10

The Midrārids

208–366/823–977

Sijilmāsa in south-eastern Morocco

The Banū Midrār were a Berber family from the Miknāsa tribe who arose in the town of Sijilmāsa on the Sahara fringes of Morocco, either at roughly the same time as the town was founded (or refounded) or shortly afterwards, in the second half of the eighth century. The town, which seems originally to have been a settlement of Ṣufrī Khārijīs, now flourished as the northern terminus of trans-Saharan caravan trade coming from West Africa; the Midrārids came to levy transit dues and taxes on the products of the mines of southern Morocco and Mauritania (we know virtually nothing, however, of any corresponding cultural activity in the town under their rule). The chiefs of the Midrārid family had become prominent there, but it is difficult to pin down the date of the actual dynasty’s beginning. A convenient date, however, is 208/823, when Abū Mālik al-Muntaṣir, called Midrār (‘copiously flowing’ [with milk, largesse, etc.]), achieved power.

At first, the Midrārids were nominal vassals of the ‘Abbāsid caliphs, but had some connections with the Rustamids of Tahert (see above, no. 9), who were also Khārijī in faith. But in the early tenth century, following a prediction according to which the expected Mahdī or Divinely-Guided One of the Shī‘a was to appear at Sijilmāsa, the partisans of the future founder of the Fāṭimid dynasty (see below, no. 27), ‘Ubaydallāh al-Mahdī, took over Sijilmāsa in 296/909. The Midrārids were henceforth generally vassals of the Fāṭimids. But Muḥammad b. Wāsūl’s repudiation of Ṣufrī Khārijism and adoption of Mālikī Sunnism involved adherence to the cause of the Spanish Umayyads, and this change of loyalties, plus his assumption, like the Umayyads, of the exalted title of caliph, provoked a Fāṭimid reconquest of Sijilmāsa. The Midrārids returned to control the town briefly, but their dominion was ended around 366/977 or shortly thereafter, when Khazrūn, the chief of the Berber Maghrāwa tribe, which was allied with the Spanish Umayyads, killed the last Midrārid and put an end to the dynasty (the descendants of Khazrūn were in the early eleventh century to establish a Taifa principality at Arcos in Spain: see above, no. 5, Taifa no. 5).

Sachau, 25 no. 56; Zambaur, 64–5, 66; Album, 16.

EI^l ‘Sidjilmāsa’ (G. S. Colin); EI² ‘Midrār, Banū’ (Ch. Pellat).