Zenati

The Zenata were a nomadic and semi-nomadic Berber confederation, one of three great Berber groupings. They adopted Islam in the seventh century, and in 740 Zenata chieftain Khalid al-Zanati led the Berber revolt against the Umayyads at the battle of the Nobles. The Miknasa founded the caravan city of Sijilmasa, and in the tenth and eleventh centuries Zenata tribes served the Fatimids and Cordoba as proxies, the Maghrawa holding Fez until the Almoravids swept them away.

A second age came in the thirteenth century: the Banu Marin built the Marinid Sultanate of Fez, dismantling Almohad rule from 1245 and briefly dominating the Maghreb under Abu al-Hasan and Abu Inan, while the Zayyanids, also Zenata, ruled Tlemcen from 1235.

In 1337 Abu al-Hasan's armies occupied Tlemcen, the Zenati tribes' homeland, until 1359; the Zayyanids recovered but became intermittent vassals of the Hafsids, Marinids and Aragon until the Ottomans ended their rule in the 1550s. The Wattasids succeeded the Marinids after 1465; Zenata light cavalry, the jinetes, long formed the backbone of Granadan armies.