Abu Zakariya Yahya ibn Ziyan al-Wattasi (died 1448) (abū zakarīyā' yaḥyā ben ziyān al-waṭṭāsī Arabic: أبو زكرياء يحيى بن زيان الوطاس was a vizier of the Marinid sultan of Fez, regent and effective strongman ruler of Morocco from 1420 until 1448.
[1] Abu Zakariya's intervention had been facilitated by the old Marinid palace bureaucracy, who feared the other candidates would deliver Morocco to foreign domination.
Granadan and Tlemcen interventions and intrigues continued, regional governors seized control of their districts, selling and re-selling their allegiance to the highest bidder, Sufi-inspired religious radicals drummed up mobs to seize control of urban centers and take to the field, while rowdy rural nomads, the Hilalian Bedouin tribesmen, availed themselves of the general breakdown of law and order to launch a series of bandit raids on smaller towns and settlements.
Anarchy would continue to prevail in Morocco for the next several years, as Abu Zakariya struggled to defeat the string of pretenders and stitch the country back together, in the name of the young Marinid child-sultan.
Sensing a new political crisis was brewing, the Portuguese thought it an opportune moment to take another bite out of Morocco and began organizing an expedition to seize the Moroccan citadel of Tangier.
Appealing for national unity to expel the foreign intruders, forces were dispatched from all corners of Morocco, placing themselves at the disposal of the Wattasid mayor.
The Portuguese expeditionary force was starved into submission, and, on October 15, Prince Henry agreed to a treaty to deliver Ceuta back to Morocco, in return for being allowed to withdraw his army unmolested.
In the end, the Portuguese refused to fulfill the treaty, and allowed their hostages, including the royal Ferdinand the Saint Prince, to rot in Moroccan captivity, rather than give up Ceuta.
His popularity and power was still strong enough to secure the appointment of his nephew, Ali ibn Yusuf, to succeed him as the new all-powerful Wattasid vizier of Morocco, for the dissolute and increasingly irrelevant Marinid sultan Abd al-Haqq II.