Zenata

The 14th-century historiographer Ibn Khaldun reports that the Zenata were divided into three large tribes: Jarawa, Maghrawa, and Banu Ifran. Formerly occupying a large portion of the Maghreb, they were displaced to the south and west in conflicts with the more powerful Kutama and Houara. The Zenata adopted Islam early, in the 7th century. While other Berber tribes continued to resist the Umayyad Caliphate conquest well into the 8th century, they were quickly Islamized. They also formed a substantial contingent in the subsequent Muslim conquest of Iberia. == Language ==

As Berbers, the Zenata spoke a Berber language. Ibn Khaldun wrote that their dialect was distinct from other Berber dialects. French linguist Edmond Destaing in 1915 proposed "Zenati" as a loose subgrouping within the Northern Berber languages, including Riffian Berber in northeastern Morocco and Shawiya Berber in northeastern Algeria. ==Etymology==

The etymology of the ethnonym Zenata is debated. Onomastically, the name is best explained as a Berber ethnonym derived from an eponymous personal or ancestral name, reconstructed in forms such as Jāna or Açāna, from which forms such as Ijanaten, Ǧanāta and Arabic Zanāta developed. On this interpretation, the form Zanāta is not the original source of the name, but an Arabic rendering of a Berber ethnonym. Yves Modéran has cautioned against projecting the medieval ethnonym Zanāta directly into late antiquity, since it is not securely attested in the surviving Greek and Latin sources before the early Islamic period. == Origins ==

The history of the Zenata before the Muslim conquests remains largely unknown, as they are primarily documented through Arabic sources. The term Zenata itself is relatively late and has no known roots in antiquity before the conquests. As historian Yves Modéran has argued, this makes it an unreliable basis for theories of migration in earlier periods. Their presence may therefore have resulted from movements that occurred after the conquest. The mentions of specific Zenata factions in medieval sources is uncertain when it comes to their history or the possibility that their affiliation was just in name rather than in origin. Some Authors connect them to the Gaetuli. According to Modéran, the earliest known Zenata groups formed a tribe or confederation that established itself in Tripolitania by the late 7th century and was quickly integrated into the Arab military forces. In later periods, groups identified as Zenata moved steadily west, where they settled in western Algeria near Tiaret and Tlemcen, while some of them moved still further west to Morocco. ==Political history==

The Zenata dominated the politics of the western Maghreb (Morocco and western Algeria) in two different periods: in the 10th century, during the decline of the Idrisids, as proxies for either the Fatimid Caliphs or the Umayyad Caliphs of Cordoba, and in the 13th to 16th centuries with the rise of the Zayyanid dynasty in Algeria and the Marinids and Wattasids in Morocco, all from Zenata tribes. While the Umayyads managed to defeat the rebels eventually and reassert some of their authority, the westernmost parts of the Maghreb, including what is now Morocco, remained outside of Arab caliphal rule. to which the foundation of the city of Sijilmasa is attributed. Starting in the early 10th century, however, the Fatimids in the east began to intervene in present-day Morocco, hoping to expand their influence, and used the Miknasa as proxies and allies in the region. In 917 the Miknasa and its leader Masala ibn Habus, acting on behalf of their Fatimid allies, attacked Fez and forced Yahya IV to recognize Fatimid suzerainty, before deposing him in 919 The Miknasa pursued the Idrisids to the fortress of Hajar an-Nasr in northern Morocco, but soon afterwards civil war broke out among the Miknasa when Musa switched allegiance to the Umayyads of Cordoba in 931 in an attempt to gain more independence. The Fatimids sent Humayd ibn Yasal (or Hamid Starting in 1245 they began overthrowing the Almohads who had controlled the region. In contrast to their predecessors, the Marinids sponsored Maliki Sunnism as the official religion and made Fez their capital. Zayyanid dynasty (also known as the Abd al-Wadids) ruled over the Kingdom of Tlemcen in northwestern Algeria, centered on Tlemcen. The territory stretched from Tlemcen to the Chelif bend and Algiers. At its zenith, the kingdom reached the Moulouya river to the west, Sijilmasa to the south, and the Soummam river to the east. The Zayyanid dynasty's rule lasted from 1235 until 1556, when their rule, under pressure from the Spanish in Oran and the Saadians in Morocco, was finally ended by the Ottomans. They formed the backbone of the Granadan army, serving both in crucial battles as well as in regular raids inside Christian territory. They were recruited and led by exiled members of the Marinid family and settled within the kingdom of Granada. Their Marinid commander was known as the shaykh al-ghuzāt ('chief of the ghazis'), but in 1374 Muhammad V suppressed this office due to their political interference, after which they were commanded by a Nasrid or Andalusi general. Beni Snassen, Chaouis, and Maghrawa. ==See also==