Almoravid dynasty

Almoravid dynasty المرابطون Al-Murābiṭūn
1040–1147
The Almoravid empire (green) at its greatest extent, c. 1120.
Capital	Aghmat (1040-1062), Marrakech (1062-1147)
Common languages	Classical Arabic, Berber languages, Hebrew, Mozarabic, Mande languages, African Romance, Andalusian Arabic.
Religion	mainly Islam, with some Catholic and Jewish minorities
Government	Absolute monarchy
Caliph
• 1040-1059	Abdallah ibn Yasin
• 1146–1147	Ishaq ibn Ali
History
• Established	1040
• Disestablished	1147
Area
1147 est.	3,300,000 km2 (1,300,000 sq mi)
Currency	Dinar
Preceded by Caliphate of Cordoba Zirid dynasty
Today part of	Algeria Gibraltar Mali Mauritania Morocco Portugal Spain Western Sahara

The Almoravids (Berber: Imṛabḍen, Arabic: Al-Murābiṭūn) were a Berber dynasty of North Africa, who lived between the current Senegal and south of Western Sahara.

It is affiliated to the Berber tribes of Sanhaja and Lamtuna. From the eleventh century to the twelfth century, their empire was extended over present-day Morocco, Mauritania, southern Spain and Portugal, western present-day Algeria and a part of what is now Mali. At its greatest extent, the empire stretched 3,000 kilometres north to south. Almoravids built the city of Marrakesh and made it their capital city which became then one of the most influential centers of power in Africa and the Mediterranean region.

Origins

In his book The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain, the author Abd al-Wahid Dhannūn Taha, based on several sources including bibliographic of Ibn Khaldun, provides, on pages 26 and 29 of his book, information on the geographical distribution of Sanhaja tribes. He does the same for the different tribes and tribal Berber branch of the Maghreb and information on the different tribes or ethnic groups (Arabs, Berbers and sub-Saharan African) who participated in the Muslim conquest of Visigoth Spain.

The exact meaning of "Murābiṭ" is a matter of controversy. Some have suggested that the word might be derived from the Arabic ribaṭ, meaning fortress (a term with which it shares the root r-b-ṭ). Most historians, however, now believe that it refers to ribat, meaning "ready for battle" (cf. jihad).

When the Almoravids began their political rise, the Kingdom of Fez (Morocco's first name) of the Idrisid dynasty was split into a series of small emirates located mainly north of the country, and headed by relatives of the royal family.

According to French historian Bernard Lugan and others, the lure of wealth from trade in the South (Sahara) and marketed to the North (the West) attracted various tribes to crossroads city such as Marrakech, which become the capital of various dynasties, especially those from the South (Almoravids, Almohads, Saadian).

The most powerful of the tribes of the Sahara near the Sénégal River was the Lamtuna, whose culture of origin was 'Wadi Noun' (Nul Lemta). They later came together as the upper Leger river culture, which founded the city of Aoudaghost. They converted to Islam in the ninth century.

About the year 1040 (or a little earlier) one of their chiefs, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, made the pilgrimage to Makkah. On his way home, he attended the teachers of the mosque at university of Al-Qayrawan, today's Kairouan in Tunisia; the first Arab-Muslim city in North Africa, who soon learnt from him that his people knew little of the religion they were supposed to profess, and that though his will was good, his own ignorance was great. By the good offices of the theologians of Al Qayrawan, one of whom was from Fez, Yahya was provided with a missionary, Abdallah ibn Yasin, a zealous partisan of the Malikis, one of the four Madhhab, Sunni schools of Islam.

His preaching was before long rejected by the Lamtunas; so on the advice of Yahya, who accompanied him, he retired to Saharan regions from which his influence spread. His creed was mainly characterized by a rigid formalism and a strict adherence to the dictates of the Qur'an, and the Orthodox tradition.

Abd-Allah ibn Yasin imposed a penitential scourging on all converts as a purification, and enforced a regular system of discipline for every breach of the law, including the chiefs themselves. Under such directions, the Almoravids were brought into excellent order. Their first military leader, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, gave them a good military organization. Their main force was infantry, armed with javelins in the front ranks and pikes behind, which formed into a phalanx; it was supported by camelmen and horsemen on the flanks.

Conquests

Northern Africa

The Almoravid dynasty at its greatest extent

From the year 1053, the Almoravids began to spread their religious way to the Berber areas of the Sahara, and to the regions south of the desert. After winning over the Sanhaja Berber tribe, they quickly took control of the entire desert trade route, seizing Sijilmasa at the northern end in 1054, and Aoudaghost at the southern end in 1055. Yahya ibn Ibrahim was killed in a battle in 1056, but Abd-Allah ibn Yasin, whose influence as a religious teacher was paramount, named his brother Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar as chief. Under him, the Almoravids soon began to spread their power beyond the desert, and subjected the tribes of the Atlas Mountains. They then came in contact with the Berghouata, a branch of the Masmuda of central Morocco, who followed a "heresy" founded by Salih ibn Tarif, three centuries earlier. The Berghouata made a fierce resistance, and it was in battle with them that Abdullah ibn Yasin was killed. They were, however, completely conquered by Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar, who took the defeated chief's widow, Zainab, as a wife.

Coin of the Almoravids, Sevilla, Spain, 1116. British Museum.

In 1061, Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar made a division of the power he had established, handing over the more-settled parts to his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin, as viceroy, resigning to him also his favourite wife Zainab. For himself, he reserved the task of suppressing the revolts which had broken out in the desert, but when he returned to resume control, he found his cousin too powerful to be superseded. He returned to the Sahara, where, in 1087, having been wounded with a poisoned arrow, he died.

Yusuf ibn Tashfin had in the meantime brought what is now known as Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauretania into complete subjection. In 1062 he founded the city of Marrakech. In 1080, he conquered the kingdom of Tlemcen (in modern-day Algeria) and founded the present city of that name, his rule extending as far east as Oran.

Ghana Empire

There has been a belief by some that the Almoravids conquered the Ghana Empire sometime around 1075 AD. According to Arab tradition, the ensuing war pushed Ghana over the edge, ending the kingdom's position as a commercial and military power by 1100, as it collapsed into tribal groups and chieftaincies, some of which later assimilated into the Almoravids while others founded the Mali Empire. However, the Almoravid religious influence was gradual and not heavily involved in military strife, as Almoravids increased in power by marrying among the nation's nobility. Scholars such as Dierk Lange attribute the decline of ancient Ghana to numerous unrelated factors, only one of which can be likely attributable to internal dynastic struggles that were instigated by Almalvorid influence and Islamic pressures, but devoid of any military conversion and conquest.

Southern Iberia

In 1086 Yusuf ibn Tashfin was invited by the taifa Muslim princes of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) to defend them against Alfonso VI, King of León and Castile. In that year, Yusuf ibn Tashfin crossed the straits to Algeciras, inflicted a severe defeat on the Christians at the Battle of az-Zallaqah (Battle of Sagrajas). He was prevented from following up his victory by trouble in Africa, which he had to settle in person.

When he returned to Iberia in 1090, it was avowedly for the purpose of deposing the Muslim princes, and annexing their states. He had in his favour the mass of the inhabitants, who had been worn out by the oppressive taxation imposed by their spend-thrift rulers. Their religious teachers, as well as others in the east, (most notably, al-Ghazali in Persia and al-Tartushi in Egypt, who was himself an Iberian by birth, from Tortosa), detested the native Muslim princes for their religious indifference, and gave Yusuf a fatwa -- or legal opinion—to the effect that he had good moral and religious right, to dethrone the rulers, whom he saw as heterodox and who did not scruple to seek help from the Christians, whose habits he claimed they had adopted. By 1094, he had removed them all, except for the one at Zaragoza; and though he regained little from the Christians except Valencia, he re-united the Muslim power, and gave a check to the reconquest of the country by the Christians.

After friendly correspondence with the caliph at Baghdad, whom he acknowledged as Amir al-Mu'minin ("Commander of the Faithful"), Yusuf ibn Tashfin in 1097 assumed the title of Amir al Muslimin ("Commander of the Muslims"). He died in 1106, when he was reputed to have reached the age of 100.

The Almoravid power was at its height at Yusuf's death, and the Moorish empire then included all North-West Africa as far as Algiers, and all of Iberia south of the Tagus, with the east coast as far as the mouth of the Ebro, and included the Balearic Islands.

Decline

Three years afterwards, under Yusuf's son and successor, Ali ibn Yusuf, Sintra and Santarém were added, and Iberia was again invaded in 1119 and 1121, but the tide had turned, the French having assisted the Aragonese to recover Zaragoza. In 1138, Ali ibn Yusuf was defeated by Alfonso VII of León, and in the Battle of Ourique (1139), by Afonso I of Portugal, who thereby won his crown. Lisbon was recovered by the Portuguese in 1147.

Ali ibn Yusuf was a pious non-entity, who fasted and prayed while his empire fell to pieces under the combined action of his Christian foes in Iberia and the agitation of Almohads (the Muwahhids) in Morocco. After Ali ibn Yusuf's death in 1143, his son Tashfin ibn Ali lost ground rapidly before the Almohads, and in 1146 he was killed by a fall from a precipice while attempting to escape after a defeat near Oran.

His two successors were Ibrahim ibn Tashfin and Is'haq ibn Ali, but their reigns were short. The conquest of the city of Marrakech by the Almohads in 1147 marked the fall of the dynasty, though fragments of the Almoravids (the Banu Ghaniya), continued to struggle in the Balearic Islands, and finally in Tunisia.

Interestingly, family names such as Morabito, Murabito and Mirabito are common in western Sicily, the Aeolian Islands and southern Calabria in Italy. These names may have appeared in this region as early as the eleventh century, when Robert Guiscard and the Normans conquered the Muslim emirate of Sicily. In addition to southern Italy, there are also sizable populations of Mourabit (also spelled Morabit, Murabit or Morabet) in modern-day Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Mauritania.

List of Almoravid rulers

• Abdallah ibn Yasin (1040–1059)
• Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar (1061–1087), joint reign
• Yusuf ibn Tashfin (c. 1061–1106), joint reign
• Ali ibn Yusuf (1106–43)
• Tashfin ibn Ali (1143–46)
• Ibrahim ibn Tashfin (1146)
• Ishaq ibn Ali (1146–47)

Culture

• Avempace astronomer, philosopher, physician, physicist and poet
• Al-Tutili (d. 1126) poet.
• Al-Fath ibn Khaqan (died 1134) writer.
• Ibn Khafaja (Alzira 1058-1138/9) poet.
• Muhammad al-Idrisi geographer, writer and cartographer
• Ibn Quzman (Cordoba 1078–Cordoba 1160) poet.
• Ibn al-Zaqqaq (Valencia 1100-1134) poet.

Demography

Great Mosque of Algiers.

Koutoubia Mosque.

The Giralda at its various stages of construction: Almohad (left), Medieval Christian (right), and Renaissance (center).

Languages

• Classical Arabic
  • Andalusian Arabic
• Mozarabic language
  • Use of aljamiado
• Berber languages
• Medieval Hebrew, Judeo-Berber language & Judeo-Arabic languages
• African Romance
• Bambara language

Religion:

• Islam (official)
  • Sunnism maliki
    • Koutoubia Mosque
    • Great Mosque of Tlemcen
    • Giralda
    • Qadi Ayyad cadi.
  • Sufi
    • Abu al-Abbas as-Sabti
    • Abu Abdallah Mohammed Amghar
  • Ibadism (in Pechina, south Algeria and Djerba)
• Roman Catholic of Mozarabic Rite (mozarab & muladi)
  • Archdiocese of Granada
    • Diocese of Cartagena
    • Diocese of Guadix
    • Diocese of Málaga
  • Archdiocese of Seville
    • Diocese of Asidonia
    • Diocese of Córdoba
    • Diocese of Jaén
    • Diocese of Niebla
  • Diocese of Zaragoza
  • Diocese of Segorbe
  • Diocese of Tarazona
  • Diocese of Tortosa
  • Diocese of Majorca
  • Diocese of Minorca
  • Diocese of Valencia 1102-1145
• Jews
  • Berber Jews
  • Mizrahim
    • Isaac Alfasi (1013-1103) talmudist.
  • Sephardi
  • Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain

Bibliography

• General History of Africa, Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, Ed. M. Elfasi, Ch. 13 I.Hrbek and J.Devisse, The Almoravids (pp. 336–366), UNESCO, 1988