Saadi dynasty

The Saadi dynasty of Morocco (Arabic: سعديون) (in English also Saadite or Saadian, original name Bani Zaydan), began with the reign of Sultan Mohammed ash-Sheikh in 1554, when he vanquished the last Wattasids at the Battle of Tadla.

From 1509 to 1554 they had ruled only in the south of Morocco, officialized by the 1527 Treaty of Tadla. The Saadian rule ended in 1659 with the end of the reign of Sultan Ahmad el Abbas.

The Saadī family claimed descent from Muhammad through the line of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatima Zahra (Muhammad's daughter). The Saadi came from Tagmadert in the valley of the Draa River. The family's village of origin in the Draa was Tidzi (a qsar, some 10 km north of Zagora) The Saadian sultan Mohammed esh Sheikh es Seghir wrote in a letter to the a member of the Alaouite family (Moulay Mohammed ould Moulay Cherif ): "We are from Tidsi, one of the qsour of the Draa." (Nozhet el Hadi, p. 15). The geographical position of Tidzi is: Latitude: 30° 59' 52 N, Longitude: 7° 24' 49 W.. They claimed sharifian origins through an ancestor from Yanbu and rendered Sufism respectable in Magreb. The name Saadi or Saadian derives from "sa'ada" meaning hapiness 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 Hassan descent by claiming that they came from the family of......
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