Sijilmasa

Sijilmasa, on the edge of the Sahara in southeastern Morocco (near modern Rissani), was a major caravan city, the northern terminus of the trans-Saharan gold trade. It was an important commercial and at times independent town; the future Fatimid founder Abd Allah al-Mahdi was held there before his followers freed him in 909, and the traveller Ibn Battuta passed through it on his return from West Africa.