Around the 7th century AD, Muslim Arabs from the East began to invade north-west Africa from Morocco to Mauritania, bringing their civilization and Islam, to which most of the Berbers converted.  The Berber groups living in the western region of Sahara rejected the Arab invasion; nevertheless, they embraced the moral, religious and cultural precepts of Islam, which are still the fundaments of the Saharawi identity. 

In 711, a mixed group of Arab and Berber Muslims invaded Visigoth Christian Spain.  Under their Berber leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar and brought most of the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic Sharia rule in an eight-year campaign.  They attempted to move northeast across the Pyrenees Mountains but were defeated by the Christian Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732.  Except for small areas in the northwest Iberian Peninsula and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees, they ruled an Empire comprehensive of North Africa, Spain, Portugal and south of France till 1492, being commonly known as the Moors. 

The name Moors derives from the old Berber tribe of the Mauri and their kingdom, Mauretania, which lays in today’s Morocco and western Algeria. Mauretania became a Roman province under Octavian in 33 BC.  The name of Mauri was applied by the Romans to all natives of North Africa still ruled by their own chiefs, until the 3rd century AD. 

One of the Berber groups arriving in the eighth century in what today is Mauritania was the Lemtuna who soon attained political dominance in the region.  Together with two other important Berber groups, the Messufa and the Djodala (or Massufa and Gudula), they set up the Sanhadja (or Sanhaja) Confederation.  From their capital, Aoudaghast, with a population of 5.000 to 6.000, the Lemtuna controlled this loose confederation and the western routes of the Saharan caravan trade that had begun to flourish after the introduction of the camel.  At its height, from the eighth to the end of the tenth century, the Sanhadja Confederation was a decentralized polity based on two distinct groups: the nomadic and very independent Berber groups, who maintained their traditional religions, and the Muslim, urban Berber merchants, who conducted the caravan trade from the Maghrebi commercial city of Sijilmasa to Koumbi Saleh, capital of the Ghana Empire.  Later, the southern trade route ended in Timbuktu, capital of the Mali Empire.  Gold, ivory, and slaves were carried north in return for salt, copper, cloth, and other luxury goods. 

By 770 C.E.  people of all races from North Africa and Arabia migrated to Andalusia (Spain and Portugal).  They intermarried with various nationalities including the native Spanish-Muslim population, with the result that Spain became a fairly homogeneous country within a few generations.  During the reign of Abdur-Rahman (755-788) they began the work of building an Islamic civilization similar to the one already flourishing in Damascus, Baghdad and its many regional centers.  Within a century of their activity, they had developed a civilization far in advance of any in Europe. 
At that time Berbers, Christian and Arabs still lived in some way separated.  This lack of national unity persisted until the arrival of ldriss Ben Abdallah, a descendant of the prophet Mohammed, in 788.  He arrived first in Tangier and then in the former Roman city of Volubilis where was received by Berbers already fully converted to Islam by the earlier Arab arrivals.  The Berbers chief proclaimed Idriss King and pledged the support of his own and neighbouring tribes.  It seems that the arrival of an assured leader who would guide the country out of the spiritual uncertainties was welcome. 
Idriss II was born after his father's death and was educated and prepared for his awesome task.  He became King at the age of 12, in 804.  He founded Fez which in his time became a great spiritual and intellectual center whose influence very much reached to the far north of the country and, later, beyond.  Idriss II died in 828 and his dynasty fell apart, so the region was divided into smaller kingdoms till a new dinasty came from the south: the Almoravides. 

The break-up of the Sanhadja Confederation in the early eleventh century led to a period of unrest and warfare among the Sanhadja Berber groups. 

THE ALMORAVIDS (1053-1147) *dates refer to the evolution of the dynasty and not to ruling of Morocco
The Almoravid movement developed in southern Mauritania, shifting from promoting strict Islamic reform to engaging in military conquest after 1054 and was led by Lamtuna leaders: first Yahya, then his brother Abu Bakr, and then his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin.  The Almoravids conquered the territory which is today Morocco, and founded Marrakech in 1062 as their capital, Maghreb as far east as Algiers, and Spain up to the Ebro River by 1106.  They even conquered Madrid, Lisbon and Oporto for few years. 

By the eleventh century, Islam had spread throughout the west Sahara under the influence of Berber and Arab traders and occasional Arab migrants.  Nevertheless, traditional religious practices thrived.  In about 1039, a Djodala chief, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, returned from a pilgrimage to Mecca bringing with him from Morocco a Sanhadja theologian, Abdallah ibn Yassin, to teach a more orthodox Islam.  Rejected by the Djodala two years later, after the death of Ibn Ibrahim, Ibn Yassin and some of his Sanhadja followers retired to a secluded place on the Senegal river where they built a fortified religious center, a ribat, which attracted many Sanhadjas.  Abd Allah ibn Yasin also became known as a marabout (from "al murabitun", men of the ribat, "those who have made a religious retreat").  In 1042 the al murabitun launched a jihad, or holy war, against the nonbelievers and the heretics among the Sanhadja, beginning what later become known as the Almoravid movement ( Almoravids is the Spanish transliteration of al murabitun).  The initial aim of the Almoravids was to establish a political community in which the ethical and juridical principles of Islam would be strictly applied. 
First, the Almoravids attacked and subdued the Djodala, forcing them to acknowledge Islam.  Then, rallying the other Berber groups of the west Sahara, the Almoravids succeeded in recreating the political unity of the Sanhadja Confederation and adding to it a religious unity and purpose.  By 1054 the Almoravids had captured Sijilmasa in the Maghreb and had retaken Aoudaghast from Ghana. 
The Berbers captured Morocco and founded Marrakech as their capital in 1062.  By 1082 all of the western Maghreb (to at least present-day Algiers) was under Almoravid domination.  In 1086 the Andalusian emirates, under attack from the Spanish Christian king Alfonso and the Christian re-conquest of Spain, called FOR Ibn Tashfin and his Berber warriors to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and come to their rescue.  The Almoravids defeated the Spanish Christians and, by 1106, imposed Almoravid rule and the Maliki school of Islamic law in Muslim Spain up to the Ebro River.  They even conquered Madrid, Lisbon and Oporto for few years. 
In Mauritania, Abu Bakr led the Almoravids in a war against Ghana (1062-76), culminating in the capture in 1076 of Koumbi Saleh.  This event marked the end of the dominance of the Ghana Empire.  But after the death of Abu Bakr in 1087 and Ibn Tashfin in 1106, traditional rivalries among the Sanhadja and a new Muslim reformist conquest destroyed the Almoravid Empire with a long running series of civil wars. 
For a short time, the Mauritanian Sanhadja dynasty of the Almoravid Empire controlled a vast territory stretching from Spain to Senegal.  The unity established between Morocco and Mauritania during the Almoravid period continued to have some political importance as in the 1980s it formed part of the basis for Morocco's claims to Mauritania. 

THE ALMOHADS (1130-1269)
Followed the fifth Moorish dynasty in the 12th century, the Almohads, originated with Ibn Tumart, a member of the Masmudas, an agrarian people who settled in the Atlas Mountains. 

It is highly probable that Ibn Tumart's influence would not have outlived him, if he had not found a lieutenant in Abd al-Mu'min al-Kumi, another Berber, from Algeria, who was undoubtedly a soldier and statesman of a high order.  When Ibn Tumart died in 1128 at the monastery or Rabat which he had founded in the Atlas at Tinmal, after suffering a severe defeat by the Almoravids, Abd al-Mu'min kept his death secret for two years, till his own influence was established.  Then he came forward as the lieutenant of the Mahdi Ibn Tumart.  Between 1130 and his death in 1163, 'Abd-el-Mumin not only rooted out the Almoravids, but extended his power over all northern Africa as far as Egypt, becoming Amir of Morocco in 1149. 

Muslim Spain followed the fate of Africa.  In 1170 Sevilla became the Almohad capital.  But in 1212 the 4th sultan Muhammad "al-Nasir" (1199-1214) was utterly defeated by the allied five Christian princes of Leon, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal, at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena.  The empire again fell into disorder and large parts of it came under the control of local tribes. 

All the Arab-Berber dominions in Spain were lost in the next few years, partly by the Christian conquest of Andalusia, and partly by the revolt of the Muslims of Granada, who put themselves under the protection of the Christian kings and became their vassals. 

The battle of las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 was the result of a crusade against the Muslim infidel in Spain organized by Alfonso VIII of Castile, Rodrigo Ximénez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo (d. 1247), and Pope Innocent III (1198-1216).  French, Provençal and Italian knights and soldiers eventually arrived at Toledo to join up with crusaders brought by the kings of Aragón and Navarre, as well as the army assembled by Alfonso VIII of Castile.  The African sultan Caliph al-Nasir led the Almohad army, made up of people from the whole Almohad Empire, and included Tunisia, Algeria, Senegal, Morocco, Mauritania and the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula right below Las Navas de Tolosa line. 
The Christian armies arrived at Las Navas de Tolosa, which lies to the northeast of Córdoba and Jaén, on Friday, July 13.  During the ensuing Saturday and Sunday, only small skirmishes took place, but on the morning of Monday, July 16, the Christian armies attacked the Almohads.  The Castilians and the Military Orders were flanked on the right by Sancho VII of Navarre with the Navarrese troops and urban militias from Ávila, Segovia, and Medina, and on the left by the king of Aragón and his army.  Initially the Almohad vanguard had to retreat, but when the bulk of its army entered the battle, it seemed as if the Christians would be defeated.  It was at this point that Alfonso VIII advanced and the kings of Aragón and Navarre converged from the flanks.  The combined Christian attack was decisive, even reaching the chains and the guards defending the headquarters tent of the Almohad leader.  A Muslim retreat quickly became a rout, and the Almohad leader, Muhammad an-Nasir, fled toward Jaén that same night. 
As a consequence of the Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa, the power of the Almohads, the Berber regime that had dominated Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus) from the mid-twelfth century, was shattered, enabling the Christians to take over almost all of southern Spain in the ensuing forty years. 

Three centuries of political decline and disintegration for the whole region, as well of economical and cultural stagnation, followed the battle of Las Navas de Tolosas. 

THE MAQIL PEOPLE
At the end of the 13th century, the Arab Yemenite people known as Maqil entered the territory that extends from the Oued Draa mountain chain to actual Mauritania, giving the local population its definitive political and cultural structure.  They are the direct ancestors of the present-day Saharawis. 

By time, the difficult environmental conditions, cold dry winters, scorching summers, low irregular rainfall and rough terrain encouraged the different tribes to coexist and live together.  In the following centuries there were often clashes between these tribes and any newcomers, for they have always been fiercely independent.  Ethnically and culturally distinct from the populations around them, they lived by herding animals and growing crops where possible.  They moved across the desert in accordance with the seasons on more or less regular routes, dictated by wells and waterholes.  They knew no frontiers.  Their religion was Islam, their law was based on custom and the Koran. 

The Maqil also brought with them the Arabic dialect today known as Hassaniya.  This dialect slowly replaced the original Berber tongue in Western Sahara.  Today, all the population of Western Sahara and Mauritania speak Hassaniya. 

The modern Moors derive from the fusion of the Maqil and the Sanhadja. 

In modern usage, Moor (or Moorish) is used to designate West African people whose native tongue is the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic.  Moors live mainly in Western Sahara and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the latter of which has got its name from them, too.  There are also significant Hassaniya-speaking communities in Mali and Senegal. 
Ethnically, the Moors are divided into two main groups: White Moors and Black Moors.  White Moors are nomads of Arabo-Berber origin with relatively fair skin colour.  Black Moors are generally considered to stem from former slave populations of White Moors who have adopted the customs and language of their masters.  Nowadays, slavery being officially abolished, most Black Moors live an independent life, although some say underprivileged and repressed.  Still according to some reports, slavery does exist in some parts of Mauritania at least.  The Black Moors do not identify themselves with other black population of their home countries, even significant ones. 

THE MARINIDS (1248-1465)
In the 14th century a clean political distinction began to separate this region from the rest of the Maghreb.  A powerful enlightened empire rose under the Beni Marin, a tribe of Zenata Berbers, nomadic army men, cavalry riders who settled in the cold, high plateau of the south-east Morocco between Taza and Algeria.  
The Marinids made their capital city at Fez in 1248, and tried over and over to reunite the old Almohad Empire by conquering their neighbors but with no success.  When they tried to attack Spain, they failed there too.  But they did manage to keep control of Morocco and the trade through the Straits of Gibraltar. 
The Marinids ruled Morocco until 1465. 

As early as 1145 there were battles between the Almohads and the Marinids who many times were defeated.  But after Fez became their capital in 1248, the Marinids were too powerful and Abu Yusuf Yaqub (1259-1286) completed in 1269 the defeat of the Almohads and the conquest of Morocco taking Marrakech.  At the same time he went to Andalucia to support the Sultans of Granada in their fight against Castille. 
Internal power struggles followed, which didn't however prevent the Marinids from substantial construction work in Fez.  Several madrassas for the education of public servants were founded, in order to support the centralisation of administration.  The Marinid Sultans surrounded themselves with scholars who could lecture not only about Koran but also about science and law, poetry and geography. 
Under Abul Hasan (1331-1348) another attempt to reunite the Maghreb was made.  In 1337 the empire of the Abdalwads in Algeria was conquered, followed in 1347 by the empire of the Hafsids in Ifriqiya/Tunisia.  In 1348, the Black Death and the rebellions of Tlemcen and Tunis will mark the decline of Marinids.  In 1340 they suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Castille at the Battle of Salado, and finally had to withdraw from Andalucia.  Abu l-Hasan was deposed by his son Abu Inan Faris (1348-1358), who tried once again to reconquer Algeria and Tunisia.  Despite several successes, the dynasty began to decline after his murder. 
Marinid rulers after 1358 came under the control of the Wattasids which exercised the real power in the empire as viziers.  They rotated Marinid sultans, often still children, in quick succession to ensure a strong viziership.  Among 17 sultans who succeeded Abu Inan Faris, 7 were murdered and 5 deposed. 
The Wattasids were however equally unable to consolidated the empire, so that unruly Bedouin and Berber tribes increasingly spread anarchy in Morocco, which became an ensemble of truly independent small states. 

Gold trade, ostrich feathers and gum arabic attracted the interest of some European countries.  In 1415 Portugal occupied the port of Sebta (now Ceuta). 

Around 1433-34 the Portuguese traveller Gil Eanes touched for the first time the coast of Western Sahara.  In the 1440s, Portuguese navigators explored the Mauritanian coast and established a fishing base on Arguin Island, located on the northern coast of Mauritania, near the present-day boundary with Western Sahara.  From 1446 going on the explorations of the region became systematic. 

Then the Moors were expelled from Spain, and during the rule of Ibn Wattas, the Portuguese invaded the city of Asilah and took at least 5000 people as slaves.  Ibn Wattas signed a treaty with Portugal which essentially gave access to most of the west coast to the Portuguese which by 1513 had occupied all important harbours on the Atlantic coast of Morocco.  After Abdalhaqq II (1421-1465) tried in vain to break the power of the Wattasids, they finally toppled the dynasty of the Marinids. 
To the end of the XV sec.  Spain, thanks to the papal mediation, took control on the Canarian Islands and the part of the African coast from Cape Bojador to actual Agadir, while the Portugal had control on the coast to south of Cape Bojador. 
In 1492 started a heavy immigration of about 1 million Jewish and Muslim refugees from Spain which brought on a strong economical and cultural growth to Morocco.  The Sephardic Jews possessed a greater cultural and commercial sophistication than their North African counterparts and the leading families from Spain soon took command of the reinvigorated Jewish community.  Despite rising religious tensions, North African Jews enjoyed a large degree of toleration.  Prominent newcomers even found positions in government, serving in some cases as diplomatic envoys or commercial agents. 

THE WATTASIDS (1420-1554) AND THE SAADIANS (1509-1659)
Since 1472 the Wattasid sultans, who had started as vizirs of the Marinid sultans but later took over the control, reigned at Fez but retained no authority over the rest of the country.  The remainder of the region was ruled by local tribal authorities and Sufi orders.

A series of Portuguese garrison forts on the Atlantic coast called presidios was established during this period, while in the Mediterranean, Spanish forces threatened the Moroccan littoral.  In the late 1400's, Spain established a colony on the Canary Islands and forced the people of the islands to work on sugar plantations. 

In the meanwhile the Saadians, who claimed descent from Muhammad and were called sharifs, took a strong position in support of jihad against the Portuguese, a position that put them in immediate opposition to the Wattasid policy of appeasement and collaboration.  By 1530 they held the southern half of Morocco and in 1541 they captured the Portuguese fortress of Santa Cruz (Agadir).  In 1544 the Saadians won their struggle for supremacy, as Muhammad al-Sheik was proclaimed sultan in Marrakesh.  In 1548/49 he occupied Fez, ejected the Wattasids and became sultan of Morocco.  The Saadians defended their territory from both Christian and Muslim incursions, most notably by the Portuguese and by the Ottomans based in Algeria.  Under them Morocco remained the only North African state to evade Ottoman occupation. 

Saadians ruled the region until the half of 17th century, when parts of the country and the Western Sahara came under Portuguese, Spanish and French influence. 

In 1578 the king of Portugal Sebastian I the Pretender, allied to king Philip II of Spain,  tried to reverse the sultan of Morocco Abd El Malik.  Ignoring any warnings, king Sebastian landed Morocco and during the Battle of Three Kings near Ksar to el-Kébir (Morocco), the 40.000 cavaliers of the Saadian sultan destroyed the 18.000 troops Portuguese.  Both King Sebastian and the Sultan Abd El Malik died. 
But with the fusion of the Portuguese and Spanish crowns in 1580 under Philip II, the Spaniards became the dominant influence along the coast while Saadians practised a policy of expansion towards the south which was concretized in 1591 by the conquest of Mali, then called "Country of the Blacks".  The principal sovereign of the Saadian dynasty, Ahmed El Mansour, called El Dehbi, "gilded", send an armada of 4000 soldiers equipped with small guns and cannons assembled on camels and a team of Spanish gunners to fire them.  Most of those chosen by al-Mansur to take part in the invasion were not of Moroccan origin.  The force was so overwhelmingly extra-national in origin that the official language of the expedition was Spanish.  The benefit was immense: the gold produced in the gold bearing zones of the rivers Senegal and Niger, but also the ambergris, the skins of leopard and the slaves, which were exchanged against products of agriculture and craft industry. 

In 1603 sultan Ahmed El Mansour died and left left three sons, all rivals to the throne.  Morocco felt into civil war, and was divided into smaller sultanates. 

In 1638 the Spaniards were replaced in the region by the Dutch, who were the first to begin exploiting the gum Arabic trade, produced by the acacia trees of Trarza and Brakna and used in textile pattern printing. 

The Dutch seized from Portugal the Island of Arguin, close to the present-day border with Mauritania, Then the English temporarily controlled it in 1665, the French in 1678, the Prussians in 1685; finally the Dutch again in 1717.  In 1727, by the Treaty of Hague, the Dutch ceded Arguin to France. 
Gum and slaves were too good reasons for all the European powers to take control of western Africa.  But so far the occupation was limited to the coast and it was only at the end of 19th century that the European presence became effective, in the frame of the colonization of the continent.   

THE ALAOUITES (1631-today)
In the 17th century a new dynasty, the Alaouites (or Alawites, ruling Morocco from 1666 to today), gained power in the region and made Morocco a greater power, taking back the control of most of the ports and dominating till Senegal.