Muhammad al-Shaykh al-Sa'di

محمد الشيخ السعدي

1557 CE · 964 AH

The Sa'di sharif, ruler of Fas, who ended Wattasid rule with some twenty thousand Ottoman-backed mujahidun, then turned resolute adversary: after retaking Fez he declared he would march on Algiers, asked Madrid and Lisbon for ten thousand musket-armed troops at the Emperor's expense, proposed razing Algiers itself — while stipulating no Arab ever be enslaved, as contrary to the shari'a — and struck a six-month Portuguese truce in early 962/1555, with al-Muzawwar Bu Ghannam his intermediary to Spain. Seizing the fleet's absence he entered Tlemcen unawares, but its garrison under Mahmud Safa Bak held. To Süleyman's envoy he returned refusal ¹.

Summary

The Sa'di sharif, ruler of Fas, who ended Wattasid rule with Ottoman backing and then became the Ottomans' most resolute adversary in the Maghrib ¹.

From ally to adversary

The Ottoman state had backed him with some twenty thousand mujahidun until the Wattasids fell; after retaking Fez he declared he would march on Algiers, asked Madrid and Lisbon for ten thousand musket-armed troops at the Emperor's expense, and proposed — per the Spanish embassy's report — razing Algiers itself, while stipulating that no Arab ever be enslaved, as contrary to the shari'a. He struck a six-month Portuguese truce in early 962/1555 ².

Tlemcen and the refusal

Seizing the fleet's absence he entered Tlemcen unawares; its garrison under Mahmud Safa Bak held. To Süleyman's envoy he returned refusal — the same sultan who had addressed to him his exalted rescript calling for Islamic unity and good neighbourliness ³.

Hasan b. Khayr al-Din Barbarossa

Khayr al-Din Barbarossa's son, of a noted Algerian family on his mother's side; the Porte's governor of Algiers from 951/1544. He refortified the city's weak points shown by Charles V's attack, kept the Oran force from restoring Abu Zayyan Ahmad II at Tlemcen, secured the Ottoman garrison at al-Mashwar castle, and drove the Sa'dis out by 959/1551 (printed '1151'). But his hostility to all foreign powers — France included — and his refusal of the French envoy's military aid ('jihad is the Muslims' affair; I will not win by an infidel against an infidel') let the envoy poison the Porte's ear: Süleyman deposed him in Safar 960/January 1552, giving the beylerbeylik to Salih Reis. After Hasan Corso's death in 964/1557 the sultan restored him; he raised ten thousand Zawawa, married Sultan Kuku's daughter, set Bu Yahya over Badis, fought Abd al-Aziz b. Abbas of Qal'at Bani Abbas until his fall, and recognised his successor Ahmad Muqran. The Janissaries, fearing he meant independence, arrested him in summer 969/1561 and shipped him bound to Istanbul — yet the sultan returned him a third time in late 970/1562 with ten warships. He besieged Oran on 13 April 1563 with fifteen thousand musketeers, a thousand horse, and twelve thousand Zawawa and Bani Abbas, lifting it as relief converged; shared in the Malta siege of 973/1565 with twenty-five ships and three thousand men; and in 975/1567 Selim II made him commander-in-chief of the fleet.

Muhammad al-Shaykh al-Sa'di

At a glance

Life in time

Summary

From ally to adversary

Tlemcen and the refusal

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

People

Hasan b. Khayr al-Din Barbarossa