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Ch. XIII MOSLEM NORTH AFRICA, 1049—1 394 485 
administration were effective in minimizing the harm a weak ruler or a contest
for the throne could do the state. 
 During the entire 345-year period Morocco can be seen to have reached its
maximum power on three occasions, under the Murãbits about 1100, the
Muwahhids about 1180, and the Marinids about 1350, and to have started immediately
thereafter on its rapid and permanent decline. Tunisia after its initial
devastation had experienced several alternations of prosperity and instability,
as well as occasional ephemeral invasions, but finished at its strongest.
Algeria, divided and disputed, had never rivaled its neighbors, as it was
destined to do in modern times. North Africa as a whole, however, was by
1394 far less powerful in relation to either Europe or the Moslem Near East
than it had been in 1049, because of its failure to share in their progress.