Background
He came to power to the throne as the legal heir of Mohammed ash-Sheikh.
He came to power to the throne as the legal heir of Mohammed ash-Sheikh.
Abdallah, the third, was 40 years old when he became sultan and received the name al-Ghalib Billah. Before that he had been vice-king of Marrakesh and governor of Fes. During a relatively peaceful reign Abdallah succeeded in warding off both the Spanish and the Turks and in consolidating the sovereignty of Saadians over Morocco.
He fought the invading Turks in 1558 at the Battle of Wadi al-Laban and drove them out of the country. The Moroccan ruler had formed an alliance with the Spanish against the Ottomans. After his victory he even occupied Tlemcen for a short period.
In 1568 he supported the insurrection of the Moriscos in Spain. Abdallah al-Ghalib Billah died on 22 January 1574 of an asthma attack. After his reign a period of civil war was to follow that lasted four years.
Marrakech had been his residency. He gave the city the Muassin mosque, a maristan (a hospital usually attached to a mosque) and the Ben Youssef Medrassa. He also reconstructed the al-Mansouria mosque.