Banu Ifran

The Banu Ifran (Arabic: بنو يفرن, Banu Yafran) or Ifranids,^[1] were a Zenata Berber tribe prominent in the history of pre-Islamic and early Islamic North Africa. In the 8th century, they established a kingdom in the central Maghreb, with Tlemcen as its capital.

Prior to the 8th century, the Banu Ifran resisted or revolted against foreign occupiers—Romans, Vandals, and Byzantines—of their territory in Africa. In the seventh century, they sided with Kahina in her resistance against the Muslim Umayyad invaders. In the eighth century they mobilized around the Sufri dogma, revolting against the Arab Umayyads and Abbasids.

In the 10th century they founded a dynasty opposed to the Fatimids, the Zirids, the Umayyads, the Hammadids and the Maghraoua. The Banu Ifran were defeated by the Almoravids and the invading Arabs (the Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym)^[2] at the end of the 11th century. The Ifranid dynasty^[3] was recognized as the only dynasty that defended the indigenous people of the Maghreb, by the Romans referred to as the Africani.^[4] In 11th century Iberia, the Ifranids founded a Taifa of Ronda in 1039^[5] at Ronda in Andalusia and governed from Cordoba for several centuries.^[6]