About: Samgu ibn Wasul al-Miknasi

Abu'l-Qasim Samgu ibn Wasul al-Miknasi (died 784/5) was a Miknasa Berber leader who according to tradition founded the oasis town of Sijilmasa and became its second ruler. According to the traditional account, as narrated by the medieval sources (chiefly the 11th-century geographer al-Bakri), Samgu (or Samgun) was a Miknasa Berber who adopted Sufri Kharijism, and was a student of the famous Berber Khariji missionary . He chose the site of Sijilmasa, which he used as pasture for his flocks, and with 40 followers established a town there in 757/8. The establishment of the town was part of a larger westward movement of Sufri Kharijites in the Maghreb, fleeing the westward expansion of Abbasid power in Ifriqiya, and the establishment of the rival Ibadi Kharijite Rustamid emirate of Tahert.