Ahmad al-Mansur

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Ahmad I al-Mansur (Arabic: أحمد المنصور السعدي‎) (also Ahmed el-Mansour and El-Mansour Eddahbi (the Golden) (Arabic: أحمد المنصور الذهبي‎) was Sultan of the Saadi dynasty from 1578 to his death in 1603, the sixth and most famous of all rulers of the Saadis. He was the third son of Mohammed ash-Sheikh who became sultan of Morocco.

In 1578, Ahmad's brother, Sultan Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik I Saadi, died in battle against the Portuguese army at the Ksar el Kebir. Ahmad was named his brother's successor and began his reign amid newly-won prestige and wealth from the ransom of Portuguese captives.

In 1600 Ahmad al-Mansur sent his Secretary Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud (here depicted) as ambassador of the Barbary States to the Court of Queen Elizabeth I of England to negotiate an alliance against Spain.

On October 16, 1590, Ahmad took advantage of recent civil strife in the Songhai Empire and dispatched an army of 4,000 men across the Sahara desert under the command of converted Spaniard Judar Pasha. Though the Songhai met them at the Battle of Tondibi with a force of 40,000, they lacked the maghrebian's gunpowder weapons and quickly fled. Ahmad advanced, sacking the Songhai cities of Timbuktu and Djenné, as well as the capital Gao. Despite these initial successes, the logistics of controlling a territory across the Sahara soon grew too difficult, and the Saadians lost control of the cities not long after Ahmad al-Mansur's death in 1603. He was buried in the mausoleum of the Saadian Tombs in Marrakech. In that city is also his El Badi Palace. Well known writers at his court were Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari, Abd al-Aziz al-Fishtali, Ahmad Ibn al-Qadi and Al-Masfiwi.

Ahmad al-Mansur was succeeded by Zidan Abu Maali, who was based in Marrakech, and by Abou Fares Abdallah, who was based in Fes and had only local power.

[edit] References

• Nabil Mouline, "Sens et puissance: l'idéologie califale du sultan Ahmad al-Mansûr al-Dhahabî (1578-1603), in Studia islamica, n° 102-103, 2006, pp. 91-156.
• Smith, Richard L., Ahmad Al-Mansur: Islamic Visionary (Library of World Biography) ISBN 9780321250445, 2005
• Davidson, Basil. Africa in History. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
• Velton, Ross. Mali: The Bradt Travel Guide. Guilford, Connecticut: Globe Pequot Press, 2000.
• “The Maliki Imperialism of Ahmad al-Mansur: The Moroccan Invasion of Sudan, 1591,” in Imperialisms, ed. Elizabeth Sauer and Balchandra Rajan (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 147-161.
• Portia and the Prince of Morocco, Journal article by Gustav Ungerer; Shakespeare Studies, Vol. 31, 2003 [1]