Touat

Touat was a chain of Saharan oases south of Gourara, whose chief town Timimoun lay on the Sijilmasa-Niger road. Its largely Zenata Berber settlements lived on trans-Saharan trade.

Ibn Battuta visited Bouda in 1353. Around 1490 al-Maghili incited the destruction of Tamentit's synagogue and the expulsion of its Jews. Ahmad al-Mansur made the oases tributary to Morocco between 1583 and 1588; the Alawite rulers of Tafilalt reasserted suzerainty in 1645 and 1652. Governors withdrew in 1796, leaving local notables in charge.