Both Morocco and the Polisario Movement’s claims to the Western Sahara are built upon the concept of the nation-state, with Polisario promoting a narrative of cultural distinctiveness and Morocco pointing to a legacy of connectedness between ‘Alawite rulers and the Saharan region. As such, the Moroccan state has sponsored many studies of the 19th-century figure al-Shaikh Ma? al-?Aynayn, a Saharan leader who collaborated with the ‘Alawite Sultans in order to fight the French and Spanish invasions. The presentation of these studies frame the shaikh’s legacy as proof of the inherent unity of Morocco and its Saharan territories, while dismissing the idea of an independent Sahara as a colonial conspiracy (Zarif and bin Ma? al-?Aynayn 2013; Ja?mi?at Ibn Zuhr 2002; Zarif 2001). However, the controversy in classifying this territory actually predates Spanish and French colonialism. Even a careful examination of Ma? al-?Aynayn’s writing shows a less clear sense of belonging than the Moroccan paratexts want to impose on this figure. At the same time, taking Ma? al-?Aynayn’s acknowledgement of the distinctiveness of Saharan Arabs as proof of statehood is also ahistorical. In general, 18th and 19th-century texts from the Maghrib and the Mashriq reveal contradictory ideas of where Bilad al-Shinquit belongs, with some pinning it as part of Bilad al-Sudan and others as part of al-Maghrib (Lydon 2015). The shifts in control between the Moroccan Makhzen (central government) and areas where regional or tribal influence was more powerful add a layer of ambiguity to any neat territorial divides. It seems more likely that periods of intense communication and contact existed between what is now the Western Sahara and other parts of Morocco, as they did between this region and West Africa. For example, reading Saharan scholar Ahmed bin Tuwayr al-Janna’s account of his 1829 visit to Sultan Mawlay 'Abd al-Rahman (r. 1822- 1859) reveals the sultan to be unaware of basic aspects of life in the Saharan region (Norris 1977). Yet Mawlay 'Abd al-Rahman also went on to receive Ma? al-?Aynayn at his court and launch his political career. The aim of this paper is to give an account of how Arabic texts conceptualized the Northwestern Sahara in the centuries preceding colonialism. To this end, a general evolution of the term “Bilad al-Shinquit” will be put into dialogue with how scholars and travellers from this region portrayed their place of origin in contrast to other regions and locales.