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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: ALM-ANC |
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ALMORAVIDES (properly Murabtis, the name being corrupted through the Spanish) , a Berber horde
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pilgrimage to Mecca. On his way home he attended the teachers of the mosque at Kairawan, in Tunisia, who soon learnt from him that his people knew little of the religion they were supposed to profess, and that though hiswill was good, his own ignorance was great. By the good offices of the theologians of I.airawan, one of whom was from Fez, Yahya was provided with a missionary, `Abd-Allah ibn Yazin, a zealous partisan of the Malekis, one of the four orthodox sects of Islam. His preaching was for long rejected by the Lamtunas, so on the advice of his patron Yahya, who accompanied him, he retired to an island in the Niger, where he founded a ribat or Moslem monastery, from which as a centre his influence spread. There was no element of heresy in his creed, which was mainly distinguished by a rigid formalism and strict obedience to the letter of the Koran and the orthodox tradition or Sunna. `Abd-Allah imposed a penitential scourging on all converts as a purification, and enforced a regular system of discipline for every breach of the law, even on the chiefs. Under such directions the Murabtis were brought to excellent order. Their first military leader, Yahya ibn Omar, gave them a good military organization. Their main force was infantry, armed with javelins in the front ranks and pikes behind, formed into a phalanx and supported by camelmen and horsemen on the flanks. From the year 1053 the Murabtis began to impose their orthodox and puritanical religion on the Berber tribes of the desert, and on the pagan
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In io6r Abu Bakr made a division of the power he had established, handing over the more settled parts to his cousin, Yusef ibn Tashfin, as viceroy, resigning to him also his favourite wife Zainab, who had the reputation of a sorceress. 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which had broken out in the desert, but when he returned to resume control he found his cousin too powerful to be superseded, so he had to go back to the Sahara, where in 1087 he too attained martyrdom, having been wounded with a poisoned arrow in battle with the pagan
Ibn Tashfin, who was largely guided by Zainab, had in the meantime brought what is now known as Morocco to complete subjection, and in 1062 had founded the city of Marrakesh (" Morocco City "). He is distinguished as Yusef I. In ro8o he conquered the kingdom of Tlemcen and founded the present city of that name, his rule extending as far east as Oran. In ro86 he was invited by the Mahommedan princes in Spain to defend them against Alphonso VI., king of Castile and Leon. In that year Yusef passed the straits to Algeciras, and on the 23rd of October inflicted a severe defeat on the Christians at Sacralias, or in Arabic, Zallaka, near Badajoz. He was debarred from following up his victory by trouble in Africa which he had to settle in person. When he returned to Spain in 1090 it was avowedly for the purpose of deposing the Mahommedan princes and annexing their states. He had in his favour the mass of the inhabitants, who were worn out by the oppressive taxation imposed by their spendthrift rulers. Their religious teachers detested the native Mahommedan princes for their religious indifference, and gave Yusef a fetwaor legal opinionto the effect that he had good moral and religious right to dethrone the heterodox rulers who did not scruple to seek help from the Christians whose bad habits they had adopted. By 1094 he had removed them all, and though he regained little from the Christians except Valencia, he reunited the Mahommedan power and gave a check to the reconquest of the country by the Christians. After friendly correspondence with the caliph at Bagdad, whom he acknowledged as Amir el Muminin, " Prince of the Faithful," Yusef in 1099 assumed the title of " Prince of the Resigned " Amir el Muslimin. He died in iro6, when he was reputed to have reached the age of roo. The Murabti power was at its height at Yusef's death, and the Moorish empire then included all North-West Africa as far as Algiers, and all Spain south of the Tagus, with the east coast as far as the mouth of the Ebro, and the Balearic Islands. Three years afterwards, under Yusef's son and successor, `Ali III. of Morocco, Madrid, Lisbon and Oporto were added, and Spain was again invaded in 1119 and 1121, but the tide had turned, the French having assisted the Aragonese to recover Saragossa . In 1138 `Ali Tawas defeatedbyAlphonso VII. of Castile and Leon, and in 1.139 by Alphonso I. of Portugal, who thereby won his crown, and Lisbon was recovered by the Portuguese in 1147. 'Ali III. was a pious nonentity, who fasted and prayed while his empire fell to pieces under the combined action of his Christian foes in Spain and the agitation of the Muwahhadis or " Almohades " (q.v.) in Morocco. After 'Ali's death in 1142, his son Tashfin lost ground rapidly before the Muwahhadis, and in 1145 he was killed by a fall from a precipice while endeavouring to escape after a defeat near Oran. His two successors Ibrahim and Ishak are mere names. The conquest of the city of Marrakesh by the Muwahhadis in 1147 marked the fall of the dynasty, though fragments of the Murabtis continued to struggle in the Balearic Islands, and finally in Tunisia.The amirs of the Murabti dynasty were as follows:Yusef I., bin Tashfin (1o61);'Ali III. (1106); Tashfin I. (1143) ; Ibrahim II. (1145); Ishak (1146). See Budgett Meakin, The Moorish Empire (London, 1899) ; the anonymous Raod el Karts (Fez.1326),translated by Baymier as Roudh el-Kartas (Paris, 186o) ; Ibn Khaldun, Kitab el `Aibr . fi Aiydm el Maghrib, &c. (cir. 1405), partly translated by de Slane as Histoire des Berbers, vol. ii. (Algiers, 18521856) ; Makkari, History of the Mahommedan Dynasties in Spain, translated by Gayangos (London, 1840) ; Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne, by R. Dozy, vol. iv. (Leiden, 1861). (B. M.*; D. H.) End of Article: ALMORAVIDES (properly Murabtis, the name being corrupted through the Spanish) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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