Sijilmasa: Northern Gateway of the Trans-Saharan Gold Trade

Sijilmasa was a medieval trading city in the Tafilalt oasis of south-eastern Morocco, founded around 757 on the northern edge of the Sahara. For some six centuries it was the main northern gateway of the trans-Saharan gold trade, where caravans from West Africa arrived and their gold was minted into coins. Today its eroded earthen ruins lie beside the town of Rissani.

Foundation

Sijilmasa was founded around 757 (AH 140) on the Ziz river, where it spreads into a wide oasis of date palms before vanishing into the desert. Its founders were Miknasa Berbers who followed the Sufri branch of Kharijite Islam, a movement that rejected the authority of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs.

The family of Midrar soon became hereditary rulers, and the dynasty is known as the Midrarids or Banu Midrar. They ruled, with interruptions, until the 970s. Their independence from the great caliphates made Sijilmasa a meeting place for merchants of different Islamic traditions, including Ibadis from the central Maghreb.

The gateway to the gold

Sijilmasa’s wealth came from its position. Caravans heading south crossed the Sahara through the salt mines of Taghaza to Awdaghust and the Ghana Empire, and later to Walata and Timbuktu in the Mali Empire. The journey took about two months. Caravans returning north brought gold dust, ivory, hides and enslaved people.

From Sijilmasa goods continued north to Fez, Tlemcen and the ports of the Mediterranean, and on to al-Andalus in Spain. The city was therefore the hinge between the trans-Saharan trade and the Mediterranean world.

The 10th-century geographer Ibn Hawqal, who visited the region, was struck by its riches. He reported seeing a written promissory note for 42,000 dinars owed by a merchant of Awdaghust to a merchant in Sijilmasa, and described the city’s ruler as receiving large revenues from the caravan trade.

A city of mints

Much of the gold that reached Sijilmasa was turned into coins there. From the 10th century, Sijilmasa was one of the most important mints of the western Islamic world. Coins struck there under the Fatimids, Umayyads of Cordoba and later the Almoravids and Almohads circulated widely, and Sijilmasa gold was valued for its purity.

Control of Sijilmasa therefore meant control of a major source of gold, and for that reason it was fought over repeatedly by the powers of North Africa and Spain.

Rulers and conquerors

In the early 10th century Sijilmasa played a part in the rise of the Fatimid Caliphate. Ubayd Allah, an Ismaili imam fleeing from Syria, was held under arrest at Sijilmasa for several years. In 909 his supporter Abu Abdallah al-Shi’i, whose army had overthrown the Aghlabid rulers of Ifriqiya, marched west and freed him. Ubayd Allah then proclaimed himself caliph with the title al-Mahdi.

The Midrarids later regained control, but in the 970s the city passed to the Maghrawa, a Zenata Berber dynasty allied with the Umayyads of Cordoba. In 1055 the Almoravids, the reforming movement of the Sanhaja Berbers of the western Sahara, captured Sijilmasa under the preacher Abdallah ibn Yasin. It became a base for their expansion north into Morocco and Spain, as described in the article on the Almoravid dynasty.

Sijilmasa then passed to the Almohads in the 12th century and to the Marinids, who took it after a siege in 1274. Ibn Battuta stayed there in 1352 on his way south to Mali and praised its dates.

What the city looked like

Medieval writers describe Sijilmasa as a large city surrounded by walls, with a great mosque, markets, public baths and grand houses, set among irrigated gardens and palm groves. Water from the Ziz was carefully managed through canals and dams. The city was spread out along the river rather than packed into a tight centre.

Arab geographers also noted the oasis’s fertile land, where dates, grain, cotton and henna were grown. Farming fed the large population and supplied the caravans with provisions for the desert crossing.

Key people

• The Banu Midrar (Midrarids): the Berber dynasty that ruled Sijilmasa from the late 8th century until the 970s, with interruptions, and turned it into a wealthy trading state.
• Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi (died 934): the Ismaili leader held captive at Sijilmasa, whose release in 909 led to the founding of the Fatimid Caliphate.
• Abdallah ibn Yasin (died 1059): the Almoravid preacher whose followers seized Sijilmasa in 1055, opening the way north for the movement.
• Ibn Hawqal (10th century): the geographer whose account of the city’s trade and credit is one of the best early descriptions.
• Ibn Battuta (1304–c. 1368): the Moroccan traveller who stayed at Sijilmasa in 1352 before crossing the Sahara to Mali.

Life in the oasis

Sijilmasa was a mixed society. Berber farmers and herders, Arab settlers, Jewish merchants and craftsmen, and people of West African origin, many of them enslaved, lived in the oasis. Jewish communities in the Tafilalt were well established, and Jewish traders from Sijilmasa appear in letters preserved in the Cairo Geniza, a store of medieval documents found in a Cairo synagogue.

The city’s religious identity also changed with its rulers. Founded by Sufri Kharijites, it later came under Ismaili Fatimid influence, then under the Sunni Maliki rule promoted by the Almoravids, which became the dominant form of Islam in Morocco.

Decline and abandonment

Sijilmasa declined in the late 14th century. The Marinid state weakened, local rivalries led to fighting, and the oasis split into smaller communities living in fortified villages called ksour. Trade routes were also shifting, both eastwards across the Sahara and later towards the Atlantic coast. By around 1400 the old city had largely been abandoned.

The Tafilalt remained important, however. In the 17th century a family of sharifs from the oasis founded the Alaouite dynasty, which still rules Morocco today. Some of the standing gateways and walls near Rissani date from this later period rather than from the medieval city.

Archaeology

Systematic excavation began in 1988 under a joint Moroccan–American project led by Ronald Messier of Middle Tennessee State University, working with Moroccan archaeologists including Abdallah Fili. The team identified layers of occupation spanning several centuries, a large mosque, houses, workshops and remains linked to coin production and metalworking.

The archaeologists found that the city was not a single compact walled town for its whole history but a changing settlement that grew and shifted along the river. Much of the site remains unexcavated, and it is threatened by erosion, farming and modern building.

Timeline

• c. 757: Sijilmasa is founded by Sufri Kharijite Berbers.
• Late 8th century: The Midrarid family becomes the ruling dynasty.
• 909: Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi is freed at Sijilmasa and goes on to found the Fatimid Caliphate.
• 970s: The Maghrawa take control of the city.
• 1055: The Almoravids capture Sijilmasa.
• 1274: The Marinids take Sijilmasa after a siege.
• 1352: Ibn Battuta passes through on his way to Mali.
• c. 1400: The city is largely abandoned.
• 1988: Moroccan–American excavations begin.

Why it matters

Sijilmasa shows how a desert oasis could become one of the richest cities of the medieval Islamic world by controlling a single trade. It was the point where West African gold entered the coinage of the Mediterranean, linking the empires of Ghana and Mali with Morocco, Spain and Europe. Its ruins are a reminder of how much of that history still lies unexcavated.