waṭṭāsids even tried, in vain, to get help from the Emperor Charles V and from the Portuguese, but were unable to check the Sa‘did advance. A revanche with Ottoman Turkish help from Tlemcen achieved only a momentary success, with its ultimate failure sealing the fate of the dynasty permanently; some of the last Waṭṭāsids left for the Iberian peninsula and became converts to Christianity.
Lane-Poole, 58; Sachau, 26 no. 62; Zambaur, 79–80; Album, 18.
EI1 ‘Waṭṭāsids’ (E. Lévi-Provençal).
A. Cour, La dynastie marocaine des Beni Waṭṭās (1420–1534), Constantine 1920.
H. De Castries (ed.), Les sources inédites de l’histoire du Maroc de 1530 à 1845, Série 1, Dynastie saadienne 1530–1660, vol. IV, part I, Paris 1921, with detailed genealogical tables of the Waṭṭāsids at pp. 162–3.
H. Terrasse, Histoire du Maroc, II, 105–57.
H. W. Hazard, The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa, 85–6, 229–30, 279–80, 285.
