The Ibadi movement had reached North Africa by 719, when the missionary Salma ibn Sa'd was sent from the Ibādī jama'a of Basra to Kairouan.

By 740, their efforts had converted the major Berber tribes of Huwara around Tripoli, in the Nafusa Mountains and at Zenata in western Tripolitania.

In 757 (140 AH), a group of four Basra-educated missionaries including ʻAbd ar-Rahman ibn Rustam had proclaimed an Ibadi imamate, starting an abortive state led by Abu l-Khattab Abdul-A'la ibn as-Samh, which lasts until the Abbasid Caliphate suppresses it in 761 and Abul-Khattab Abdul-A'la ibn as-Samh is killed when an Abbasid Caliphate army reconquers Kairouan.

After this, the center of Ibadi power in the Maghreb becomes centered in Algeria.