Tidsi

Tidsi lay in the Sous valley near Taroudant, where the Saadian sharifs, who had lived in the Draa valley since the early fourteenth century, settled in the fifteenth. They lived beside Sufi teachers and marabouts who followed the teaching of al-Jazuli, and the Sous tribes looked to them for leadership.

In 1505 the Portuguese took Agadir on the coast and began to raid and trade from it, and in 1510 the tribes of the Sous chose Muhammad al-Qa'im as their leader against the invaders. He used Tidsi as his first base, and in 1515 his men helped to beat off a Portuguese attack on Marrakesh. When he died in 1517 he was buried near al-Jazuli, and his younger son Muhammad al-Shaykh took charge of the Sous, where he promoted sugar growing and export. In 1541 al-Shaykh drove the Portuguese from Agadir, and the dynasty that began at Tidsi went on to rule most of Morocco.