Isa ibn Mazyad al-Aswad (died 772) was the first ruler of the oasis town of Sijilmasa, in what is now southeastern

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

. According to the traditional account, as narrated by the medieval sources (chiefly the 11th-century geographer

al-Bakri Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī (), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1094) was an Arab Andalusian historian and a geographer of the Muslim West. Life Al-Bakri was born in Huelva, the ...

), Sijilmasa was founded in 757/58 by a community of 40 Sufri

Kharijites The Kharijites (, singular ) were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the conflict with his challeng ...

, led by the

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

Samgu ibn Wasul al-Miknasi. The establishment of the town was part of a larger westward movement of Sufri Kharijites in the

Maghreb The Maghreb (; ), also known as the Arab Maghreb () and Northwest Africa, is the western part of the Arab world. The region comprises western and central North Africa, including Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia. The Maghreb al ...

, fleeing the westward expansion of

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

power in

Ifriqiya Ifriqiya ( '), also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna (), was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania (roughly western Libya). It included all of what had previously been the Byzantine province of ...

, and the establishment of the rival

Ibadi Ibadism (, ) is a school of Islam concentrated in Oman established from within the Kharijites. The followers of the Ibadi sect are known as the Ibadis or, as they call themselves, The People of Truth and Integrity (). Ibadism emerged around 6 ...

Kharijite Rustamid emirate of

Tahert Tiaret () or Tahert () is a major city in northwestern Algeria that gives its name to the wider farming region of Tiaret Province. Both the town and region lie south-west of the capital of Algiers in the western region of the Hautes Plaines, i ...

. Somewhat surprisingly, as

Charles Pellat Charles Pellat (28 September 1914, in Souk Ahras – 28 October 1992, in Bourg-la-Reine) was a French Algerian academic, historian, translator, and scholar of Oriental studies, specialized in Arab studies and Islamic studies. He was an editor of ...

comments, the community chose Isa, who was reportedly the son of a

black African Black is a racial classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and ofte ...

convert to Islam, as their leader. Due to unspecified offensive actions, he was deposed by his subjects in 772, who left him to die, tied to a tree and exposed to the mosquitoes. He was succeeded by Samgu. Modern historians have suggested this episode as the result of ethnic or tribal rivalries, namely, that the election of Isa was due to an initial predominance of black Africans in the region, and his deposition and replacement as the result of the growth of the Kharijite Berber population over time.

References

Sources

* * {{s-end 772 deaths 8th-century monarchs in Africa