Place · city

Sijilmasa

Sijilmasa was a medieval trading city in the Tafilalt oasis of south-eastern Morocco and a northern terminus of the trans-Saharan gold trade. The Almoravids captured it in the early 1050s, gaining control over the gold trade. Its first caliph, al-Mahdi, was proclaimed after being retrieved from Sijilmasa in 909.

Sijilmasa
Image: Loonybad · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 2 profiles

Almoravid EmpireFoundationFatimid CaliphateFoundation

Mentioned in 4 state histories

Midrarid emirateSanhaja confederationMaghrawa emirate of FezZayyanid Kingdom of Tlemcen

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Sijilmasa. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sijilmasa
MLA
“Sijilmasa.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sijilmasa. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Sijilmasa.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sijilmasa.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Sijilmasa’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/sijilmasa (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻