CHAPTER 4
LATER HISTORY OF THE MAGHRIB
Early Islamic states in the Maghrib
After Mūsās expeditions the Berbers continued to make revolutions in support of doctrinal as well as political causes, but, except for a Baraghawāta revolt, never again rejected Islam as such. Their resistance was broken and they now identified with the new Islamic order which they accepted as permanent.
Islam was extended and deepened in the time of Mūsā by the method of dividing the land into fiefs (iqtāc) confided to distinguished Arabs who administered their holdings as district heads and saw to the islamization and instruction of their subjects. Another of Mūsās methods was to choose the most promising Berber slaves, instruct them in Islam, and give them freedom if they proved themselves zealous and competent administrators and propagators of Islam.
[Ibn-cAbdalhakam, 352-56] In 95/714 al-Walīd ibn-cAbdalmalik wrote to Mūsā telling him to come. Mūsā went and left his son cAbdalcazīz in charge of Andalusia and his son cAbdallāh in charge of Ifrīqiya... After his father left, cAbdalcazīz ibn-Mūsā married a Christian woman, the daughter of an Andalusian king, it is said of King Rodrigo whom Tāriq had killed... Some said that she converted him to Christianity. So ِabīb ibn-abī-cUbayda al-Fihrī and Ziyād ibn-an-Nābigha at-Tamīmī with companions from the Arab tribes plotted to kill cAbdalcazīz because of what they heard he had done... They killed him in the year 97/715-16...
Then Muḥammad ibn-Yazīd al-Qurayshī was made governor of Ifrīqiya... He dismissed cAbdallāh ibn-Mūsā in the year 96/714-15. He was removed and in August 718 Ismācīl ibn-cAbdallāh put in his place, with orders to make war and collect the kharāj and zakāt. He ruled well, and during his governorship there was not a single Berber left who did not become a Muslim. He remained governor until the death of cUmar ibn-cAbdalcazīz in February 720.
The Khārijite revolt and the Rustamid state of Tāhirt in Algeria (777-909)
In their revolt against the Arabs, the Berbers adopted Khārijism. The original Khārijites were breakaway followers of cAlī, who rejected him because he consented to negotiate with Mucāwiya. This they considered a sin and led them to their principal teaching, that serious sin excludes a person from the Muslim community and deprives him of the right to life. Another teaching, the one which most appealed to the Berbers, was that all Muslim are equal and any of them, even a black slave, is eligible to rule.
In their first action against the Arabs the Berbers took Ceuta and destroyed it, enslaving its inhabitants. This blow ended the existence of the Ceuta Christian community which had a tolerated status under the terms of surrender 10 years previously.
[Ibn-cAbdalhakam, 358] Yazīd ibn-abī-Muslim had Berber guards... He preached to his men on a Friday saying, If I wake up well tomorrow I will tatoo the hands of my guards, as do the Roman kings. I will tattoo the name of each soldier on his right hand and on his left my guard, so that they can be identified. The guards were indignant at that and they plotted to kill him. That evening as he went out to the mosque for the maghrib ṣalāt they killed him while he was doing his ṣalāt. That was in the year 102/720-21.
[359-63] The caliph Yazīd ibn-cAbdalmalik appointed Bishr ibn-Safwān al-Kalbī as governor of Ifrīqiya. He had been governor of Egypt, and when he left he appointed his brother Hanzala in his place... Bishr died in January 728... The caliph Hishām then appointed cUbayda ibn-cAbdarraḥmān over Ifrīqiya... He resigned, and in May-June 734 Hishām ordered cUbaydallāh ibn-al-Habhāb, who had been governor of Egypt, to transfer to Ifrīqiya.
[Ibn-cIdhārī:] Ubaydallāh ibn-al-Habhāb sent ِabīb ibn-abī-cAbdih ibn-cUqba to raid the outer Sūs region. He did so as far as the land of the Blacks. Everyone who met him opposed him, and there was not a tribe in the Maghrib which he did not attack and take many of their people as slaves... Ibn-al-Habhāb put cUmar ibn-cAbdallāh al-Murādī in charge of Tangier and the western Maghrib... He was evil in his ways and transgressed in matters of taxes and tithes. He wanted to impose a tax of a fifth on the Berbers and considered them the booty of the Muslims, as previous governors never did. They only imposed the fifth on those who refused to become Muslim. His blameworthy action was the cause of the revolt and troubles leading to the killing of many of Gods servants...
[Ibn-cAbdalhakam, 364:] The Berbers revolted against cUbaydallāh ibn-al-Habhāb in Tangier and killed his governor. The leader of this revolt was Maysara the poor Berber al-Midgharī. He commanded the Berbers and claimed the title of caliph, and was recognized as such by his followers. Maysara appointed cAbadalaclā, a client of Ibn-Nasīr of Roman origin, over Tangier. Then he went to as-Sūs, where Ismācīl ibn-cUbaydallāh was governor, and killed him. This was the first Berber revolt in Ifrīqiya.
c<Abdallāh ibn-al-Habhāb then sent Khālid ibn-abī-ِabīb al-Fihrī to the Berbers in Tangier together with the Quraysh and Anār notables of Ifrīqiya and others. Khālid and his companions were killed; not one of them survived. So that was called the raid of the notables. Maysara then went to Tangier, but the Berbers did not like his conduct and his deviation from the conditions under which they installed him. So they killed him and put in his place cAbdalmalik bin-Qatn al-Muhāribī.
[365] cAbdallāh ibn-al-Habhāb returned to the caliph Hishām in March-April 741. Hishām then appointed Kulthūm ibn-cIyā al-Qaysī over Ifrīqiya... When he arrived he ordered the people of Ifrīqiya to prepare to fight the Berbers. He gathered some troops from Tripoli and set out with a large number... leaving Maslama ibn-Sawāda in charge of the troops in Qayrawān. After Kulthūm left, cUkkāsha al-Fazārī revolted against him in the region of Gabes. He was a Sufrī [Berber]. This man sent his brother to Sabrata and, with some Zanāta Berbers, beseiged the people in their mosque... The amīr of Tripoli heard of this and came out to attack the brother of al-Fazāri while he was beseiging the people of Sabrata. They fought and al-Fazārī was defeated and his Zanāta and other supporters killed. Al-Fazārī fled to his brother in Gabes. Then Maslama ibn-Sawāda came out with his troops from Qayrawān against al-Fazārī in Gabes. They fought and Maslama was defeated and most of his troops killed. He fled to Qayrawān, where the survivers baracaded themselves...
[366-7] Kulthūm went as far as Tangier. There he met a contingent of Berbers led by Khālid ibn-Humayd az-Zanātī... Kulthūm sent his cavalry to attack them. They rode all night and met them at dawn. The Berbers met them naked and with no arms. When the cavalry fell on them, they shouted, drew back and pelted them. The commander of Kulthūms troops fell wounded and the cavalry fell back on Kulthūm and his men who ready to fight... The Berbers pursued the cavalry and fell on Kulthūm and his men... Kulthūm and many of his men were killed, while the rest went back defeated to Qayrawān. That was in 123/740-41...
[369-70] From Qayrawān cAbdarraḥmānibn-cUqba al-Ghifārī led a contingent against al-Fazārī and met him between Gabes and Qayrawān. Al-Fazārī was defeated and with most of his companions killed. Then the caliph Hishām sent Hanzala to Ifrīqiya... Another Sufrī [Berber] named cAbdalwāhid ibn-Yazīd joined al-Fazārī to fight Hanzala. Hanzala send cAbdarraḥmān ibn-cUqba to fight them, but he and his companions were killed. Then cAbdalwāhid went and took control of Tunis, where he was greeted as caliph. He then headed for Qayrawān, where al-Fazārī was also going, each one trying to get there first so as to have the booty... Hanzala went out against al-Fazārī, bringing the men of Qayrawān who were desperate for their lives and who feared that their children, wives and property would all be taken as booty. But they first met cAbdalwāhid and fought him. He was killed with many of his companions, while the others fled. Hanzala then hurried that night against al-Fazārī, who had not heard of cAbdalwāḥids defeat. God defeated him and his companions. Al-Fazārī fled and met a Berber people who took him prisoner and brought him to Hanzala, who killed him.
[371-2] cAbdarraḥmān ibn-ِabīb in Tunis then organized a force to fight Hanzala... He wrote to him telling him to vacate Qayrawān in three days... So he left... and cAbdarraḥmān entered Qayrawān in March 745.
[372-3] cAbdarraḥmān put his brother in charge of Tripoli, who arrested the leader of the [Khārijite] Ibādites and cut off his head. The Ibādites massed against him, and cAbdarraḥmān had to appoint another governor. This one the Ibādites besieged in a certain village, and finally set free, but not after their leader cAbdaljabbār executed one of his companions who was charged with killing one of their men. cAbdaljabbār then became the leader of the Zanāta Berbers... cAbdarramān sent a force against him which was defeated, and cAbdaljabbār took over all of Tripoli province...
[373-4] cAbdaljabbār fought with his ally al-Hārith and the two were killed. The Berbers then chose Ismācīl as their leader, who became very strong. But cAbdarraḥmān sent an army against him and he was killed with many of his companions. Many prisoners were taken. In the market of Tripoli he had them beheaded or crucified.
Comment: After the Berbers first unsuccessful attempt to take Qayrawān, their leader, arīf, of the Baraghwāa, then went to Tāmasnā. There, says Ibn-cIdhārī, he decreed his own religious law and died after a while. His son Ṣāliḥ took his place and continued with the laws his father issued.. He claimed that a Qurān had been revealed to himself, which they were reciting, and that he was the sālih (good man) of the believers mentioned in the book of God. Ṣāliḥ taught his son Ilyās his religion and laws and told him to hide it until it was established.. Ṣāliḥ went to the East and said he would return during the reign of their seventh king, and said he was the Mahdī who would come at the end of time to kill the anti-Christ, and that Jesus would be one of his men and would pray behind him.. The beginning of this movement was around 741 and it appeared 50 years later.
In 755 the Berbers did take Qayrawān and held it until they were driven out in 761. They Berbers were still powerful in southern Tunisia and Algeria, and the expelled Berber governor of Qayrawān, cAbdarraḥmān ibn-Rustam moved to Tāhirt in western Algeria and made it the capital of a Berber Khārijite state. This state controlled the trans-Saharan caravan termini of Sijilmāsa in the west and Wargala in the east. Khārijism of the Ibāite form has survived to this day in the Sahara, particularly in Ghardāya. The Rustamid dynasty was religiously tolerant, and Christians as well as non-Khārijite Muslims lived in its capital.
The Aghlabid state in Tunisia (800-909)
In 800 Ibrāhīm ibn-Aghlab helped put down a rebellion against the governor of Qayrawān. He then himself usurped the governorship and was recognized by the Abbāsid caliph, who had nominal authority over the area. Under the Aghlabids the Arabs invaded Sicily in 827, completing their occupation of the island in 902. From Sicily they raided Italy, even sacking the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome in 846. In Tunisia the Aghlabids were responsible for rebuilding the great mosque of Qayrawān and the Zaytūn mosque of Tunis.
During the Aghlabid period small communities of indigenous Christians continued to survive in Carthage, Qayrawān and many other towns. A document of the time of Pope Formosus (891-6) tells of some African bishops who went to Rome to have a quarrel among themselves settled.
The Idrīsid state in Morocco (789-926)
Idrīs ibn-cAbdallāh, a sharīf (claiming descent from Muḥammad) who had fought with the Shīcites in the East against the cAbbāsids, fled to Morocco in 786 and established himself in Volubilis. Winning the support of the Berber tribes living between Fez and Meknes, he moved against the Jewish and Christian Berbers of Tadla and other southern towns, forcing them to become Muslim. Idrīs was assassinated by an Abbāsid or Aghlabid agent. After the regency of his servant Rashīd, who was himself assassinated in 802, Idrīs son Idrīs II took over.
Idrīs II started building the city of Fez in 808, which became a centre of arabization because of the influx of Arab political refugees from Spain in 818 and Tunisia in 826. Idrīs II eliminated Khārijism in his domains and forced all the Jewish and Christian Berber tribes to accept Islam.
The Idrīsid dynasty lasted 170 years and in this time Morocco, once the refuge of Christians fleeing from the first Arab invasions, saw the complete disappearance of Christianity. Judaism, on the other hand, survived the Idrīsid period, possibly because of greater ethnic cohesion and because many Jews went into exile and later returned, or they made a pretended conversion and later reverted to Judaism.
Fātimid triumph in the Maghrib and Egypt (909-87)
The Fātimids are named after Fātima, the daughter of Muḥammad and wife of cAlī. His supporters (shīca) maintained that the office of caliph or imām rightfully belongs to cAlī or members of his family. In 765 the Shīcites split into two factions, the Ismācīlīs, who recognized Ismācīl as the seventh imām, and the Imāmites, who supported his brother and his successors up to the twelfth imām.
In 901 one of the Ismācīlī propagandists, Abū-cAbdallāh, found his way to the area north of Sitif in eastern Algeria and gained the support of the local Berbers. Formerly Khārijite, they welcomed the new movement because it represented a cause incompatible with the authority of the Arab caliphs in the East. In 903 Abū-cAbdallāh began attacking the Aghlabids of Tunisia and in 909 captured Qayrawān, gaining mastery of Tunisia. He and the Ismācīlī leader cUbaydallāh Sacīd then set out to conquer the neighbouring Rustamid kingdom in Algeria. When this was done, in 910 cUbaydallāh claimed the leadership and called himself the mahdī (the divinely guided one) and also the imām or caliph of all Islam. Abū-cAbdallāh was assassinated by an unknown party, and cUbaydallāh moved to the east coast of Tunisia where he built a new capital called Mahdiyya.
The Sunnī or orthodox Muslims of Tunisia put up considerable resistance to cUbaydallāh and his Fātimid movement, as it was now called, and it took the Fātimids some time to overcome Sunnī and Khārijite resistance. In 917 the Fātimids defeated the Spanish Umayyads, who controlled the northern coast of Morocco, and the Idrīsids of Fez. But Morocco was not secure until 958 when the Fātimid general Jawhar subdued it.
Under the Fātimid caliph Mucizz in 969 Jawhar realized the Fātimid ambition of conquering Egypt. Mucizz then moved his capital to the newly founded city of al-Qāhira (Cairo) with al-Azhar mosque as its centre. In Cairo the Fātimid movement enjoyed a brief moment of glory and even came close to realizing its ambition of capturing the rest of the Muslim world, but it failed and faded away before new powers.
The Ṣanhāja dynasties (969-) and the Hilālian invasion (1052)
When the Fātimids moved their capital to Cairo they left the Maghrib in the care of a anhāja Berber governor named Bulukkīn ibn-Sīrī. His son al-Manṣūr in 984 declared himself independent from Cairo at the same time that Morocco was falling into anarchy. In 1007 Ḥammād, another son of the late governor Bulukkīn, carved out a separate state of his own in Algeria with its capital at Qalca in the eastern mountains.
The response of the Fātimid caliph al-Mustanṣir to the rebellion in the Maghrib was to use two troublesome Arab tribes to punish the Zīrids: the Banū-Sulaym, who had settled in Cyrenaica for two centuries, and the Banū-Hilāl, who had settled in the Nile delta and then moved to the Maghrib. These may have cooperated at first with the Zīrids, but later found the Fātimid cause more advantageous. About 50,000 warriors with their families descended on Tunisia and Algeria, ravishing the whole country like locusts, neither fearing their Creator nor revering his creatures (Ibn-Khaldūn).
One effect of the Hilālian invasion was the arabization of much of the rural area of the Maghrib. Before this time Arabic was spoken only in the major towns. Politically the invasion did not destroy the anhāja dynasties, but the Zīrids were forced to abandon Qayrawān in 1057 and move to Mahdiyya, and their authority extended only over the coast from Sūsa to Gabes. The ammādids in Algeria had to abandon their capital of Qalca in 1090 and move to nearby Bujāya on the coast.
Christianity under the Ṣanhāja and the Hilālian invaders
Before the Hilālian invasion there were numerous small communities of Christians in Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania. In the time of Pope Benedict VII (974-83) the clergy and people of Carthage sent a priest named James to Rome to be ordained a bishop because there were not three bishops in Africa, the requisite number for ordaining another bishop.
The Hilālian invasion seriously disrupted what was left of Christianity in the Maghrib. At En-Jila near Tripoli Christian tombs have been found with dates as late as 1020. But al-Bakrī, writing in 1068, does not mention the presence of any more Christians around Tripoli, although he does mention their presence in Monastir, Gabes and Tilimsān. The Qayrawān Christian community was evidently another casualty of the Hilālian invasion, because there are Christian tombs of a lector dated 1048 and a senior dated 1051, but no later remains.
Before the impact of the Hilālian invasion hit Carthage, in 1053 Bishop Thomas of Carthage and two other bishops, named Peter and John, complained to Pope Leo IX against the bishop of Gummi (= Raqqāda, near Mahdiyya) who usurped the title of Primate. The Pope decided in favour of the bishop of Carthage, and lamented that there were only five bishops left in Africa.
Two letters from Pope Gregory VII in 1076 refer to an event of 1073 when the Christian lay leaders of Carthage rose against their bishop Cyriac because he refused to ordain a man they presented for the priesthood. They complained to the local amīr, an independent ruler and one of the Hilālian invaders named cAbdalhaqq ibn-al-Khurāsān, who had the bishop stripped and flogged like a slave. Gregory VII wrote to encourage Cyriac and warn the people to support him; he also noted the sad fact that there were fewer than the three bishops needed for an episcopal ordination and that Cyriac should send a canonically elected candidate to Rome for ordination.
The background of the Cyriac affair and a cause of Church decline throughout the Maghrib was that in the 10th century, apparently, the Muslim rulers reorganized their subject Christian communities, appointing a lay leader to handle their corporate affairs, both internally and in relation with the government, according to the semi-autonomous status of a dhimmī community. This transfer of responsibility from the bishop to a lay leader brought on troubles such as Cyriac experienced and dissuaded others from accepting the office of bishop.
Gregory VII had more satisfying relations with Bujāya, the capital of the Sanhāja Hammādids. In 1075 the people had elected the priest Servandus as bishop and the king an-Nāḥir sent him to Rome for ordination along with gifts and freed Christian slaves. In 1076 the Pope answered:
Your highness wrote to us this year asking us to consecrate as bishop the priest Servandus according to Christian procedures. Since your request seemed right and very good, we were eager to comply. At the same time you sent us some presents and, in deference to St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and through love of us, you released some Christians who were held captive in your land, promising to release others in the future.
God, the Creator of everything, without whom we could not do or think of anything good, clearly inspired you to do this generous act. He who enlightens every man coming into this world (John 1:9) gave you the idea. Almighty God, who wills that all should be saved and none lost, values above all else in us our love for our fellow man after the love which we owe to him, and that we should not do to others what we do not want done to ourselves (cf. Mt. 7:1-5).
We, more than other peoples, should practice this virtue of love, that is, you and we together, who under a different form believe in and adore the same and only God whom we praise and worship every day as the Creator of the ages and Lord of this world. As the Apostle Paul said, He is our peace, who made both one (cf. Eph. 2:14-16).
God knows that we love you for the sake of his honour alone and that we wish you health and glory in this life and the next. We pray to him from the depth of our heart that after a long life he will give you the happiness of resting at Abrahams side.1
The Murābiṭs in the far West
Sanhāja Berber tribes once controlled the Western Sahara and the north-south trade route through Awdaghust. The Zanāta Berbers who founded Sijilmāsa at the northern end of the trade route were pressing in on the anhājas, but the anhājas suffered more from Ghāna, which took Awdaghust in 990. With their backs against the Atlantic, the anhājas had reason enough to fight back, but a religious ideology provided the impetus.
The Sanhājas of the western Sahara had adopted Islam but had little knowledge of it. On his way home from Mecca in 1035 a Sanhāja chief named Yaḥyā ibn-Ibrāhīm stopped at Qayrawān to look for a religious teacher for his people. None of the young men at Qayrawān would consent to go with him to such an out of the way place, and he was referred to a former student at Qayrawān named Wajāj (or Waggāg), who lived in southern Morocco. One of Wajājs students, cAbdallāh ibn-Yāsīn, went with Yaḥyā to his people in the desert. There he launched the religious military organization known as the Murābiṭs (or Almoravids after the Spanish spelling), which name they took either because they operated from a monastery-fort (ribāt) or because of their method of fighting in close ranks as recommended in the Qurān.2
The Murābiṭ movement grew in strength, but when its chief Yaḥyā died, his people, who belonged to the Juddāla branch of the Sanhāja, revolted against Ibn-Yāsīn who was attached to the Jazūla branch. Ibn-Yāsīn then went off with several companions to an island, now identified as Tidra, off the coast of Mauritania, to gather a force. The Lamtūna branch of the anhājas now became Ibn-Yāsīns principal supporters. Beginning their jihād in 1042, the Murābiṭs first won over the rest of the Sanhājas. In 1053 they moved north and took Sijilmāsa, and in 1054 went south and took Awdaghust. In further fighting in the north Ibn-Yāsīn was killed in 1059. His general Abū-Bakr ibn-cUmar took over the movement. This man and his deputy for the north, Yūsuf ibn-Tāshfīn, founded the city of Marrākish in 1069 and spread their control over all Morocco, reaching as far as Algiers in 1082.
In Spain the Umayyad rule had fragmented into a number of petty states, a situation which the Christian kings took advantage of. In 1086 Ibn-Tāshfīn moved into Spain to help and then dominate the Muslim states. All Muslim Spain was under Murābiṭ rule by 1110. At its height the Murābiṭ empire stretched from Ghāna south of the Sahara (whose capital was taken or brought into clientship in 1076) north to Lisbon and Saragossa.
Murābiṭ rule was noted for its enforcement of a purist Sunnite orthodoxy according to the Mālikī rite, and was opposed to the lax living and literary and artistic pursuits of the Spanish Muslims as well as to the Sūfism so popular among the Moroccans. The Murābiṭs also were responsible for a reintroduction of Christianity to Morocco. There was an Arabic speaking Christian minority in Muslim Spain called Mozarabs (mustacribūn) who had revolted against the Muslims and called for the help of King Alfonso of Aragon. In 1126 the Murābiṭ ruler of Spain cAlī ibn-Yūsuf (1106-42) deported large numbers of these Mozarabs to Morocco where they would be less a threat. They lived in Marrākish with their bishop and priests and served as soldiers for the Murābiṭs until 1142 when the Muwaḥḥid conquerors of Marrākish sent some thousands of them back with their bishop to Toledo.
The Muwaḥḥids (1125-1269)
Muḥammad ibn-Tūmart, founder of the Muwaḥḥid movement, was a Masmūda Berber from the Atlas mountains in Morocco. He went on pilgrimage to Mecca and stayed to study in Baghdad, Jerusalem and Cairo. Returning to Morocco in 1121, he disputed with the Murābiṭs, condemning their laxity and emphasis on detailed legal studies and schools of law, to the detriment of Qurān and Ḥadīth studies, and at the same time their literal interpretation of anthropomorphic expressions in the Qurān. He insisted that phrases like Gods arm should be interpreted figuratively in order to respect the immateriality and oneness of God. For this reason he called his followers Muwaḥḥids (or Almohads` after the Spanish spelling), that is, those who profess the unity of God. He claimed himself to be a descendant of Muḥammad and the expected Mahdī.
Ibn-Tūmart and his assistant cAbdalmumin set about consolidating their power among the Berbers of the High Atlas. The struggle with the Murābiṭs began in 1129. In 1130 Ibn-Tūmart died and cAbdalmumin took over. By 1147 he completed the conquest of Morocco and western Algeria. establishing his capital at Marrākish. In 1146 he entered Spain and within two years took over most of it. In 1152 he moved to the eastern Maghrib and took Bujāya, but instead of going on to take Tunisia he retired to consolidate his power and prepare his son to take over.
In the meantime the Normans, who had begun the reconquest of Sicily in 1061 and completed it in 1091, began to take over the coast of Tunisia, until then chaotically held by the Zīrids and the Hilālian Arabs. The Normans took Jerba in 1134, Tripoli in 1146 and the rest of the coastal towns between Tripoli and Tunis by 1148, in addition to several small ports in Algeria. In 1159 cAbdalmumin came with a force of 200,000 men supported by a navy and took Tunis. He then proceeded to drive the Normans out of their coastal establishments, besieging the last of them in Mahdiyya, which surrendered in 1160. The captured Normans were at first asked to choose between Islam and death, but were later let go free when the Muwaḥḥids were reminded that the Normans had Muslim subjects in Sicily. (These remained in Sicily 150 years after the Norman conquest and were then deported to Italy where they were assimilated ethnically and religiously.) By now all the Maghrib, including Tripoli, was under Muwaḥḥid rule. The remainder of Muslim Spain was added by 1172.
As for Islamic culture, the Muwaḥḥids had to tolerate tacitly the use of Mālikī law for the practical needs of justice. But the masses of the people became more interested in Sūfism, in which Ibn-Tūmart and others occupied the role of saintly mediators with God, than in Mālikī law or the study of Ḥadīth as proposed by the Muwaḥḥid leaders. On another level the Muwaḥḥids were patrons of the philosophers Abū-Bakr ibn-Ṭufayl (d. 1185) and Ibn-Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198), but popular indignation at the latters views on religion eventually led to a complete suppression of philosophy in the Muslim world.
The Muwaḥḥid conquest marked the death of the old indigenous Christianity in the Maghrib because everywhere the conquerors went they forced Jews and Christians to adopt Islam or die. In the Liber Censuum of 1192 Carthage is listed merely as a titular see held by a bishop in Europe.
While indigenous Christianity died out completely, Judaism revived after the Muwaḥḥid period. Some reasons for the difference are:
The Muwaḥḥid ruler Abū-Yūsuf suspected as much and in 1198 ordered the converted Jews to dress in a distinctive way, an act which only solidified Jewish ethnic cohesion and the will to survive.
- that numbers of Jews moved to desert oases outside Muwaḥḥid territory and later returned, and
- that Jews, according to Maimonides and others, were permitted to convert outwardly while retaining their Jewish faith secretly until persecution ends.
In spite of the Muwaḥḥids hostility to European occupiers and indigenous Christians and Jews, they cultivated trade relations with Europe and exploited their political monopoly in the Maghrib and European divisions to secure favourable trade terms. Settlements of merchants from Pisa, Venice, Genoa, Marseilles and elsewhere were found in all the major towns of the Maghrib. Although the Muwaḥḥids sent back to Toledo the Mozarabs introduced into Marrākish by the Murābiṭs, other Spanish mercenaries were recruited and these retained a church in Marrākish with freedom of worship until 1390.
One of the major Maghrib exports was gold brought across the desert. This enabled Europe to go back to the gold standard in the first half of the 14th century.
The most important lasting contribution of the Muwaḥḥids to Islam in Morocco came from their fostering of Sūfism. While the Murābiṭs had tried to suppress it, the Muwaḥḥids respected the immense popularity and authority of shaykhs and holy men who were reputed to have charismatic powers. Satisfying popular demand for religious experience, expressed in poetry, song and dance, and for effective prayers, blessings and amulets, Sūfism enabled Islam to sink into the hearts and culture of the people, driving away or transforming pagan or Christian survivals.
Islamic law continued to dominate the madrasas of the cities, but in the country Sūfī zāwiyas dominated, giving Islam a strong popular resiliency. When militant Christendom defeated Muslim princes in Spain they met no intransigent resistance from most Muslims who stayed behind. In the 15th century, when Spain and Portugal began moving into the Maghrib, they easily overcame the government forces, but met fierce resistance from the masses led by the shaykhs, dooming any project of removing Islam from the Maghrib by military means. If the Reconquista had reached the Maghrib before the Muwaḥḥids, it might have succeeded.
1Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 148, col. 450.
2Cf. P.F. de Farias Moraes, The Almoravids: some questions concerning the character of the movement during its periods of closest contact with the western Sudan, B.I.F.A.N., 29 (1967), 797-878. This explanation finds support in al-Bakrī.