MARINID DYNASTY

also called Banu Marin Berber dynasty that replaced Almohad rule in Morocco and temporarily in other parts of northern Africa during the 13th15th centuries. The Marinids were a tribe of the Zanatah grouptraditional allies of the Umayyad caliphs of Crdoba. The Marinids had been established in eastern Morocco for more than a century when, in 1248, their ruler, Abu Yahya, captured Fez (Fs) and made it the Marinid capital. With the defeat of the last of the Almohads and the capture of Marrakech in 1269, the Marinids, under Abu Yusuf Ya'qub, became masters of Morocco. In order to fulfill the duties of Muslim sovereignty and to acquire religious prestige, they conducted a jihad (holy war) in Spain until the mid-14th century. Although the war helped the Muslim Nasrid dynasty of Granada to consolidate its position and the fighting slowed down the Christian advance toward the Strait of Gibraltar, no territory was recaptured from the Christians, nor were any permanent conquests made in Africa, where the Marinids tried to reestablish the Almohad empire. The greatest of the Marinid sultans, Abu al-Hasan, captured the 'Abd al-Wadid capital of Tilimsan (Tlemcen) in 1337, but neither he nor his successor, Abu 'Inan, were able to shake Hafsid rule in Tunisia. The campaigns, however, depleted the resources of the dynasty, and, by the 15th century the Marinid realm was in a state of anarchy. A collateral branch of the Marinids, the Wattasids (Banu Wattas), assumed rule over Morocco in 1465, but it collapsed when the Sa'di sharifs, descendants of Muhammad, took Fez in 1548.