Editing History of Morocco (section)

== Emirate of Sijilmasa (757–976) ==
{{Main|Sijilmassa|Midrarid dynasty}}
The [[Midrarid dynasty]] or Banu Midrar were a Berber dynasty that ruled the Tafilalt region and founded the city of [[Sijilmasa]] in 757.<ref>{{EI2|title=Midrār|last=Pellat|first=Charles|author-link=Charles Pellat|volume=6|url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/midrar-SIM_5181|page=1038}}</ref>[[File:Trans-Saharan routes early.svg|thumb|The Berber entrepot [[Sijilmassa]] along the trade routes of the Western Sahara, c. 1000–1500. Goldfields are indicated by light brown shading.]]
Sijilmasa was a medieval Moroccan city and trade [[entrepôt]] at the northern edge of the Sahara desert. The ruins of the town lie for {{convert|5|mi|km|order=flip|0}} along the [[Ziz River|River Ziz]] in the [[Tafilalt]] oasis near the town of [[Rissani]]. The town's history was marked by several successive invasions by [[Berber people|Berber]] dynasties. Up until the 14th century, as the northern terminus for the western [[trans-Saharan trade|trans-Sahara trade route]], it was one of the most important trade centres in the [[Maghreb]] during the Middle Ages.<ref>{{citation | last1=Lightfoot | first1=Dale R. | last2=Miller | first2=James A. | year=1996 | title=Sijilmassa: The rise and fall of a walled oasis in medieval Morocco | journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers | volume=86 | pages=78–101 | url=http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/archaeology/Publications/Remote%20sensing/Sijilmassa%20The%20Rise%20and%20Fall%20of%20a%20Walled%20Oasis%20in%20Medieval%20Morocco.pdf | doi=10.1111/j.1467-8306.1996.tb01746.x | access-date=10 October 2016 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120723195600/http://faculty.ksu.edu.sa/archaeology/Publications/Remote%20sensing/Sijilmassa%20The%20Rise%20and%20Fall%20of%20a%20Walled%20Oasis%20in%20Medieval%20Morocco.pdf | archive-date=23 July 2012 | url-status=dead }}</ref>