He immediately captured the Draa valley, then moved along the Wadi Nul (along the edge of the Anti-Atlas, picking up the adherence of the Sanhaja tribes of the Lamta and the Gazzula (Jazzula) to the Almoravid movement.

By negotiation, Abdallah ibn Yasin secured an alliance with the Masmuda Berbers of the High Atlas, which allowed the Almoravids to cross the mountain range with little incident and seize the critical Zenata-ruled citadel of Aghmat in 1058 with little opposition.

Delighted at the apparent ease of their advance, Abdallah ibn Yasin ventured into the lands of the Berghwata of western Morocco with only a light escort and was promptly killed.

In 1060/61, Abu Bakr and his Sanhaja lieutenants left the city and pitched their tents on the pastures along the Tensift River, setting up an encampment for their headquarters, as if they were back in the Sahara desert.

In a series of campaigns through the 1060s, while Abu Bakr held court in Marrakesh, Yusuf directed Almoravid armies against northern Morocco, reducing Zenata strongholds one by one.

After the fall of Fez, feeling Morocco was now secure, Abu Bakr decided it was time to return to the Sahara to quell the dissension in the desert homelands.

As was common among the Sanhaja tribes before extended military campaigns, Abu Bakr divorced Zaynab before he left, advising her to marry Yusuf if she needed protection.

Pushed by his new wife, Zaynab, Yusuf met Abu Bakr in the plain of Burnoose (between Marrakesh and Aghmat) and with a large outlay of gold, cattle and other gifts persuaded him to leave the northern dominions to him.

The clear exaggerations in Ibn Abi Zar's account are perhaps a reason to view his dates with skepticism,[22] as well as the fact that the campaign against Ghana was possibly led by Abu Bakr's son, Yahya.

[24] Oral tradition records that at his death Abu Bakr left a pregnant Fula wife, Fâtimata Sal, who gave birth to a son, the legendary Amadou Boubakar ibn Omar, better known as Ndiadiane Ndiaye, who went on to found the Wolof kingdom of Waalo in the lower Senegal river and the Jolof Empire.