Marinid Sultanate

The Berber dynasty that ruled Morocco for two centuries and spent much of it trying to get back into Spain. The Marinids were Zenata Berbers from the eastern Moroccan steppe who took advantage of Almohad collapse, capturing Fez in 1248 and Marrakesh in 1269. Unlike the Almoravids and Almohads before them, they came to power with no religious programme of their own, which left them needing legitimacy - and they bought it by building. The madrasas they founded at Fez, Meknes, Sale and elsewhere, with their carved cedar, zellij tilework and stucco, are the finest surviving Moroccan architecture of the period, and Fez became a major centre of learning under their patronage. They also promoted the cult of sharifian descent and of local saints, shaping Moroccan religious life permanently. Their Spanish ambitions ended at the Rio Salado in 1340, where Castile and Portugal destroyed a Marinid army; it was the last serious North African intervention in Iberia, and afterwards the initiative in the strait passed decisively to the Christian kingdoms. Abu al-Hasan briefly reunited the Maghreb before losing it. Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Battuta both served or reported to Marinid courts. The Portuguese took Ceuta in 1415. The Wattasids, their viziers, displaced them by 1465. Fes el-Bali, the old city they enlarged, remains one of the largest car-free urban areas in the world. The Bou Inania and Attarine madrasas are their best-preserved buildings. Chellah near Rabat holds their dynastic necropolis. They ruled from Fez rather than Marrakesh. Their rule coincided with the Black Death reaching the Maghreb.

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