Musta'ravi

The Musta'ravim, meaning the Arabized, are Arabic-speaking Jews of the Maghreb, settled there long before Islam. Under early Muslim rule they flourished in Fez, a Jewish scholarly centre from the ninth century, though it saw a massacre in 1033.

The Almohad conquest of 1146 ended their dhimmi protection: in 1148 the communities of Tlemcen and Sijilmasa were subdued, Maimonides, then living in Fez, wrote to sustain the forced converts, and later Almohads imposed a yellow head-covering. The Marinids and Zayyanids restored safer conditions; in 1438 the Jews of Fez were moved into the walled mellah beside the royal palace.

Refugees from the Spanish massacres of 1391 had already arrived. After the expulsions from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497, Sephardim called Megorashim joined the old inhabitants, the Toshavim; the newcomers' liturgy and learning gradually became dominant, fusing the communities into one Maghrebi Jewry.