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 1080 he conquered the kingdom of Tlemcen and founded the present city of that name, his rule extending as far east as Oran. In 1086 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 Sacrahas, 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 fetwa -- or legal opinion -- to 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 Aluminin, "Prince of the Faithful," Yusef in 1097 assumed the title of "Prince of the Resigned"--- Amir el Muslimin. He died in 1106, when he was reputed to have reached the age of 100.
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 th 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 III. was defeated by Alphonso VII. of Castile and Leon, and in 1139 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 (1061); 'Ali III. (1106); Tashfin I. (1143); Ibrahim II. (1145); Ishak (1146).
See Budgett Meakin, The Moorish Empire (London, 1899); the
anonymous Raodel el Kartas (Fez. 1326), translated by
Baymier as Roudh el-Kartas; (Paris, 1860); Ibn Khaldun,
Kitab el 'Aibr...fi Aiyam el Maghrib, &c. (cir.
1405), partly translated by de Slane as Histoire des
Berbers, vol. ii. (Algiers, 1852-1856); 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.)
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