In 1438 the people of Algiers assassinated their new king and placed themselves under the protection of the Thaaliba, who at that point ruled most of the Mitidja plain.
After his death in 1479, Abd al-Rahman al-Tha'alibi's tomb became an important site of popular devotion, still visited to this day.
To expel the Spanish troops, the Thaaliba leader Salim al-Thumi and the notables of Algiers invited in two Ottoman corsair brothers, Oruç Reis and Hayreddin Barbarossa.
He thus became the last Thaaliba ruler of Algiers, which passed into the hands of Oruç and Hayreddin before joining the Ottoman Empire.
Several notable Islamic religious figures emerged from the Thaaliba, most famously including Abd al-Rahman al-Tha'alibi (1384-1479), but also the scholar and mystic Sidi Yahya al-Tadallisi al-Tha`alibi (d. 1461/1462), the first imam of Timbuktu's eponymous Sidi Yahya Mosque, and the later religious scholar Abu Mahdi Isa al-Tha`alibi (d. 1669/1670).