Saadi Sultanate

  General Description   This polity represents the period in which Morocco was ruled by the Saadi dynasty. Although the dynasty itself was founded in 1511 CE, we date the beginning of the polity to 1554, when the Saadis took Fez from their dynastic rivals, the Wattasids, and united Morocco under their rule. As for the polity’s end, it seems most appropriate to date it to 1659, the year the last Saadi monarch was assassinated. Between 1554 and 1591, the boundaries of the Saadi Sultanate coincided with those of modern-day Morocco. Between 1591 and 1618, the Saadi also ruled over the Niger Inland Delta, though their control over this area seems to have been nominal. After the death of Sultan Ahmad Al-Mansur in 1603, the polity entered a period of instability that ultimately led to the loss of their Niger colony. ^[1]
Population and political organization
In the 16th and 17th centuries CE, the Saadis ruled through an Ottoman-style hierarchical regime. ^[2] Atop this hierarchy stood the sultan, followed by the wazir or vizier, usually the crown prince. Then came the sultan’s council, headed by the First Secretary, who fulfilled the roles of secretary of state, majordomo and treasurer. The vice-vizier was in charge of the army and the qadi al-qudat (chief religious judge) headed the judiciary and appointed regional qadis.
The Saadi Sultanate is likely to have had a population of no more than 3 million at its peak. This is based on the earliest available population estimate for Morocco, which dates to the 20th century. According to García-Arenal, ’[t]he figure can hardly have been higher in the late sixteenth century or during the seventeenth, given that the country was subject to regular and devastating epidemics of plague’. ^[3] However, it is worth noting that this estimate does not take into account the population of the Niger Inland Delta.

[1]: (El Fasi 1992, 200-32) M. El Fasi. 1992. ’Morocco’. In General History of Africa, vol. 5: Africa from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Bethwell Allan Ogot, 200-32. London: Heinemann.

[2]: (García-Arenal 2009, 57-58) Mercedes García-Arenal. 2009. Ahmad Al-Mansur: The Beginnings of Modern Morocco. Oxford: OneWorld.

[3]: (García-Arenal 2009, 41) Mercedes García-Arenal. 2009. Ahmad Al-Mansur: The Beginnings of Modern Morocco. Oxford: OneWorld.