Ait Abbas

The kingdom of Ait Abbas was a Kabyle state based at the Kalâa of Ait Abbas in the Biban mountains. Its Mokrani rulers traced their power to Abderrahmane, who settled there in the late fifteenth century.

After Spain seized Béjaïa in 1510, his son Ahmed fortified the Kalâa and proclaimed himself sultan. In 1559 Abdelaziz died fighting Algiers before the fortress, but his brother Ahmed Amokrane repelled the attackers. By the late eighteenth century the realm had fragmented; the sheikh of the Medjana governed independently while paying tribute to the bey of Constantine.