The Zwawa were always traditional allies of the Kutama, perhaps even because they are themselves Kutama as Ibn Hazm said, whose hypothesis was accepted and taken by Ibn Khaldun, even if in the historical accounts, each tribe was cited separately. In the tenth century, the tribes of the Baranis group of modern Algeria, such as the Sanhaja, the Kutama, and the Zwawa, played a fundamental role in the creation of the Fatimid Caliphate by constituting the army of the empire that had conquered most of the Maghreb, Sicily, Egypt, the Levant, and the Hejaz. The Zwawa participated in several battles for the Fatimid Caliphate, alongside their neighbors and blood brothers, notably in the siege of the fortress of Kiana (in the vicinity of the Qalaa of the Beni Hammad) against Abu Yazid, in which the Fatimids succeeded in taking the fortress and defeating the Zenati Kharijites and Nekkarites.Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique septentrionale (in French), Volume 3, Paris, Imprimerie du gouvernement, 1852, 527 p. (read online), p. 211
