Abū Yazīd's father Kayrād was a trans-Saharan trader from Qastilia, where he was born; he had grown up in Tozeur, then head gone to Tahert, the Rustamid capital and the main center of (Ibadi) Kharijism in the Maghreb of the time and took up teaching.
The Nakkariyyah branch of Sufri Kharijism was named after him.
However, in 909 the Ismaili Shī‘ī Fatimids had conquered the Rustamids and, soon after, the Sufri state of Sijilmassa to the west.
Abū Yazīd had moved to Tiqyus and had begun agitating against Fatimid rule in 928.
When the Fatimid al-Mahdi died in 944, Abū Yazīd launches a rebellion in the Aures mountains and declares himself Shaykh al-Mu'minīn "Elder of the Believers", seeking aid from the Umayyads of Andalus.
Early in his rebellion, Abū Yazīd is given a gray donkey which he uses to ride, for which he receives the nickname "Possessor of the donkey.”
Abū Yazīd also habitually wears a short woolen jubba cloak and with his conspicuous frugality, he recalls the Kharijite imams of Tahert and Sijilmassa.
Abū Yazīd is initially notably successful.
He takes Baghai, then …