The Banū Ghāniya were descendants of the Almoravids who established a principality in the Balearic Islands after the fall of the Almoravid state in the mid-twelfth century. In 1184 they invaded North Africa and fought against the Almohads in a struggle which lasted until the 1230s and ranged from Tripoli to Sijilmāsa under the amirs ʿAlī (1184-1187) and Yaḥyā b. Ghāniya (1188-1235?).

The arrival of the Banū Ghāniya in North Africa coincided with the conquest of Almohad Ifrīqiya (Tunisia) by the Ayyubid amir Sharaf al-Dīn Qarāqūsh. For several years Ayyubid forces fought side by side with the Banū Ghāniya and various Arab tribes against the Almohads until Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn made peace with the latter in 1190. The tenacious resistance of the Banū Ghāniya and their allies, though ultimately unsuccessful, put an end to Almohad dreams of an empire embracing all of northwest Africa and forced them to eventually relinquish their hold on Ifrīqiya and the Central Maghrib which passed under the rule of the local Hafsid and Zayyanid dynasties in the first half of the thirteenth century.