What was the Saadi dynasty?
The Saadian dynasty restored Morocco's golden age in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Sharifian sultans from the Draa Valley, the Saadians expelled the Portuguese from Agadir in 1541, annihilated their crusade at the Battle of the Three Kings in 1578, and under Ahmad al-Mansur turned Marrakech into a capital of sugar, gold, and marble.
Last updated: October 2026
The Saadians rose as leaders of holy war against the Portuguese enclaves on the Atlantic coast. Muhammad al-Shaykh took Fez in 1549 and ended Wattasid rule, uniting Morocco under sharifian — Prophetic-descended — kingship. When the Portuguese king Sebastian landed in 1578 to restore a deposed Saadian claimant, Sultan Abd al-Malik met him at Alcácer Quibir; the catastrophe that followed made the Saadians masters of Morocco and ended Portugal's independence.
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