The whole country of Darah was gradually subdued by this new apostle, and his authority was acknowledged over a region extensive enough to form a respectable kingdom. But though he exercised all the rights of sovereignty, he prudently abstained from assuming the title: he left to the emir of Lamtuna the ostensible exercise of temporal power; and when, in A.D. 1058, that emir fell in battle, he nominated Abu-Bekr ben Omar to the vacant dignity. His own death, which was that of a warrior, left Abu-Bekr in possession of an undivided sovereignty. The power and consequently the reputation of the emir, spread far and wide, and numbers flocked from distant provinces to share in the advantages of religion and plunder. His native plains were now too narrow for the ambition of Abu-Bekr, who crossed the chain of Mount Atlas, and fixed his residence in the city of Agmat, between those mountains and the sea. But even this place was soon too confined for his increased subjects, and he looked round for a site on which he might lay the foundations of a great city, the destined metropolis of a great empire. One was at length found; and the city of Morocco began to rear its head from the valley of Eylana. Before, however, his great work was half completed, he received intelligence that the tribe of Gudala had declared a deadly war against that of Lamtuna; and that the ruin of one at least of the hostile people was to be apprehended. As he belonged to the latter, he naturally trembled for the fate of his kindred; and at the head of his cavalry he departed for his native deserts, leaving the superintendence of the buildings and the command of the army, during his absence, to his cousin, Yussef ben Taxfin.