History

Sijilmasa was established around 757 AD at a moment of political fracture in the Islamic world — the Abbasid revolution had toppled the Umayyads, and in the far Maghreb, a Kharijite Berber leader founded an autonomous city-state in the Tafilalt oasis, independent of both Abbasid Baghdad and Idrisid Fez. The city's geographical position proved to be its fortune for the next six centuries: the Tafilalt oasis sits precisely at the point where the trans-Saharan caravan routes from sub-Saharan West Africa (the empires of Ghana and later Mali) reach the northern fringe of the Sahara, where water and agriculture become available. Every caravan moving gold, slaves, salt, and ivory northward from what is now Mali, Senegal, and Ghana had to pass through or near Sijilmasa before crossing the Atlas Mountains to reach Fez, the Mediterranean coast, and Egypt.

By the 10th century, Arab geographers were describing Sijilmasa as a major city. Ibn Hawqal, writing around 977 AD, noted its prosperity and its large Jewish merchant community (who maintained trade networks extending to Egypt and India via the Cairo Geniza). Al-Bakri, writing in 1068, described a city with a Friday mosque, palaces, and a regular market. The Almoravid dynasty conquered Sijilmasa in 1054 en route to building their empire and used it as a base for Saharan operations. The Almohads, Merinids, and other successive dynasties each conquered, rebuilt, and expanded the city — the Moroccan-American excavations documented at least five major phases of construction and destruction. Sijilmasa was finally abandoned around 1393 following the collapse of Merinid power and the diversion of trans-Saharan trade routes to rival cities further east.