The Zawaya are tribes in the southern Sahara who have traditionally followed a deeply religious way of life. They accepted a subordinate position to the warrior tribes, whether Arab or Berber, who had little interest in spreading Islam. The Zawaya introduced Sufi brotherhoods to the black populations south of the Sahara. The jihad movements of the Fula people in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have their origins with the Zawaya. Today the Zawaya are one of the two noble castes of Mauritania.

The Zawaya were nomadic tribes from the arid lands to the north and east of the Senegal River in West Africa.

Their religious beliefs may possibly be traced back to the eleventh century Almoravid movement, although their generally more passive attitude is in contrast to that of the militant Almoravids. They gave great importance to teaching the Islamic religious sciences and to reciting the Quran.

The Zawaya attempted to avoid conflict with the stronger warrior groups by renouncing arms and paying tribute.

In the west, the Zawaya were of Berber origin, while after the fifteenth century the warrior tribes were Arab. In the center, the reverse applied. The Zawaya were Arab, while Berber or Tuareg tribes held military and political power. The Zawaya, with their passive lifestyle of herding, prayer and study, were treated with some contempt by the stronger groups, but this was mingled with respect. A story was told by the sixteenth century Timbuktu jurist al-Muṣallī, so-called because he worshiped in the mosque so often. He was a Zawaya from the west and a regular attendant at the teaching circle of the jurist Maḥmūd, grandson of Anda Ag-Muhammad in the female line. Al-Muṣallī resolved to ask for the hand of Maḥmūd's daughter in marriage. Before he could make his proposal Maḥmūd politely deflected it, saying that "birds of a feather flock together".

The separation of the tribes of this region into warrior and Zawaya tribes had probably occurred before the fifteenth century. By then some of the Zawaya were moving south to avoid the depredations of the warrior tribes, risking conflict with the sedentary populations of Chemama, Gorgol and Tagant. During the fifteenth century the Beni Ḥassān Arab nomads began to enter the region. Hassāni rulers imposed heavy tributes on the Zawaya, but did not give them effective protection against their enemies. Although subordinate to the Banū Ḥassan warriors, the Zawaya ranked above other Berbers. These in turn ranked above blacksmiths, who were said to be Jewish in origin, and mixed-race people.

In the late seventeenth century, Awbek Ashfaga of the Banū Daymān tribe, later to style himself Nāșir al-Din ("Protector of the Faith"), emerged as a leader of the Zawaya tribes in resisting the Hassān. He was widely respected for his scholarship, purity of life and healing ability. His goal was to establish an ideal Islamic society based on the original organization of the first caliphs, where ethnic and tribal differences would be ignored. Nāșir al-Din demanded strict obedience to his authority by the Zawaya. He set out to create a secure and stable administration in the southern Sahara, led by himself, his vizier and four qāḍīs. To do so he would defeat warriors who failed to follow Islamic principles and who harmed the faithful, and would establish a theocratic state that rose above tribal divisions and followed the commands of God.

Rather than immediately attack the Hassān, in 1673 Nāșir al-Din launched his jihad with an invasion across the Senegal River into the Futa Tooro and Wolof states. This would give him control of the trade in gum with the French on the Senegal, a source of income for his new state. He then imposed the zakāt legal tax on the tributary tribes to the north of the Senegal. When one of these tribes called for assistance from the Hassān, war broke out.