ALMORAVIDES (properly Murabtis, the name being
corrupted through the Spanish), a Berber horde from the Sahara
which, in the 11th century, founded the fourth dynasty in
Morocco. By this dynasty the Moorish empire was extended over
Tlemcen and a great part of Spain and Portugal. The name is
derived from the Arab. Murabit, a religious ascetic (see
MARABOUT.) The most powerful of the invading tribes was
the Lamtuna ("veiled men") from the upper Niger, whose
best-known representatives now are the Tuareg. They had been
converted to Mahommedanism in the early times of the Arab
conquest, but their knowledge of Islam did not go much beyond
the formula of the creed--"there is no god but God, and
Mahomet is the apostle of God,"--and they were ignorant of the
law. About the year 1040 or a little earlier, one of their
chiefs, Yahya ibn Ibrahim, made the 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 his will was good, his own ignorance
was great. By the good offices of the theologians of
Kairawan, one of whom was from Fez, Yahya was provided
with a missionary,'Abd-Allah ibn Yazin, a zealous partisan
of the Malokis, 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 negroes. Yahya was killed
in battle in 1056, but 'Abd-Allah, whose influence as a
religious teacher was paramount, named his brother Abu Bakr as
chief. Under him the Murabtis soon began to spread their
power beyond the desert, and subjected the tribes of the
Atlas. They then came in contact with the Berghwata, a
Berber people of central Morocco, who followed a heresy
founded by Salah ibn Tarif 300 years previously. The
Berghwata made a fierce resistance, and it was in battle
with them that 'Abd-Allah ibn Yazin won the crown of
martyrdom. They were, however, completely conquered by Abu
Bakr, who espoused the defeated chief's widow, Zainab.
In 1061 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 negroes.
Continued on page two.
This article is from the 1911 edition of an encyclopedia,
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