Wattasid dynasty

Overview

The Wattasid dynasty (al-Waṭṭāsīyūn) was a Berber dynasty of Zenata origin that ruled Morocco from its capital at Fez in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It inherited a Morocco in profound crisis: the Portuguese had seized the Atlantic ports, cutting the towns off from the southern caravan trade; population stagnated; and intellectual life withered.

History

The Wattasids had long been the power behind the throne. Autonomous governors of the eastern Rif from their base at Tazouta since the late 13th century, they were closely related to the ruling Marinids and supplied many of their viziers. These viziers gradually absorbed the sultans' powers until the Marinid sultan Abd al-Haqq II reasserted direct rule in 1458–59 and massacred the Wattasid family. When Abd al-Haqq himself was lynched in the Fez revolt of 1465, the surviving Wattasid, Abu Abd Allah al-Sheikh Muhammad ibn Yahya, seized power, founding the Kingdom of Fez in 1472.

The new dynasty controlled only northern Morocco; the south was split among principalities. Its greatest failure was its conciliatory policy toward Iberian expansion: despite treaties with Spain (1485), the Portuguese took Safi (1488), Mazagan (1502), Agadir (1505) and Mogador (1506), while Spain seized Melilla (1497). Wattasid attempts to retake Asilah and Tangier in 1508, 1511 and 1515 all failed. Meanwhile Morocco absorbed waves of Muslim and Jewish refugees from conquered Granada after 1492.

The dynasty's nemesis rose in the south: the Saadian sharifs of Tagmadert, who championed jihad against the Portuguese, took Marrakesh in 1524–25 and partitioned Morocco with the Wattasids by the Treaty of Tadla (1527). The Saadian capture of Agadir in 1541—which forced Portugal to abandon Safi and Azemmour—made them national heroes, in damning contrast to Wattasid appeasement. Desperate, the Wattasid sultan Ali Abu Hassun briefly accepted Ottoman suzerainty in 1545 to gain military support, but Ottoman-backed intervention could not save the dynasty. In 1554 the Saadis under Muhammad al-Shaykh defeated and killed Abu Hassun at the Battle of Tadla; the last fleeing Wattasids were murdered by pirates at sea.

Decline and legacy

The Wattasids minted square silver dirhams in the Almohad tradition and a few rare gold coins, but left little architectural or institutional legacy. Their reign is remembered chiefly as a troubled interlude between the Marinids and the Saadians—a period in which Morocco nearly fell piecemeal to Iberian colonization before the Saadian revival turned the tide.