African Kingdoms

Murabit (Almoravid) Sultans of Mauritania (Islamic Empire) (Africa)
AD 1061 - 1147

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The continent of Africa forms a vast collection of varying communities and cultures. North Africa is very different to sub-Saharan Africa, but Mauritania sits across the two boundaries. Located at the western end of the Sahara, it has absorbed a great deal of North African influence whilst also being deeply connected with West Africa by being situated at the north-western corner of this geographical divide.

The Almoravids (or, in Arabic, Murabits), formed a Berber dynasty from the Sahara which was able to expand its control across a wide area of north-western Africa and into south-western Europe in the form of the Iberian peninsula during the eleventh century.

They originated amongst Berber tribes which lived along the borders of modern Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali, and indeed it was some of these tribes which had created the Berber 'Kingdom of Mauritania' in the third century BC, although this was physically located within what is now Morocco rather than Mauritania.

The region was converted to Islam in the ninth century, probably through contact with the powerful Aghlabids of Ifriqiyya, but the various tribes here were rarely united or powerful. One tribe was the Lamtuna (or Lamtūnah) which formed a confederation with the Gudālah and Massūfah, all members of the Sanhaji (or Ṣanhājah) clan.

Under their spiritual leader, Abdullah ibn Yasin, they were driven by a conviction that the region's Muslims were not properly practising their faith, and they wanted to correct that. The Murabit name originated in from al-Murābiṭūn or al Mulaththamun (veil wearers) after the custom of the males who wore face veils as part of this religious reform movement.

They swept all opposition before them, creating a Moorish empire which was extended over Mauritania, Morocco, Western Sahara, Gibraltar, Tlemcen (now in northern Algeria), and a great part of what is now Senegal and Mali in the south, as well as into Abbasid Iberia and Portugal. Their entry into Iberia prevented the collapse of Islamic territories there in the face of resurgent Christian forces, and they managed to prolong the Christian reconquest by four more centuries.

The Almoravids founded a new capital in 1062, creating the prosperous city of Marrakech in the process. That city became their prison when they were besieged by a new wave of Islamic fundamentalists, and it ensured their downfall less than a century after they had arisen.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from the John De Cleene Archive, from the BBC documentary series, Lost Kingdoms of Africa, first broadcast on 5 January 2010, from The Cambridge Ancient History, John Boardman, N G L Hammond, D M Lewis, & M Ostwald (Eds), from The History of Islam (Vol 2), Akbar Shah Najeebabadi (Revised Edition), and from External Links: Saharan and trans-Saharan contacts and trade in the Roman era, Dr Caitlin R Green, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Encyclopaedia Iranica.)

A Berber of the Sanhaji tribe who has studied the Koran becomes a fiery, charismatic teacher. Abdullah ibn Yasin wants to change his fellow Berbers into 'proper' Muslims, ending their rather relaxed following of Islam's rites and teachings.

The city of Sijilmasa in southern Morocco was one of the very first Almoravid targets for attack and defeat in the building of their empire

A Berber of the Sanhaji tribe who has studied the Koran becomes a fiery, charismatic teacher. Abdullah ibn Yasin wants to change his fellow Berbers into 'proper' Muslims, ending their rather relaxed following of Islam's rites and teachings.

His mission begins in the western Sahara, where he forges an alliance of local tribes and appoints himself their spiritual leader. He plans to export his redefined brand of fundamental Islam to the other Berbers whom he considers to be heretics, and the only way to do that is through 'holy war'.

1054 - 1059

Spiritual leader. Died fighting Berber 'heretics'.

1054 - 1056

Lamtuna chieftain. Military leader under Ibn Yasin. First sultan.

1054 - 1055

Ibn Yasin is now able to lead an army of nomads northwards towards the major trading city of Sijilmasa in Morocco, immediately to the south of the Atlas Mountains. The city contains fifty thousand people and occupies one of the biggest oases in Africa, and it falls to this new army.

This ebony market may have been held in Tunis in more recent times but it doubtless mirrors such markets going back through centuries of Islamic and pre-Islamic control of the Morocco region

Immediately, ibn Yasin leads his forces south around the edge of the Sahara to captures the source of Sijilmasa's wealth in gold at Awdaghust. Now they have a virtual monopoly in the Sahara region of this most lucrative trade. Ibn Yasin's followers gain the name 'Almoravids' from a phrase which means 'those bound together in the cause of God'.

1056 - 1087

Brother. Killed fighting in the southern Sahara.

1058

Ibn Yasin decides to cross the Atlas Mountains, the natural barrier between the Sahara and the rich, fertile coastal regions beyond. The first Berber city to be attacked is Aghmat, which nestles in a lush valley on the northern side of the mountains.

Its rulers are defeated and the city becomes the new headquarters for the holy war. For centuries the city is thought to be lost, until the ruins are discovered in more recent times. Archaeological digs have shown it to be a rich and prosperous city, complete with one of the largest bath houses, or hamams, in the western Islamic world at this time.

Mecca and the Great Mosque are shown here, also illustrating the long queues of pilgrims entering it in a scene which is repeated every year, even in the modern age

1062 - 1076

With their attacks on 'heretics' and the extra territory which they continually add to their new empire, the Almoravids have effectively conquered southern Morocco by 1062. Then their new domains are partitioned by Abu Bakr ibn Umar, with the settled regions going to Yusuf ibn Tashufin as regent.

Abu Bakr ibn Umar dedicates his own time to fighting various desert revolts which are breaking out, as well as waging fourteen years of 'holy war' against Old Ghana which ends with the capture and burning of the Ghanaian capital.

1062 - 1087

Regent and cousin, but became too powerful to dislodge.

1070

Not content with remaining in the luxurious but strategically vulnerable Aghmat, the Almoravids return to the Sahara side of the Atlas Mountains and found a new capital for themselves: Marrakech. What begins as a collection of tents pitched in the desert quickly becomes an established city.

1072 - 1083

Ibn Tashufin organises the building of Marrakech, including its administrative, commercial, and palatial sections. He also orders the rebuilding and strengthening of the walls, and includes new gates, one of which, the Bab Doukkalaa, still stands in all its simple but effective beauty.

The Djemaa el-Fna marketplace in Marrakech would have been as familiar to the sultans who ruled over the city in later years as it is to tourists today - although the square was actually used for executions, shortly after the city was founded in AD 1070

Then he sets about building the Almoravid empire. Heading out north-eastwards with his army along the great coastal strip to the north of the Atlas Mountains he conquers city after city, including Fez (taken from Morocco in 1075), Tangier (in 1079), Tlemcen (in 1080), Cueta (in 1083), and former Rustamid Algiers, Ténès, and Oran (in 1082-1083). The Almoravids now control the whole of north-western Africa.

1086

With an expansion of the Almoravid empire which has not been foreseen by anyone, Yusuf crosses over into Islamic Iberia. Having received an appeal for help from the minor Islamic princes of the fractured state there, he saves them from immediate defeat by the Christians of the north by bettering Alfonso VI of Leon at the Battle of Zallaqa (otherwise known as Sagrajas).

Over half of the Christian army is lost, a crippling blow for them, but the Almoravids suffer high casualties themselves and are unable to follow up on their victory. Yusuf is also appalled by the lack of dedication shown by the Muslim princes in Iberia to the tenets of their faith.

The Prophet's Mosque in Medina also serves as the final resting place of Muhammed following his death in 632, and is considered to be the second-holiest site in Islam

1087 - 1106

Turned the kingdom into an empire. Died aged 80.

1090

Yusuf returns to Iberia and defeats the minor princes one by one, first at Cordoba, then at Seville, and finally at Zaragoza. Only Zaragoza is not conquered despite the defeat of its ruler.

The Almoravids add southern and eastern Iberia to their empire, uniting a great area of western Africa and Southern Europe under one ruler for the first time since the days of the Roman empire.

1107 - 1143

Son. Aged 23 at accession.

1110 - 1122

Ali is the first of the line of kings not to have known the desert as a way of life. Instead he has been brought up amid sumptuous wealth, He continues his father's work of building up Marrakech by constructing a new royal palace, designed and built by architects from Andalusia in Iberia.

A small fragment of the palace is discovered in the early 2000s in Marrakech, almost the only example of Almoravid architecture to have survived. However, a new Islamic force is building in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains in the shape of the Berber Almohads. The Almoravids, unable to pin them down, begin to fear them.

The only surviving part of Almoravid Marrakech aside from the Bab Doukkalaa gate is this small fragment of the sultan's palace of AD 1110

1130

A battle of words over just who has correctly interpreted the Koran's teachings between Ali ibn Yusuf and the Almohad spiritual leader, Ibn Tumart, has been growing more hostile year by year. Now it explodes into open warfare. The Almohads surge down from their mountain refuges to lay siege to the Almoravid cities in what becomes a drawn-out campaign.

1143 - 1146

Son. Lost ground to the Almohads. Killed escaping them.

1146

Tashufîn ibn Alî's ill-advised expedition against the Almohads at Oran ends with him being besieged for several days before trying to escape by sea. During the night-time attempt to join his fleet, he falls from a cliff and is killed. His infant son is proclaimed sultan in his place, but the child is quickly and necessarily replaced by his uncle.

1146

Son. Infant at accession. Killed by the Almohads.

1146 - 1147

Brother of Tashufin ibn Ali. Killed by the Almohads.

1147

After almost twenty years of laying siege to Marrakech, the Almohads finally break through the city's mighty walls. Both the infant Ibrahim ibn Tashufîn and his uncle are killed. The Almohads begin their reign by tearing down all of the Almoravid mosques in the city, claiming that they are not properly aligned with Mecca so they must be rebuilt.

Ongoing battles between the Almohads and the Iberian Christians would end up in North African defeat at the Battle of Los Navos de Tolosa in 1212

All that remains of Almoravid power is in the form of the Banu Ghaniya in the Balearic Islands which they continue to occupy. Battles continue against the Almohads for at least the next four decades, but the Almoravids never regain their once prestigious position, either across their former empire or in today's is Mauritania.