Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Uthman

Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Uthman (c. 1297–1351) became Marinid sultan of Morocco in 1331. His dark complexion, inherited from a sub-Saharan mother, earned him the name Black Sultan. He married the Hafsid ruler's daughter Fatima, sealing an alliance against Zayyanid Tlemcen.

In 1333 he took Gibraltar from Castile, though his attack on Tarifa ended in disaster in 1339. In the Maghreb he took Tlemcen in 1337 and Hafsid Ifriqiya in 1347, briefly reuniting the region as the Almohads had.

He then overreached with the Arab tribes, who defeated him near Kairouan in 1348, and his son Abu Inan Faris, governor of Tlemcen, proclaimed himself sultan at Fes. A tempest wrecked his fleet off Bougie and Abu Inan defeated him in 1350. Broken, he abdicated in the High Atlas and died there in 1351.