M'saken (Arabic: مساكن Msākan; also spelled Masakin, Msaken) is a town in north-eastern Tunisia, close to Sousse.

They had come to North Africa escaping from the Abbasid rulers of Baghdad, who had been engaged in a cruel fight against Sharifians (descendants of Husayn and his brother Hassan) the sons of Ali.

The town centre was built around the Jamma al Awsat (which means the central mosque) and was composed of five ksars (great houses).

It included the Madrasa of Sidi Ali ben Khalifa and over the centuries has been home to a number of Sufi figures: Traditional dresses of M'saken as typical of North Africa and more specifically of the Tunisian Sahel region.

M'saken has a large population living in foreign countries, mainly in France and more particularly in the Côte d'Azur region, in Nice and neighbouring areas.

It is believed that the city was founded around 1360 AD by five related men who migrated from this region, and subsequent population growth included descendants of the founders as well as migrants from other parts of Tunisia.

A Y-DNA analysis of 23 males from different Msaken families was conducted, using both Short Tandem Repeats (STR) and Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP) markers.

Interestingly, 20-30% of random Tunisian STR haplotypes also exhibit the Msaken-Haplotype, linking the population's Y-DNA to broader regional genetic patterns (source).