Mongol ruler Ghazan Khan converted to Islam.
The Marinid Sultanate was a Berber Muslim empire from the mid-13th to the 15th century which controlled present-day Morocco and, intermittently, other parts of North Africa and of the southern Iberian Peninsula (Spain) around Gibraltar. It was named after the Banu Marin, a Zenata Berber tribe. The sultanate was ruled by the Marinid dynasty, founded by Abd al-Haqq I.
Abu Al-Hasan 'Ali ibn 'Othman, was a sultan of the Marinid dynasty who reigned in Morocco between 1331 and 1348. In 1333 he captured Gibraltar from the Castilians, although a later attempt to take Tarifa in 1339 ended in fiasco. In North Africa he extended his rule over Tlemcen and Hafsid Ifriqiya, which together covered the north of what is now Algeria and Tunisia. Under him the Marinid realms in the Maghreb briefly covered an area that rivalled that of the preceding Almohad Caliphate. However, he was forced to retreat due to a revolt of the Arab tribes, was shipwrecked, and lost many of his supporters. His son Abu Inan Faris seized power in Fez. Abu Al-Hasan died in exile in the High Atlas mountains.
Muhammad III was the ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula from 8 April 1302 until 14 March 1309, and a member of the Nasrid dynasty. He ascended the Granadan throne after the death of his father Muhammad II, which according to rumours, was caused by Muhammad III poisoning him. He had the reputation of being both cultured and cruel. Later in his life, he became visually impaired—which caused him to be absent from many government activities and to rely on high officials, especially the powerful Vizier Ibn al-Hakim al-Rundi.
Abu Sa'id Uthman II was the 9th Marinid sultan of Morocco, reigning from 1310 to 1331. A younger son of Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Abd al-Haqq, Abū Sa'īd 'Uthmān succeeded his nephew Abū al-Rabï' Sulaymān as Sultan of Morocco in November 1310, at the age of 33.
Abu ar-Rabi Sulayman was a Marinid ruler of Morocco. He was the son or grandson of Abu Yaqub Yusuf and brother of Abu Thabit Amir, whom he succeeded in 1308, at the age of 19.
Abu Thabit 'Amir ibn Yusuf was a Marinid ruler of Morocco for around a year. Son or grandson of Abu Yaqub Yusuf, whom he succeeded in 1307.
Abu Yaqub Yusuf an-Nasr was a Marinid ruler of Morocco. He was the son of Abu Yusuf Ya'qub, whom he succeeded in 1286. His mother was a sharifa, Lalla Oum'el'Iz bint Mohammed al-Alaoui. He was assassinated in 1307.
Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Abd al-Haqq was a Marinid ruler of Morocco. He was the fourth son of Marinid founder Abd al-Haqq, and succeeded his brother Abu Yahya in 1258. He died in 1286. He was the son of Abd al-Haqq I and Oum el-Iman bint Ali el-Bethary, a Zenata woman. Some sources add her mother to be known as Oum el Youm and a daughter of a Zenata clan leader of the Tafersit region.
Abu Zakariya Yahya ibn Ziyan al-Wattasi (abū zakarīyā' yaḥyā ben ziyān al-waṭṭāsī Arabic: أبو زكرياء يحيى بن زيان الوطاس was a vizier of the Marinid sultan of Fez, regent and effective strongman ruler of Morocco from 1420 until 1448. He is the founder of the Wattasid dynasty of viziers and later sultans, and as such often designated as Yahya I in Wattasid lists. He was also known by his nickname Lazeraque, as found in Portuguese chronicles.
The siege of Ceuta of 1419 was fought between the besieging forces of the Marinid Sultanate of Morocco, led by Sultan Abu Said Uthman III, including allied forces from the Emirate of Granada, and the Portuguese garrison of Ceuta, led by Pedro de Menezes, 1st Count of Vila Real. After the loss of the city in a surprise attack in 1415 known as the Conquest of Ceuta, the Sultan gathered an army four years later and besieged the city. The Portuguese gathered a fleet under the command of Princes Henry the Navigator and John of Reguengos to relieve Ceuta. According to the chroniclers, the relief fleet turned out to be quite unnecessary. In a bold gambit. Pedro de Menezes led the Portuguese garrison in a sally against the Marinid siege camp and forced the lifting of the siege before the relief fleet even arrived.
The sixth siege of Gibraltar in 1411 was the only occasion on which control of Gibraltar was contested between two Islamic powers. After the failed fifth siege of Gibraltar in 1349–50, which ended with the death of King Alfonso XI of Castile from bubonic plague, the Kingdom of Castile was preoccupied with the Castilian Civil War and its aftermath. In 1369, Sultan Muhammed V of Granada took advantage of the Castilians' distractions and in the siege of Algeciras (1369) he seized the city of Algeciras, on the west side of the Bay of Gibraltar, which Alfonso XI had captured in 1344. After razing it to the ground he made peace with Henry II, the winner of the civil war. The truce was renewed by Henry's successors John I and Henry III. At some point during the truces, control of Gibraltar was transferred from the Marinid dynasty of Morocco, which had held it since 1333, to the Granadans. It is not clear why this happened; it may have been as a condition of the Granadans assisting the Marinids against rebels in Morocco.
Abu Said Uthman III, was Marinid ruler of Morocco from 19 March 1398 to 1420, the last effective ruler of that dynasty. He ascended to the throne at the age of sixteen. He succeeded his brother, Abu Amir Abdallah ibn Ahmad. His forces were involved in an unsuccessful attempt to acquire Gibraltar from the Emirate of Granada in 1410. In 1415 the Portuguese seized the port of Ceuta. Abu Said Uthman III failed in an attempt to recover Ceuta, and was shortly after assassinated. His vizier gained control of the kingdom, establishing the Wattasid dynasty of rulers of Morocco.
Abd al-Haqq II was Marinid Sultan of Morocco from 1420 to 1465.
The Kingdom of Tlemcen or Zayyanid Kingdom of Tlemcen was a kingdom ruled by the Berber Zayyanid dynasty in what is now the northwest of Algeria. Its territory stretched from Tlemcen to the Chelif bend and Algiers, and at its zenith reached Sijilmasa and the Moulouya River in the west, Tuat to the south and the Soummam in the east.
During the 200 year period between 1301 and 1500 the main civilizations and kingdoms in Africa were the Mali Empire, Kingdom of Kongo, Ife Empire, Benin Kingdom, Hausa City-states, Great Zimbabwe, Ethiopian Empire, Kilwa Sultanate, Khormans and the Ajuran Sultanate. These kingdoms flourished in the first part of this period, especially the Mali Empire, which saw a cultural flowering within its empire centred on the University of Timbuktu.
Abu Zayyan (I) Muhammad ibn Abi Said Uthman ibn Yaghmurasan, known as Abu Zayyan I, was the third Zayyanid Sultan of the Kingdom of Tlemcen. He succeeded his father Abu Said Uthman I on June 6, 1304.
Abu Said Uthman I, or "Othmane Ibn Yaghmoracen", or in Algerian arabic, ruled the Zenata Berber Kingdom of Tlemcen in Medieval Algeria from 1283 to 1303.
The Battle of the Strait was a military conflict contesting the ports in the Straits of Gibraltar taking place in the late thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth. The conflict involves principally the Spanish Muslim Emirate of Granada, the Spanish Christian Crown of Castile and the North African Muslim Marinid state. The ports' strategic value came from their position linking Spain and North Africa, thus connecting Muslims in Spain with the rest of the Islamic world. The campaign had mixed results. Castile gained Tarifa permanently, and managed to take Gibraltar and Algeciras but both would revert to Muslim rule. Castile also failed to gain any port in the African side of the strait.
Abu Sa'id Uthman ibn Abi al-Ula was a Marinid prince who led an unsuccessful rebellion aiming to capture the throne, and fled to the Nasrid Emirate of Granada in its aftermath. There he served as the Commander of the Volunteers of the Faith of Granada, and became one of the most important political figures of the Nasrid realm.
Marinid Sultanate 
Kingdom of Tlemcen 
