His son Ahmed became famous for his religious status with the Kabylian and Arab tribes in the region who settled in the Kalâa, fleeing the relative chaos in the country.

[9] The Kalâa was equipped with weapons factories with the help of Christian renegades as well as some of the inhabitants of Bejaïa driven out by the Spanish occupation, including Andalusians and Muslims, as well as a Jewish community welcomed for its know-how.

The Spaniards, who had fallen back into Bejaïa, offered him an alliance, and he temporarily ignored the establishment of the Regency of Algiers led by the Barbarossa brothers because his kingdom was not oriented towards the sea.

Faced with the technical superiority of their firearms, Abdelaziz submitted to them and preferred to break the alliance with the Spaniards, rather than confront the Turks immediately with inadequate resources.

[16] Salah Raïs, for fear the reputation of Sultan Abdelaziz would increase, launched an expedition in late 1552 and reached the Boni Mountains near the Kalâa by winter.

[19][20][21] Abdelaziz was therefore in possession of the city of M'sila and raised an army of 6,000 men among the surrounding tribes in order to levy the tax normally intended for the Turks of the Regency.

Hostilities were eventually ended following mediation by a marabout, which involved Ahmed Amokrane paying a tribute of 30,000 douros to secure Khizr Pasha's withdrawal and recognition of his independence.

[39] Other French-type cannons were also found at the Kalaa later, and most probably these date from the time of Louis XII, and were presented by Francis I of France to Tunis as part of his alliance with the Ottoman Empire.

[42][43] The Turks in Algiers wanted revenge for a massacre in 1737, when an entire column of their troops and its commander had been slaughtered by the "Sheikh of the Medjana" in retaliation for a crime of honour.

Aside from the tribal confederations in the mountainous regions, it was the traditional marabout elements and the hereditary leadership, known as the "djouad" – which included the Mokrani – who took the lead in reasserting their positions.

In December 1837, when the Emir Abdelkader arrived in the Biban mountains to organise the administration of a region he considered to be part of his realm, each of the rivals offered allegiance to him if he would agree to their respective terms.

"Khalifas" received local taxes on behalf of the state, maintained a guard of spahis paid for by France and governed their people according to Islamic law.

These measures provoked discontent among the traditional chiefs allied to France, but they still sought to avoid armed conflict and hoped that the French would continue to let them administer the territory.

[70] The Kingdom of Ait Abbas owed its founding to the withdrawal of the Hafsid Emir of Béjaïa, Aberrahmane, in 1510, following the conquest of the city by the Spanish under Pedro Navarro.

[71][72] However, with the arrival and growing influence of the Ottoman Empire in Algiers, he gradually established relations with the Spanish based in Béjaïa, and eventually entered into a formal alliance with them.

[11] After the fall of Béjaïa to Salah Raïs in 1555, Abderrahmane's successor Abdelaziz acquired artillery and welcomed a 1000-strong Spanish militia to reinforce his armies, particularly during the Second Battle of Kalaa of the Beni Abbes (1559).

[23] In the 16th century, the sultan of the Kalâa was a source of constant concern to the Regency of Algiers, considering his important influence in Kabylie, the high plateau of the interior and the Sahara.

[23][79] In the 17th-century sultan Bouzid, strengthened by his military success, was able to require Algiers to pay him the "ouadia" to secure passage of its troops, merchants and dignitaries because of his control of the Iron Gates pass through the Biban mountains.

[71] Rural kabyle communities had to preserve their autonomy, particularly in terms of resources such as their forests, from the hegemony of local lords, while at the same time they had to support them sufficiently in the face of pressure from the central government of the Regency of Algiers.

[89] In the 17th century, kabyle society was profoundly changed by the influx of people fleeing the authority of the Regency; this helped to give it the characteristics of an overpopulated mountain region which it was to retain until the period of independence.

[93] Paul Gaffarel indicates in "Algeria - History, Conquest and Colonization" that a Mokrani who had been invited by Napoleon III before 1871, carried a white flag with a golden fleur-de-lys.

[99] The most noteworthy example was the Aït Yaâla tribe, whose reputation was summed up in the local saying "In the lands of the Beni Yaala, religious scholars ("oulema") grow like the grass in Spring."

The surprising degree of literacy and the flourishing of a written culture may be attributed in part to the way urban elites from the coastal cities used the mountains as a refuge in hostile political conditions.

[25] The 19th century library of Cheikh El Mouhoub is another indication of the extent of literacy in Berber society; it contained more than 500 manuscripts from different periods on subjects including fiqh, literature, astronomy, mathematics, botany and medicine.

It is testament not only to the cultural enrichment brought to the region by refugees from Andalusia and of literati from Béjaïa, but also of the extent to which local people travelled; far from being secluded in their villages, they had links with the wider world.

[102] According to Charles Farine who visited in the nineteenth century, the houses were spacious, with interior courtyards, shaded with trees and climbing plants which reached the balconies.

The Kalâa echoed some of the architectural features of kabyle villages, on a larger scale, with the addition of fortifications, artillery posts and watchtowers, barracks, armouries and stables for the cavalry.

[104] The building of military installations took place largely under Abdelaziz El Abbès in the sixteenth century, including the casbah mounted with four wide-calibre cannon[41] and the curtain wall, ere ted after the First Battle of Kalaa of the Beni Abbes (1553).

[115] The Kalaa also stood on the 'Sultan's Road' (triq sultan) which linked Béjaïa with the south and had formed the route of the mehalla, the regular tax-raising expedition, since the Middle Ages.

The forests of Kabylie allowed for the extraction of timber, used in the craft manufacture of doors, roofs, furniture and chests and exported to the shipyards of the Tunisian, Egyptian and Ottoman navies.