Sijilmāsa from tribal city to city-State (late 8th and 10th centuries):The role of the Miknāsa tribe in the South-East of Morocco

After the great rebellion of 740 against the Umayyad rule, two Khārijite states emerged, the Ibāḍī Rustumids centered in Tahert and the Sufri Midrārids centred in Sijilmāsa. The Maghreb was polarised by these new powers. This study analyzes some aspects of the cultural, political and economic relationships between the Sufri-Khārijite Midrārid dynasty that ruled the Moroccan city of Sijilmāsa from 750-976CE and the Ibāḍī Rustumid of Tāhert (Algeria) in the late eighth and tenth centuries. The Rustumids and the Midrārids developed political and economic relationships with the dynasties of the Idrisids and the Aghlabids, with the remaining Abbasid and the Andalusi Umayyad which were the center of the orthodox Arab-Islamic power in the region. Such was the political climate in which Khārijism developed in North Africa.