Algiers has along history. Already a Phoenician trading post in the first millennium B.C., the Algiers colony, Icosium, was founded by the Romans after 202BC.It became an important city under their emperors then was probably partially destroyed after a vandal attack. Given up to Rome then annexed by the Byzantine Empire, the ancient town of Algiers seems to have lost all role during the last Byzantine century up to the Moslem period. As for the majority of central Maghreb towns, Algiers history is unknown until the middle of the 10th century, at which date the town would have been founded again by Bulukin, the powerful central Algeria Sanhaja chief’s son, at the Fatimid period. Renamed Gaza’ir Bani Mazghanna, the town passed under the Sanhaja Berber emirs’ control, then from the 11th century on, by the Hammadid dynasty. Dominated by the Almoravids at the end of the 11th century, Algiers becomes one of their most important towns some years later. Conquered by the Almohid armies, it knew wars opposing Marrakech caliphs to the Bau Ghaniya from Majorca. A major stake for the Hafsids, Ziyanids and Merinids, the town was finally dominated and governed by the Ta’libu Arab tribe, infiltrated in the Mitidja in the 12th century, until it was taken over by another member of this tribe, Arruj ‘Abdel al- Rahman( 874/1470),who became the patron saint of the city, thus showing this Arab clan’s political and religious domination at the end of the Middle Ages.