THE ALMORAVID STATE IN 1147

Almoravids, from Arabic al-Murabitun (Those Dwelling in Frontier Fortresses, or Warrior-Monks), confederation of Berber tribes -Lamtunah, Gudalah, Massufah- of the Sanhajah clan, whose religious zeal and military enterprise built an empire in northwestern Africa and Muslim Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries.

These Saharan Berbers were inspired to improve their knowledge of Islamic doctrine by their leader Yahya ibn Ibrahim and the Moroccan theologian Abd Allah ibn Yasin.

Under Abu Bakr al-Lamtuni and later Yusuf ibn Tashufin, the Almoravids merged their religious reform fervour with the conquest of Morocco and western Algeria as far as Algiers between 1054 and 1092. They established their capital at Marrakech c. 1070.

Yusuf assumed the title of amir al-muslimin ("commander of the Muslims") but still paid homage to the Abbasid caliph (amir al-muminin, "commander of the faithful") in Baghdad.

He moved into Spain in 1085, as the old caliphal territories of Córdoba were falling before the Christians and Toledo was being taken by Alfonso VI of Castile and Leon. At the Batle of az-Zallaqah, near Badajoz, in 1086 Yusuf halted an advance by the Castilians but did not regain Toledo.

The whole of Muslim Spain, however, except Valencia, independent under El Cid (Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar), eventually came under Almoravid rule.

In the reign (1106-42) of Ali ibn Yusuf the union between Spain and Africa was consolidated, and Andalusian civilization took root: administrative machinery was Spanish in pattern, writers and artists crossed the straits, and the great monuments built by Ali in the Maghrib were models of pure Andalusian art.

But the Almoravid were but a Berber minority at the head of the Spanish-Arab empire, and while they tried to hold Spain with Berber troops, they could not restrain the tide of Christian reconquest that began with the fall of Saragossa in 1118.

In 1125 the Almohads began a rebellion in the Atlas Mountains and after 22 years of fighting emerged victorious. Marrakech fell in 1147, and thereafter Almoravid leaders survived only for a time in Spain and the Balearic Isles.

Almohads, from Arabic al-Muwahhidun (Those Who Affirm the Unity of God), a Berber confederation that created an Islamic empire in North Africa and Spain (1130-1269), founded on the religious teachings of Ibn Tumart (d. 1130).

A Berber state had arisen in Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco c. 1120, inspired by Ibn Tumart and his demands for puritanical moral reform and a strict concept of the unity of God (tawhid). In 1211 Ibn Tumart proclaimed himself the mahdi (a promised messianic figure), and, as spiritual and military leader, began the wars against the Almoravids.

Under his successor, Abd al-Mumin, the Almohads brought down the Almoravid state in 1147, subjugating the Maghrib, and captured Marrakech, which became the Almohad capital.

Almoravid domains in Andalusia, however, were left virtually intact until the caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf (reigned 1163-84) forced the surrender of Seville in 1172; the extension of Almohad rule over the rest of Islamic Spain followed. During the reign of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur (1184-99) serious Arab rebellions devastated the eastern provinces of the empire, whereas inn Spain the Christian threat remained constant, despite al-Mansur´s victory at Alarcos (1195).

Then, at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), the Almohads were dealt a shattering defeat by a Christian coalition from Leon, Castile, Navarre, and Aragon. They retreated to their North African provinces, where soon afterward the Hafsids seized power at Tunis (1236), the Abd al-Wadids took Tilimsan (1239), and, finally, Marrakech fell to the Marinids (1269).

The empire of the Almohads had kept its original tribal hierarchy as a political and social framework, the founders and their descendants forming a ruling aristocracy; but a Spanish form of central government was superimposed on this Berber organization. The original puritanical outlook of Ibn Tumart was soon lost, and the precedent for building costly Andalusian monuments of rich ornamentation, in the manner of the Almoravids, was set as early as Ibn Tumart´s successor Abd al-Mumin. Neither did the movement for a return to traditionalist Islam survive; both the mystical movement of the Sufis and the philosophical schools represented by Ibn Tufayl and Averroes (Ibn Rushd) flourished under the Almohads kings.