Saadian Maraboutism
In the throes of conquest, the Maghreb became a fertile ground for waves of mystical fervour. There was nothing new in such a phenomenon frequently observed in crisis situations, regardless of the society concerned. In Morocco it took the shape of Sufism understood as a person's transcendental participation in the godhead while they strictly observed sacred precepts and were given over to prayer and meditation before all else. Behind each new zawiya would be a “saint” who founded his influence in his personal credit, his charisma and his « science »
, and in the authority he exercised over hundreds of disciples. Such a figure belonged in a society historically structured around the tribe or multiple small power bases of a « feudal »
nature amidst populations bound by religious solidarity. These players were frequently in conflict with each other. The notion of a « state »
meant nothing to them but neither were they prepared to stand for the constraints imposed by Christian states on the Marinids then the Wattassids. To fight them, the marabouts organised religiously inspired resistance hubs. These places had soon become market cum defensive warfare centres which the central power could no longer control any more than it could ride on their dynamism.
One of those maraboutic movements succeeded in mobilising the Moroccan South against the Portuguese. This movement was led by the Saadians[1], who ended up founding a new dynasty. Some authors assert that the cohesion of the Sous, the Draa and the Tafilalt that brought in this dynasty hung on the « ethnic support from »
« Ma'qil Arabs »
[2], and that peculiarly Southern warring energy associated with them. As for its religious dimension, it did not enjoy unanimous support since three of the foremost jurists of the time lost their life for refusing to join the Saadian camp. Scholars are divided as to the support the family had been granted by the marabouts : el-Oufrani, unlike Jacques Berque, thinks it beyond doubt. Whatever the case, this likely support was not restricted to politico-religious matters. The marabouts played a major role in economic life at the time. They had been direct beneficiaries of economic growth : Ibn Askar, for instance, said that in Tamslouht, in Southern Morocco, he had seen farmers take out a share – either a fifth or a tenth – of the crop gathered by each of their teams of oxen to be taken to the sheikh's Zawiya : thus were these brotherhoods resourced.
Whether the Saadians were Sherifs or simply born off the Banu Saad tribe was immaterial in so far as, at the time of their endorsement, they were recognised as « Shorfa »
by their followers. The 1520-1522 famines, followed by a terrible plague – the salient event of that century – had weakened their rivals, which enabled them to eliminate the Hintata[3] Emir who held Marrakesh in 1529 and to get rid of Yahya ibn Tafuft[4], the ally of the Portuguese in the Dukala region. Riding on a wave of truly popular support, the Saadians increased their power and succeeded in forcing the Portuguese out of most of their positions in Morocco, aided in this by Lisbon's chief interest in riches (or exotic goods) from India and South America, which ensured a more significant yield than those from Africa. The Saadians also benefited from an alliance with the English: intent on breaching the monopoly unilaterally imposed by the Portuguese on the African trade, they sold weapons to the new masters ; as for the king of Spain, Philip II[5], his priorities were clearly European. Remains one question : how can the share of the Marabouts' action in the reconquest of most of the Portuguese positions be assessed?
Mohammad Sheikh al-Qaim[6] captured Fes, where, after eliminating his Wattassid predecessor, he was finally proclaimed sultan in 1554. This event signalled the Saadians' progress in central Morocco but they were very soon faced with the double threat that would undermine their power. Abroad, the challenge was to hold a tricky balance between their two powerful neighbours : Ottoman to the east and Spanish and Portuguese to the north. Internally, hardly had the reign of Ahmad al Mansur[7], victor of the “Battle of the Three Kings” and conqueror of the Bilad es-Sudan ended when the rot set in. Saadian authority became observably weaker and open to challenge: taxes were no longer being paid, the all-important income from foreign trade failed, revolt spread about in all the regions and unrest pervaded every social class. The sultan's own sons rebelled against their father. After Ahmad al-Mansur's death, in 1603, three pretenders fought for power, militarily expelling each other from Marrakesh whilst a fourth agitated for a while among the tribes of the High-Atlas. At the same time, Sharif Abdellah ben Tahir[8] was challenging the Saadian authority, thereby giving notice of the prestige, the wealth and the influence of the Filali[9] Shorfa who had settled in the region three centuries since.
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