The Zayyanid dynasty (, Ziyānyūn) or Abd al-Wadids (, Bānu ʿabd āl-Wād) was a Berber Zenata dynasty that ruled the Kingdom of Tlemcen, mainly in modern Algeria centered on the town of Tlemcen in northwest Algeria. The Zayyanid dynasty's rule lasted from 1235 to 1557.

History

On the collapse of the Almohad Caliphate's rule around 1236, the Kingdom of Tlemcen became independent under the rule of the Zayyanids, and Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan. Ibn Zyan was able to maintain control over the rival Berber groups, and when faced with the outside threat of the Marinids, he formed an alliance with the Sultan of Granada and the King of Castile, Alfonso X. After an eight-year siege of Tlemcen by the Marinids that ended in 1307, the reigns of Abu Hammu I (r. 1308–1318) and Abu Tashufin I (r. 1318–1337) marked a second political apogee of the Zayyanids with a consolidated hold over the central Maghreb. This period of strength was followed by a Marinid occupation of Tlemcen between 1337 and 1359 (with an interruption from 1348 to 1352). There were occasional Marinid attempts to retake Tlemcen up to 1370, but they found that they were unable to hold the region against local resistance. Under the long reign of Abu Hammu II (r. 1359–1389), the Zayyanid state enjoyed a third period of political strength. In the 15th century, Zayyanid expansion eastward was attempted, but proved disastrous, as consequences of these incursions they were so weakened that over the following two centuries, the Zayyanid kingdom was intermittently a vassal of Hafsid Ifriqiya, Marinid Morocco, or Aragon. During the first half of the 16th century, Spain and the Ottoman Regency of Algiers fought over control of Tlemcen, with the Zayyanid sultans often installed as puppets of one side or the other. By 1551, the Ottomans had occupied Tlemcen and the last Zayyanid ruler, Hasan al-Abdallah, fled to Oran under Spanish protection and died a few years later, thus ending Zayyanid rule.

List of rulers

Dates and most alternate names taken from John Stewart's African States and Rulers (1989).