The name Murabitun derives from the name of the Almoravid dynasty. The founder of the Murabitun World Movement is Abdalqadir as-Sufi, a convert to Islam born Ian Dallas in Ayr, Scotland, in 1930. He met his first Shaykh, Muhammad ibn al-Habib, in Meknes around 1968, and was made a "muqaddam" and given the title "as-Sufi". Ibn al-Habib said to him, “You can stay here with me, and something might happen. But go to England and see what will happen,” and so he went to London and gathered a group of new British Muslims, returning to Morocco in 1970. He founded a learning centre in Bristol Gardens, London, in 1972, and another centre in Berkeley, California.