Sa'ad ad-Din II
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Sa'ad ad-Din II (ruled circa 1400) was a sultan of Ifat, and the brother of Haqq ad-Din II. He was born at the court of Emperor Newaya Krestos.1
Sa'ad ad-Din continued the revolt against the Ethiopian Emperors, and the Gadla Marqorewos records that he "easily destroyed" an army of Emperor Dawit I.2 The Egyptian encyclopedist Ahmad al-Qalqashandi (died 1418) also praises Sa'ad ad-Din's victories against the Ethiopians.3 However, as Taddesse Tamrat notes, these successes were short-lived, and in response to the growing Muslim power in the region Emperor Dawit I strengthened the Ethiopian defenses along the border and established his court at Tilq in Fatagar. However, Sa'ad ad-Din's practice of making quick raids into Ethiopian territory presented a difficult challenge to the Ethiopian army, and it was not until Sa'ad ad-Din was pursued deep into Adal territory to the safety of Zeila in modern Somalia that they got purchase on the problem. There the Emperor besieged Zeyla, finally capturing the city, and killing Emir Sa'ad ad-Din.
With Sa'ad ad-Din's death, the Walashma dynasty adopted the title of "kings of Adal".4 His ten sons took refuge in Yemen at the court of King Ahmad bin al-Ashraf.5
There is some disagreement over the year when Sa'ad ad-Din was killed. The historian al-Makrizi, confirmed by Ethiopian sources, states that it was in 1403, at the hands of Emperor Dawit I. However the Walashma chronicle gives the date as 1415, which Professor Cerulli has argued in its defense.6
His tomb stood as a hallowed site for centuries in Zeila. It was visited by Richard Burton the explorer in 1854, who described it as "a mound of rough stones surrounding an upright pole" near the cemetery, decorated with "the remains of votive banquets, broken stones, dried garbage, and stones blackened by the fire" showing how he was "properly venerated" as the current favorite saint of Zeila.7 Trimingham notes that at the time he wrote his book (circa 1950), the tomb had been destroyed by the encroaching sea.8
Notes
- Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 147.
- Taddesse Tamrat, p. 151.
- Taddesse Tamrat, p. 152.
- J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia (Oxford: Geoffrey Cumberlege for the University Press, 1952), p. 74 n.7.
- Trimingham, p. 74.
- Taddesse Tamrat, p. 149n.3.
- Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa, 1856; edited with additional material by Gordon Waterfield (New York: Praeger, 1966), p. 75.
- Trimingham, p. 250.
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