Sharif

In Morocco, several of the regal dynasties have been qualified as "Sharifian", being descendants of Muhammad. Chorfa is the Darija term for the Arabic "Sharif". In Morocco, the royal houses of Idrisid, Saadi and Alaouite are called Sharifian or Cherifian.

The first known Cherif, Idris I, was the great-grandson of Ali ibn Abi Talib and Fatima Zahra, the daughter of Muhammad and his first wife Khadijah. Idris I and his people fled from Syria to Morocco in 786 from the Abbasids after losing to them in the Battle of Fakhkh near Mecca in which his family was massacred. In 788, he was greeted by the Amazigh people of Volubilis, a Roman city near Meknes. He founded the Imperial City of Fez. It is believed that Idris I was poisoned in 791 by a servant sent by Caliph Harun al-Rashid, leaving his wife Kenza pregnant. His servant Rached, a freed slave, helped Kenza raise Idris II who was born 2 months later.

Idris II came to the throne at the age of eleven. His tomb is located in Moulay Idriss, a village up on a mountainside near Volubilis. Idriss II's descendants ruled the country until the second half of the 10th century, when they lost their authority to the invasions of the Zenata, an Amazigh tribe under the orders of the Fatimid Caliphate, later the Caliph of Cordoba.

According to French historians, Abdelkader El Djezairi was a descendant of Muhammad .[2] The full name of El Amir Abdelkader is Abd el-Kader ibn Muhyidin, ibn Mostafa (qui s’est installé définitivement dans la plaine d’Ighriss), ibn Muhammad, ibn Ahmed, ibn Muhammad, ibn Abdel-Kaoui, ibn Ali, ibn Ahmed, ibn Khaled, ibn Yussef, ibn Ahmed, ibn Bachar, ibn Muhammed, ibn Massoud, ibn Taous, ibn Yacoub, ibn Abdelkaoui, ibn Ahmed, ibn Muhammad, ibn Idriss II, ibn Idriss I, ibn Abdallah El Kamel, ibn Hassan El Muthana, ibn Hassan Essabt, ibn Ali.

However other historians disputes, arguing that El Amir Abdelkader was descended from the Amazigh tribe of Banu Ifran.[3][4]

The Senussi, a political-religious brotherhood, founded in Mecca by Sayyid Muhammad ibn Ali as-Senussi in 1837, came to become the Emirs of Cyrenaica in 1917 and then in 1922, the Emirs of Tripoli. The dynasty is of the Chofra descent through their sixth Senussi sultan, Ali ibn Omar. They came to be the kings of Libya.

The last king of Libya, Idris, was overthrown by a military coup in 1969. The current claimant for the Libyan throne is Sayyid Mohammed El Senussi. It is also claimed by Sayyid Idris bin Abdullah al-Senussi.

Like Morocco and Algeria, Mauritania is a country in which certain Cherifian families have settled, particularly from neighboring Morocco.

Just like in the Cherifian kingdom, the Cherifis of Mauritania are essentially of Hassanid origin and of Idrissid ancestry. There are, however, some families of Husseinid origin established mainly in Ouadane, in particular the Ahl Moulaye Ibrahim.

The Idrissid families descending from Hassan ibn Ali are: the Tichitt Sharifs (Ahl Abd El Mou’min) and the Ahl Cherif Al Ak’hal of the Laghlal tribe, who both claim descent from Moulaye Abdallah ibn Idriss II.

The Ahl Moulaye Zein and the Ahl Mohamed Sidi Cherif (the lineage from which Sheikh Hamallah descends), and which both go back to Moulaye Omar ibn Idriss II.

The Ahl Ahmed Cherif of Ouadane also traces its descent back to Moulaye Mohamed ibn Idriss II.

Note that the cherifs of Néma and Oualata claim to be descendants of Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya, just like the Alaouite dynasty (the current royal family of Morocco), and the sheikh Ahmad al-Tijani of the Tijaniya tariqa.

In addition, some of these families continued their migrations to West Africa, particularly to Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Guinea, among others.