Scholars have grown increasingly comfortable with labelling medieval Christian Iberian states as colonial powers, especially from the thirteenth century, as Castile-León and Aragón furthered their conquests of Muslim territories. North African dynasties like the Almoravids and Almohads, on the other hand, have more often been referred to an empires—and, as Michael Gomez notes, in this they are still an exception to the general tendency to ignore medieval African empires. While these Muslim and Christian states certainly differed in a number of respects, this paper will argue that modern Eurocentrism and colonial legacies have precluded serious consideration of the ways medieval North African states exerted colonial power in Europe. It will further reflect on some of the insights that can be gained from analyzing ways that Islamic dynasties—including the Umayyads, the Almoravids, and the Almohads—acted colonially in the Middle Ages. Some of these produced settler states, a connection that has been obscured by the use of the term successor states. To demonstrate this, I will draw on evidence from Arabic, Latin, and Romance chronicles produced medieval Iberia and North Africa, drawing comparisons between both Muslim and Christian historical writing and between medieval and modern colonial powers. Ultimately, I propose that understanding medieval Islamic states, and particularly North African ones, as colonial powers rather than merely objects of colonialism, is an important piece of integrating and redefining the role of Islam in the history of premodern Europe and the west.