Zidan Abu Maali

Zidan Abu Maali
Sultan of Morocco
Reign1603 – 1627
PredecessorAhmad al-Mansur
SuccessorAbu Marwan Abd al-Malik II
BornUnknown ?
Saadi Sultanate
DiedSeptember 1627
Saadi Sultanate
IssueAhmed Elasgher[1]
Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik II
Al Walid ben Zidan
Mohammed esh-Sheikh es-Seghir
Names
Zidan Abu Maali bin Ahmad al-Mansur
Era dates
(16th17th Centuries)
DynastyHouse of Saadi
FatherAhmad al-Mansur
MotherAisha bint Abu Bakkar al-Shabani
ReligionSunni Islam

Zidan Abu Maali (Arabic: زيدان أبو معالي) (died September 1627; or Muley Zidan) was the embattled Saadi Sultan of Morocco from 1603 to 1627. He was the son and heir of Ahmad al-Mansur by his wife Lalla Aisha bint Abu Bakkar,[2] a lady of the Chebanate tribe.[3]

He ruled only over the southern half of the country after his brother Mohammed esh Sheikh el Mamun took the northern half and a rebel from Tafilalt, Ahmed ibn Abi Mahalli, marched on Marrakesh claiming to be the Mahdi. This led Muley Zidan to be encircled in Safi amid other failed military campaigns against the rebellious north. These events were exacerbated by a context of chaos that ensued amid a plague pandemic which left a third of the country dead.

His reign saw the end of the Anglo-Spanish war (with the 1604 Treaty of London)—which broke the Anglo-Dutch axis that Morocco was relying upon as a means of protection from Spain, and so caused the Spanish navy to resume devastating raids on the Moroccan coast—and the rebellion of one of his provincial governors who established his own independent state of the Republic of Salé between Azemmour and Salé.

  1. ^ Ifrānī, Muḥammad al-Ṣaghīr ibn Muḥammad (1889). Nozhet-Elhâdi: Histoire de la dynastie saadienne au Maroc (1511-1670) (in French). E. Leroux. p. 404.
  2. ^ Les sources inédites de l'histoire du Maroc: Dynastie saadienne, 1530-1660. 1e série (in French). E. Leroux. 1933. p. 579. Moulay Ahmed el-Mansour had married ... Aicha bent Abou Baker ..., often called by Arab chroniclers because of her origin Lalla Chebania
  3. ^ Muḥammad al-Ṣaghīr ibn Muḥammad Ifrānī (1888). Nozhet-Elhâdi : Histoire de la dynastie saadienne au Maroc (1511-1670) (in French). p. 312.