Abu Yazid

Born to a trans-Saharan merchant in Gao, Makhlad ibn Kaydad settled in the Aurès mountains as an austere schoolteacher of the Ibadi-Nukkari theological persuasion, riding an unassuming grey donkey and preaching against Fatimid aristocratic taxation.

Between 943 and 945, his peasant army swept across Ifriqiya, capturing Kairouan and Raqqada and laying siege to Caliph Al-Qa'im inside the coastal fortress of Mahdia. Defeated by Ziri ibn Manad's Sanhaja cavalry in 947, his revolt was the largest indigenous popular rising in medieval Maghrebi history.