History of the Maghreb
The Almohad Caliphate was a Moroccan Berber Muslim movement and empire founded in the 12th century.
The Almohad movement was founded among the Berber Masmuda tribes of southern Morocco. Around 1120, the Almohads established a Berber state in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains … not far west of Oran.
In 1145, Almohad troops besieged outskirts of Oran; taking the city soon after.
They succeeded in overthrowing the ruling Almoravid dynasty governing Morocco by 1147.
They then extended their power over all of the Maghreb by 1159.
The Iberian Peninsula (aka Al-Andalus; across the Alboran Sea to the north) soon followed, and all of Islamic Iberia was under Almohad rule by 1172.
The Almohad dominance of Iberia continued until 1212 (8 years ago), when an alliance of the Christian princes of Castile, Aragon, Navarre and Portugal broke the Almohad advance; the Almohad losing almost all the remaining lands of Al-Andalus in the following decades
The ‘Reconquista’ continued, and nearly all of the Moorish dominions in Iberia were lost to the Christian forces soon afterwards.
In 1213, the Almohad ministers were careful to negotiate a series of truces with the Christian kingdoms, which remained more-or-less in place for next fifteen years (the loss of Alcácer do Sal to the Kingdom of Portugal in 1217 was an exception).
The Marinid dynasty was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Zenata Berber descent that ruled Morocco from the 13th to the 15th century.
Following the arrival of Arab tribes in their home area in the 11th-12th centuries, Marinids moved to the north-west of present-day Algeria, before settling into northern Morocco by the beginning of the 13th century.
After arriving in Morocco, they initially submitted to the Almohad dynasty, which was at the time the ruling house. After successfully contributing to the Battle of Alarcos (1195), in central Spain, the tribe started to assert itself as a political power.
Starting in 1213 (7 years ago), they began to tax farming communities of north-eastern Morocco (the area between Nador and Berkane). The relationship between them and the Almohads became strained and starting in 1215, there were regular outbreaks of fighting between the two parties. In 1217 they tried to occupy eastern Morocco, but they were expelled, pulling back and settling in the eastern Rif mountains. Here they remained.
During the Roman empire, a small settlement called Unica Colonia existed in the area of current Oran, but this settlement disappeared after the Arab conquest of the Maghreb.
Present-day Oran was founded in 903 by Moorish Andalusi traders; and between 910 and 1082 Oran became a perpetual object of conflict between the Umayyads of al-Andalus and the Fatimidsof Kairouan.
(A legend also says that in 900 AD, lions still lived in the area. The last two lions were hunted on a mountain near Oran and are elsewhere referred to as "mountain lions”.)
By 1220, the Oranian's were already growing rich from protection by the Emir, the customs system (tariffs), trade with Marseilles, and the Italian Maritime Republics of Genoa and Venice.