Emirate of Tahert

Rustamid kingdom
767–909
Capital		Tahert
Languages		Berber, Arabic, Persian
Religion		Khawarij
Government		Imamate
Imam
•	776–788	ʿAbdu r-Rahman ibn Bahram ibn Rūstam
•	906–909	Yaqzan ibn Muhammad Abil-Yaqzan
History
•	Established	767
•	Disestablished	909
Currency		?
Preceded by Succeeded by Abbasid Caliphate Fatimid Caliphate Various berbers states

The Rustamids (or Rustumids, Rostemids) were a dynasty of Ibāḍī Khawarij imāms of Persian descent that ruled mostly in the central Maghreb as a Muslim theocracy for a century and a half from their capital Tiaret (in modern Algeria) until the Ismaili Fatimid Caliphate destroyed it. Their realm extended mostly to current central Algeria, but also Libya, Morocco and Mauritania.

The Ibāḍī movement reached North Africa by 719, when the missionary Salma ibn Sa'd was sent from the Ibādī jama'a of Basra to Kairouan. By 740, their efforts had converted the major Berber tribes of Huwara around Tripoli, in the Nafusa Mountains and at Zenata in western Tripolitania. In 757 (140 AH), a group of four Basra-educated missionaries including ʻAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Rustam proclaimed an Ibāḍī imamate, starting an abortive state led by Abu l-Khattab Abdul-A'la ibn as-Samh which lasted until the Abbasid Caliphate dispatched Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath al-Khuza'i to suppress it in 761, and Abul-Khattab Abdul-A'la ibn as-Samh was killed. On his death, the Tripolitanian Ibādiyya elected Abu l-Hatim al-Malzuzi as Imām; he was killed in 772 after launching a second unsuccessful revolt in 768.

After this, the center of power shifted to Algeria, and, in 777, ʻAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Rustam, an Ifriqiyan-born convert to the Ibāḍī movement of Persian origin and one of the four founders of the imamate, was elected Imām; after this, the post remained in his family, a practice which the Ibādiyya justified by noting that he came from no tribe, and thus his family had no bias towards any of the tribes of which the state was formed.

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Wikipedia