The Nafzawiyya

Her name was Zaynab an-Nafzawiyya, and she married four times. The first three marriages made her wealthy. The fourth made her queen.

She was born in the early 11th century in Aghmat, the commercial capital of southern Morocco before Marrakech existed. Her tribe, the Nafza, were Berbers. Her father was a merchant named Ishaq Al-Houari. By the time she was thirty, she had already been married to the ruler of Aghmat—a man named Laggut—and was known throughout the region for her beauty, her intelligence, and her wealth.

Then the Almoravids arrived.

The Almoravids were Saharan warriors from what is now Mauritania, religious reformers who had built an army in the desert. Their leader, Abu Bakr ibn Umar, conquered Aghmat around 1068. He killed Laggut. And then he married Laggut's widow—Zaynab.

The marriage lasted three years. In 1071, Abu Bakr was called south to put down a rebellion in the Sahara. Before he left, he divorced Zaynab—supposedly for her protection, telling her to marry his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin for safekeeping. She married Yusuf in May 1071, after the required three-month waiting period.

Abu Bakr never returned to power. Yusuf never gave it back.

What followed was forty years of Almoravid expansion. Yusuf founded Marrakech in 1071. He conquered Morocco, then crossed into Spain to fight the Christians at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086. He unified an empire stretching from the Ebro Valley in Spain to Mauritania, from Algiers to the Atlantic. It was one of the largest empires Morocco ever controlled.

And Zaynab ruled beside him.

Contemporary sources give her a title: 'al-qa'ima bi mulkihi'—'the one in charge of her husband's mulk.' Mulk means dominion, kingdom, property. She was not a figurehead. When Yusuf was away fighting in Spain, she governed. When he was present, she advised. According to Ibn Abi Zar, writing in the 14th century, 'Yusuf would not make a decision without consulting her first.'

They called her 'the Magician' for her negotiating skills. She advised on the founding of Marrakech. She elevated the status of women throughout the empire—princesses participated in state affairs, and women's education was encouraged. Her children included at least one future governor and one patron of learning.

She died sometime between 1075 and 1096. The sources disagree. But the empire she helped build lasted until 1147, when the Almohads burned Marrakech and started again.

Zaynab married conquerors. But she was not conquered.