Almohad

The Almohad Dynasty (properly al-Muwahhidun, i.e. "the monotheists" or "the Unitarians," \nthe name being corrupted through the Spanish), a Berber Muslim \nreligious power which founded the fifth Moorish dynasty in \nthe 12th century, and conquered all northern Africa as far as \nEgypt, together with Moslem Spain. It originated with Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Tumart, a member of the Masmuda, a Berber tribe of the \nAtlas mountains. Ibn Tumart was the son of a lamplighter in a mosque \nand had been noted for his piety from his youth; he was small, \nugly, and misshapen and lived the life of a devotee-beggar. As a youth he performed the pilgrimage to Mecca (or "Makkah"), whence \nhe was expelled on account of his severe strictures on the \nlaxity of others, and thence wandered to Bagdad, where he \nattached himself to the school of the orthodox doctor al Ashari. But he made a system of his own by combining \nthe teaching of his master with parts of the doctrines of \nothers, and with mysticism imbibed from the great teacher \nGhazali. His main principle was a rigid unitarianism \nwhich denied the independent existence of the attributes of \nGod, as being incompatible with his unity, and therefore a \npolytheistic idea. Muhammad in fact represented a revolt \nagainst the anthropomorphism of commonplace Muslim \northodoxy, but he was a rigid predestinarian and a strict \nobserver of the law. After his return to Morocco at the age \nof twenty-eight, he began preaching and agitating, heading \nriotous attacks on wine-shops and on other manifestations of \nlaxity. He even went so far as to assault the sister of \nthe Murabit (Almoravide) amir `Ali III, in the streets \nof Fez, because she was going about unveiled after the \nmanner of Berber women. `Ali, who was very deferential to \nany exhibition of piety, allowed him to escape unpunished. Ibn Tumart, who had been driven from several other towns for \nexhibitions of reforming zeal, now took refuge among his own \npeople, the Masmuda, in the Atlas. It is highly probable that his influence would not have outlived him, if he had not found \na lieutenant in 'Abd-el-Mumin el Kumi, another Berber, from \nAlgeria, who was undoubtedly a soldier and statesman of a high \norder. When Ibn Tumart died in 1128 at the monastery or \nribat which he had founded in the Atlas at Tinmal, after \nsuffering a severe defeat by the Murabtis, 'Abd-el-Mumin \nkept his death secret for two years, till his own influence \nwas established. He then came forward as the lieutenant \nof the Mahdi Ibn Tumart. Between 1130 and his death in \n1163, 'Abd-el-Mumin not only rooted out the Murabits, \nbut extended his power over all northern Africa as far as \nEgypt, becoming amir of Morocco in 1149. Muslim Spain \nfollowed the fate of Africa, and in 1170 the Muwahhids \ntransferred their capital to Seville, a step followed by \nthe founding of the great mosque, now superseded by the \ncathedral, the tower of which they erected in 1184 to mark the \naccession of Ya`kub el Mansur. From the time of Yusef \nII, however, they governed their co-religionists in Spain \nand Central North Africa through lieutenants, their dominions \noutside Morocco being treated as provinces. When their \namirs crossed the Straits it was to lead a jihad against \nthe Christians and to return to their capital, Marrakesh. The Muwahhid princes had a longer and a more distinguished \ncareer than the Murabits (or Almoravides). Yusef \nII or "Abu Ya`kub" (1163-1184), and Ya`kub I or "Al \nMansur" (1184-1199), the successors of Abd-el-Mumin, were \nboth able men. They were fanatical, and their tyranny drove \nnumbers of their Jewish and Christian subjects to take refuge \nin the growing Christian states of Portugal, Castile and \nAragon. But in the end they became less fanatical than the \nMurabits, and Ya`kub al Mansur was a highly accomplished man, \nwho wrote a good Arabic style and who protected the philosopher Averroes. His title of Al Mansur, "The Victorious," was \nearned by the defeat he inflicted on Alfonso VIII of Castile at Alarcos in 1195. But the Christian states in Spain were \nbecoming too well organized to be overrun by the Muslims, \nand the Muwahhids made no permanent advance against \nthem. In 1212 Muhammad III, "En-Nasir" (1199-1214), the \nsuccessor of al Mansur, was utterly defeated by the allied \nfive Christian princes of Spain, Navarre and Portugal, at \nthe Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena. All the Moorish dominions in Spain were lost in the next few years, partly by the Christian conquest of Andalusia, and partly by the revolt of the Muslims of Granada, who put themselves under the protection of the Christian kings and became their vassals. The fanaticism of the Muwahhids did not prevent them from \nencouraging the establishment of Christians even in Fez, and \nafter the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa they occasionally \nentered into alliances with the kings of Castile. In Africa \nthey were successful in expelling the garrisons placed in \nsome of the coast towns by the Norman kings of Sicily. The \nhistory of their decline differs from that of the Murabits, \nwhom they had displaced. They were not assailed by a great \nreligious movement, but destroyed piecemeal by the revolt of \ntribes and districts. Their most effective enemies were the \nBeni Marin (Marinids) who founded the next Moroccan \ndynasty, the sixth. The last representative of the line, \nIdris IV, "El Wathiq"' was reduced to the possession \nof Marrakesh, where he was murdered by a slave in 1269.

Muwahhadi (Almohad) Caliphs, 1145-1269

\n*'Abdul-Mu'min 1145-1163\n*Abu Yaqub Yusuf I 1163-1184\n*Aby Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur 1184-1199\n*Muhammad an-Nasir 1199-1213\n*Abu Yaqub Yusuf II 1213-1224\n*Abdul-Wahid I 1224\n*Abdallah 1224-1227\n*Yahya 1227-1235\n*Idris I 1227-1232\n*Abdul-Wahid II 1232-1242\n*Ali 1242-1248\n*Umar 1248-1266\n*Idris II 1266-1269

See also

\n*History of Algeria\n*History of Islam\n*History of Spain Category:Caliphates \nCategory:History of the Maghreb\nCategory:Moorish Spain \nCategory:Jewish Spanish history