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The Idrisid Dynasty. The Idrisid dynasty (788-974) founded the first great Moroccan state and made Fez one of the leading cities of the Islamic world. Its founder, Idris ibn Abdallah, was a great-grandson of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hasan who fled east after his family was defeated by the Abbasid caliphs. Reaching the far Maghreb in 788, he won the allegiance of Berber tribes near the ancient Roman city of Volubilis, where local notables proclaimed him their leader, laying the foundations of an independent Moroccan kingdom.
Poisoned by an Abbasid agent in 791, Idris I left a posthumous son, Idris II, who was raised among the Berbers and proclaimed ruler as a boy. Idris II made the dynasty's fortune: he moved his capital to Fez in 808, and the young city grew rapidly as waves of Arab immigrants arrived, including thousands of families from Kairouan in Ifriqiya and from Cordoba in al-Andalus, who settled in their own quarters and brought crafts, learning, and commerce. The Qarawiyyin mosque, founded in this era, became one of the great centers of scholarship in the Muslim world.
Under Idris II's sons the realm was divided among princes of the family, and Idrisid rule stretched across much of northern Morocco and into what is now Algeria. The dynasty balanced between the great powers of the age, the Umayyads of Cordoba and the Fatimids of Ifriqiya, both of whom sought control of the Maghreb. That balancing act eventually failed: caught between the two rivals, the Idrisids lost their independence in the tenth century, and the last members of the family were killed or driven out by 974.
The Idrisids left an enduring legacy out of proportion to their two centuries of power. They established the principle of an independent Moroccan monarchy, they implanted Arab-Islamic urban culture in the Maghreb, and above all they founded Fez, whose old city remains one of the best-preserved medieval urban landscapes in the world. Later Moroccan dynasties honored their memory, and the tomb of Idris II in Fez is still venerated as the shrine of the city's founder.
Maroc.ma: The Founding of Fez by Idris I and Idris II
Encyclopedie Berbere: Idris Ier
Wikipedia: Idrisid Dynasty