The Miknasa Berbers originated in southern Tunisia, but migrated westwards into central Morocco and western Algeria in pre-Islamic times.

The modern Moroccan city of Meknes bears witness to their presence.

After defeat by the Umayyad Arab Muslims, many of the Miknasa convert to Islam.

In 711, members of the tribe take part in the conquest of the Visigoth kingdom under Tariq ibn Ziyad.

The Miknasa Berbers who had accompanied Tariq ibn Ziyad in his conquest of Visigothic Spain eventually settle north of the city of Córdoba; the Spanish town of Mequinenza bears witness to their presence.

The Berbers have long resented the second-class status accorded to them by the ruling Arab military caste.

Berber Muslims have been intermittently subjected to extraordinary taxation and slave-tributes, contrary to Islamic law.

As a result, many Berbers have grown receptive to puritan Kharijite activists, particularly those of the Sufrite sect, that had begun arriving in the Maghreb, preaching a new political order in which all Muslims are to be treated without regard for ethnicity or tribal status.

Maysara's Matghara tribe has been particularly taken up with Sufrite influence.

In the late 730s, the new Umayyad governor Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab of Ifriqiya had ratcheted up his fiscal exactions to make up for the financial shortfalls.

His regional deputies, notably Omar ibn al-Moradi, governor of Tangiers, have implemented some inventive and highly oppressive schemes to extract more revenues from the Berbers under his jurisdiction.

Contravening Islamic law and the 718 edicts of the Caliph Umar II, Ubayd Allah has reinstated some of the extraordinary dhimmi taxation (the jizyah and kharaj) and slave-tributes on the Muslim Berber population, provoking immense opposition.

Similar policies have been implemented by his deputies Oqba ibn al-Saluli in al-Andalus and (with particular zeal) Omar ibn el-Moradi in Morocco, but Ubayd Allah has gone above and beyond his duties.

Seeking to satisfy the luxurious tastes of the nobles of Damascus, Ubayd Allah has sent his officials in the relentless pursuit of the highly prized wool of unborn Merino lambs, seizing (and destroying) entire flocks—the livelihoods of many Berber communities—just to gather the handful he could dispatch back to Syria.

Berber girls and women are also highly prized as concubines by Damascus lords.

Ubayd Allah, eager to please as always, has ordered them seized and kidnapped in great numbers, not stopping even at the wives and daughters of loyal Berber chieftains.

By 739 or so, the main Berber tribes under Omar's jurisdiction in western Morocco—principally the Gomara, Barghawata and Miknasa—decide they have had enough and prepare for rebellion.

Forming an alliance, they elect the Matghara chieftain Maysara to lead them.

It is not a spontaneous uprising.

Maysara and the Berber commanders seem to have been careful enough to wait until the bulk of the Ifriqiyan army has left North Africa on an expedition to Sicily before springing into action.

The exact biographical details of Maysara at Maghari are obscure, and made more complicated by what are likely scurrilous stories circulated by his enemies.

Chroniclers have recorded allegations that Maysara was a low-born Berber water-seller in Kairouan or Tangiers, possibly a water-carrier in the caliphal army.

Chronicles routinely refer to him by the unflattering label of al-Hakir, 'the Ignoble' or 'the Vile'.

Ibn Khaldun, however, was probably closer to the truth in proposing that his origins were perhaps not so humble, that Maysara was probably a significant chieftain or sheikh of the Berber Matghara tribe.

Al-Tabari reports that Maysara had even headed a Berber delegation to Damascus to present the Berber complaints before the Caliph Hisham, and the complaints were many.

Command of the Syrian armies devolves to Thalaba ibn Salama al-Amili, who is of 'Yemenite' tribal stock, like most Andalusian Arabs, rather than the usual 'Qaysid' stock of the Syrians.

For the next few months, the Syrians remain bunkered down in Córdoba, while …

…the Andalusians (soon joined by what remains of the Berber rebels), assemble in Mérida.

Thalaba ibn Salama.

Much of the ensuing few months is spent in an intercenine Arab civil war, the Berber question relegated to a secondary concern.

Sometime in late 642 or early 643, Thalaba marches onto Mérida, an area of rebel activity, but soon finds himself trapped with his small army in the citadel by the Andalusians.

Calculating there is no escape, Andalusians carry the siege of Mérida in a leisurely fashion.

The siege camp soon takes on the character of a fair, attracting numerous onlookers and their families, but one early morning, when the besiegers are preparing for a much-anticipated festival, Thalaba launches an unexpected sally out of Mérida, and quickly overwhelms the siege camp, taking as many as ten thousand prisoners, including many women and children.

Thalaba marches his prisoners to Córdoba, where he is said to have sold many of the high-ranking Andalusian captives as discount-price slaves.

The remnant of the Syrian expedition, some ten thousand men under Balj ibn Bishr, had remain trapped in Ceuta through much of the winter of 741-42, besieged by the Berber rebels.

The Andalusian ruler Abd al-Malik ibn Qatan al-Fihri, wary that the presence of the Syrians in Spain will only aggravate matters, refuses them passage across the water.

Indeed, he forbids any relief of the stranded Syrians, going so far as to publicly torture to death an Andalusian merchant who had dared to dispatch a couple of grain boats to Ceuta to feed the desperate Syrians.

But news soon reaches the Andalusian governor that the Berber rebel armies from Galicia had been organized and are now barreling south in three columns, towards Toledo, Córdoba and Algeciras.

Not having enough Arab forces at hand, the Andalusian governor Abd al-Malik realizes he has little choice but to make use of the stranded Syrian force to defeat the Berber armies.

In a carefully negotiated treaty, Abd al-Malik grants the Syrians permission to cross over, on the condition that they promise to return to North Africa within a year of the settlement of the Berber matter in Spain.

Hostages are taken to secure Syrian compliance.

The Syrian junds under Balj ibn Bishr cross the straits in early 742 and immediately head to the environs of Medina-Sidonia, where they intercept and dispose of the Berber column aiming for Algeciras.

The Syrians next join the Andalusian Arabs in crushing the main Berber rebel army in a ferocious battle outside of Córdoba in the spring of 742.

Shortly after, …

…the Syrians proceed to defeat the third Berber army, now laying siege to Toledo.

The reaction is not long in coming.

Andalusian Arabs, rallied by Qattan and Umayya, the sons of the late Fihrid governor, take up arms against Balj ibn Bishr and the Syrian junds.

The Syrians deliver a decisive defeat upon the Andalusians at the Battle of Aqua Portora, outside of Córdoba on August 6, 742, but Balj ibn Bishr is mortally wounded in the process and dies two days later.

He is succeeded by his lieutenant and designated successor Thalaba ibn Salama al-Amili.

The chronicler Ibn al-Khatam asserts Balj ibn Bishr was killed in the battle by Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri, the future ruler of Ifriqiya, who had accompanied the Syrians to al-Andalus, but defected to the Andalusians upon the execution of the Fihrid governor.

But this is likely confusion with Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Qama al-Lakhmi, the Andalusian governor of Narbonne, who is reported elsewhere to have, in the heat of battle, as his army was falling apart, sought out Balj among the Syrian cavalry and struck him with his spear.