The death of Sultan Saʿd ad-Din at Zeila and his sons' exile in Yemen, 1408–1422

In short

The death of Sultan Saʿd ad-Din ended the sultanate of Ifat. His sons fled to Yemen, came back, and founded a new state named after him, the Barr Saʿd ad-Din. The historian Amélie Chekroun re-examined these events in "Entre Arabie et Éthiopie chrétienne : le sultan walasmaʿ Saʿd al-Dīn et ses fils (début XVe siècle)", Médiévales 79 (2020): 117–136 (HAL open copy). Unless noted, the facts below come from that article. For a short biography, see Saʿd ad-Din II.

Burton and the island

In November 1854 Richard Burton visited the small island off Zeila that bears the sultan's name. He was told that when "Saad el Din" was besieged and killed by "David, King of Ethiopia", the wells dried up, and that his sons fled to a prince of Yemen and asked for help against the Christians. Burton saw a large cemetery and a mound of stones around an upright post, the tomb of "Shaykh Saad el Din", "the favourite patron saint of Zayla", with remains of votive feasts around it.

Chekroun notes three later visits. In the 1880s Stewart King dug some graves on the island and found coral and ivory ornaments. In the 1930s Alexander Curle dated the pottery there to the 15th century, with one sherd of the 12th. In 2001 French researchers saw celadon-like pottery and beads around the tomb, which they took to be offerings. Chekroun writes that the island was probably not the site of Zeila town itself, which medieval writers place on the coast, but perhaps an outpost guarding the harbour. For Zeila, see Early Zeila before 1300.

The end of Ifat

• The background. In the late 14th century the Walashma of Ifat owed obedience to the Christian king, who appointed and protected the sultans. Haqq ad-Din was the first to rebel; his brother and successor Saʿd ad-Din, writes al-Maqrizi, "waged constant war" on the Christians. The revolt did not succeed. Several members of the dynasty were held prisoner, and Saʿd ad-Din fled toward the coast. Ifat became a province of the Christian kingdom, and its capital was abandoned. See Awfat, capital of the Ifat sultanate.
• Al-Maqrizi's account. The Christians followed him "until he took refuge on the island of Zaylaʿ in the middle of the sea". They besieged it and cut off the water until someone showed them a way across. After three days without water he fought, was wounded in the forehead, fell, and was speared; he died "reciting the shahada and laughing". The Christian king then held the country for twenty years. His ten sons, the eldest Sabr ad-Din ʿAli, fled to Arabia, where the Rasulid sultan al-Nasir Ahmad received them, equipped them and gave them six horses. They then went to a place called Siyara, "until God gave them the power to take back their country". Sabr ad-Din ruled for eight years and died of a stomach illness about 1421–1422.

The date

The two usual sources disagree. Al-Maqrizi's Kitāb al-Ilmām gives 805 AH (1402–1403). The Harar annals of the dynasty, the Taʾrīkh ʿUmar Walasmaʿ, give 6 Dhu al-Hijja 817 AH (7 February 1415). Earlier historians chose one or the other.

Chekroun brings in three other sources:

• Al-Maqrizi's own chronicle of Egypt, the Kitāb al-Sulūk, which says Saʿd ad-Din died "after the year 810" (after 1407–1408) and that his sons were received with honour by the king of Yemen for "several years".
• The Rasulid court annals (the "Anonymous Chronicle"), which record: "The son of Saʿd ad-Din, the lord of Ethiopia, arrived with a gift at the Noble Gate of Taʿizz… and asked for help to victory against the infidel Haṭi. Our lord the Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir met him with all kindness… and promised him victory", on 13 Dhu al-Qaʿda 811, which she converts to 30 March 1409.
• Ibn al-Daybaʿ (1461–1537), a Yemeni historian, who also places the sons' visit to the sultan at Taizz in 811 AH.

From these she concludes that Saʿd ad-Din died, and Ifat ended, in 811 AH (1408–1409), under King Dawit (ruled 1380–1412), not under Yeshaq as sometimes written. Since Sabr ad-Din ruled eight or nine years and died in 1421–1422, the sons must have been back by 1412–1413 at the latest, so their stay in Yemen lasted at most two or three years. She also notes that the sons went to Taizz, the Rasulid political capital, not to Zabid as al-Maqrizi writes or to Sanaa as Burton was told.

Links with Yemen

• A Sufi at the sultan's court. Three 15th-century Yemeni biographers describe Sheikh Shams ad-Din ʿAli ibn ʿUmar al-Shadhili, later the patron saint of the port of Mocha. After studying in Mecca, Medina, Syria and Cairo, he went to "al-Habasha", became a trusted companion of Sultan Saʿd ad-Din, married the sultan's sister and had several children with her, then returned to Mocha. He died in 1418–1419 or 1424–1425. Chekroun writes that this is evidence of Sufism at the Walashma court, and suggests the fall of Ifat may explain his return. His tomb and mosque at Mocha were a pilgrimage site until their recent destruction.
• Other links. She lists a Yemeni scholar welcomed by an earlier Sultan Sabr ad-Din in the 14th century, a family of Shafiʿi Sufis from Zeila settled in the Yemeni Tihama in the 14th–15th centuries, and Hadrami merchants at Kalgur in Ifat. See Zeila, Berbera and Mogadishu in the records of Rasulid Yemen.
• "Sultan of Yemen in Ethiopia". One Yemeni biographer, al-Burayhi, calls Saʿd ad-Din "sultan of Yemen in Ethiopia". Chekroun writes that no other source supports the idea of Yemeni rule over Ifat and that it is very unlikely.

The "land of Dawit Adal"

A 16th-century Ethiopian church calendar records that King Tewodros, Dawit's son, ruled only nine months and died on 23 June 1413 "in the land of Dawit Adal", east of the Awash, and that his army carried his coffin back across the river. Chekroun writes that Christian sources call the Barr Saʿd ad-Din "Adal", while Muslim sources never do, and that the name stayed in Christian use for the lands as far as Zeila until the late 19th century. Following Taddesse Tamrat, she suggests "Dawit Adal" recalls King Dawit's pursuit of Saʿd ad-Din to Zeila.

After the return

Chekroun writes that the sons' reconquest was "long and chaotic" and seems to have ended only in the second half of the 15th century. She cites al-Maqrizi that under Sultan Jamal ad-Din (ruled 1425–1432) "the Barbar", which she reads as probably Somali pastoral groups, refused his authority, and that his cousin and other rivals killed him. A Franciscan writer before 1473, Grifon of Flanders, described a "Barbarica Ethiopia" from the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea whose king was called "son of Saebdin". For the capital they founded, see Dakar, the lost capital of Adal.

Related pages

• The Sultanate of Shewa and the founding of Ifat
• Harar becomes the capital of Adal, 1520–1577
• The trade fairs of the Berbera coast
• Nomads, towns and the state in Ifat and Adal
• First Footsteps in East Africa