THE ALMORAVIDS

B1eyond the chain of Mount Atlas, in the deserts of ancient Gætulia, dwelt two tribes of Arabian descent. At what time they had been expelled, or had voluntarily exiled themselves from their native Yemen, they knew not; but tradition taught them that they had been located in the African deserts from ages immemorial. Yahya ben Ibrahim, belonging to one of these tribes (that of Gudala), made the pilgrimage of Mecca. Being questioned by his new friend as to the religion and manners of his countrymen, he replied that they were sunk in ignorance, both from their isolated situation in the desert and from their want of teachers. He entreated the alfaqui to allow some one of his disciples to accompany him into his native country.

2With considerable difficulty Abdallah ben Yassim, the disciple of another alfaqui, was persuaded to accompany the patriotic Yahya. Abdallah was one of those ruling minds which, fortunately for the peace of society, nature so seldom produces. Seeing his enthusiastic reception by the tribe of Gudala, and the influence he was sure of maintaining over it, he formed the design of founding a sovereignty in the heart of these vast regions. He prevailed on his obedient disciples to make war on the kindred tribe of Lamtuna. His ambition naturally increased with his success; in a short time he had reduced, in a similar manner, the isolated tribes around him.

3To his valiant followers of Lamtuna, he now gave the name of Al-Morabethun, or Almoravids, which signifies men consecrated to the service of God. The whole country of Darah was gradually subdued by this new apostle, and his authority was acknowledged over a region extensive enough to form a respectable kingdom. But though he exercised all the rights of sovereignty, he prudently abstained from assuming the title. He left to the emir of Lamtuna the ostensible exercise of temporal power; and when, in 1058 A.D., that emir fell in battle, he nominated Abu Bekr ben Omar to the vacant dignity. His own death, which was that of a warrior, left Abu Bekr in possession of an undivided sovereignty. The power, and consequently the reputation of the emir, spread far and wide.

4Abu Bekr looked around for a site on which he might lay the foundations of a great city, the destined metropolis of a great empire; and the city of Morocco began to rear its head from the valley of Eylana. Before, however, his great work was half completed, he received intelligence that the tribe of Gudala had declared a deadly war against that of Lamtuna. As he belonged to the latter, he naturally trembled for the fate of his kindred; and at the head of his cavalry he departed for his native deserts, leaving the command of the army, during his absence, to his cousin, Yusuf ben Tashufin.

5[Sidenote: [1070-1103 A.D.]]

6Whatever were Yusuf’s other virtues, it will be seen that gratitude, honour, and good faith were not among the number. Scarcely had his kinsman left the city than, in pursuance of the design he had formed of usurping the supreme authority, he began to win the affections of the troops, partly by his gifts and partly by affability. Nor was his success in war less agreeable to so fierce and martial a people as the Almoravids. The Berbers were quickly subdued by him. He had long aspired to the hope of marrying the beautiful Zainab, sister of Abu Bekr; but the fear of a repulse from the proud chief of his family had caused him to smother his inclination. He now disdained to supplicate for that chief’s consent; he married the lady. Having put the finishing touch to his magnificent city of Morocco, he transferred thither the seat of his empire. The augmentation of his army was his next great object; and so well did he succeed in it that he found his troops exceeded one hundred thousand.

7Yusuf had just completed the subjugation of Fez when Abu Bekr returned from the desert, and encamped in the vicinity of Agmat. With a force so far inferior to his rival’s, so far from demanding the restitution of his rights, he durst not even utter one word of complaint; on the contrary, he pretended that he had long renounced empire, and that his only wish was to pass the remainder of his days in the retirement of the desert. With equal hypocrisy Yusuf humbly thanked him for his abdication; the sheikhs and walis were summoned to witness the renewed declaration of the emir, after which the two princes separated. The following day, however, Abu Bekr received a magnificent present from Yusuf, who, indeed, continued to send him one every year to the period of his death.

8Yusuf had just exchanged his humble title of emir for that of _al-muslimin_, or prince of the believers, and of _nazir ed-din_, or defender of the faith, when letters from Muhammed reached him. Before he returned a final answer to the king of Seville, he insisted that the fortress of Algeciras should be placed in his hands, on the pretence that if fortune were unpropitious he should have some place to which he might retreat. That Muhammed should have been so blind as not to perceive the designs involved in the insidious proposal is almost enough to make one agree with the Arabic historians, that destiny had decreed he should fall by his own measures.

9Alfonso was besieging Saragossa, which he had every expectation of reducing, when intelligence reached him of Yusuf’s disembarkation. He resolved to meet the approaching storm. At the head of all the forces he could muster he advanced towards Andalusia, and encountered Yusuf on the plains of Zallaka (1086). Alfonso was severely wounded and compelled to retreat, but not until nightfall, nor until he had displayed a valour worthy of the greatest heroes. Yusuf now proclaimed the Al-hijed, or holy war, and invited all the Andalusian princes to join him.

10But this demonstration of force proved as useless as the preceding; it ended in nothing; owing partly to the dissensions of the Mohammedans and partly to the activity of the Christians, who not only rendered abortive the measures of the enemy but gained some signal advantages over them. Yusuf was forced to retreat on Almeida. Whether through the distrust of the Mohammedan princes, who appear to have penetrated his intention of subjecting them to his empire, or through his apprehension of Alfonso, he again returned to Africa, to procure new and more considerable levies. He landed a third time at Algeciras, not so much with the view of humbling the Christian king as of executing the perfidious design he had so long formed.

11For form’s sake, indeed, he invested Toledo, but he could have entertained no expectation of reducing it; and when he perceived that the Andalusian princes refused to join him, he eagerly left that city, and proceeded to secure far dearer and easier interests. He openly threw off the mask, and commenced his career of spoliation. After the fall of Muhammed, Yusuf had little difficulty in subduing the remaining princes of Andalusia.

12Thus ended the petty kingdoms of Andalusia, after a stormy existence of about sixty years, and thus commenced the dynasty of the Almoravids. For some years after the usurpation of Yusuf, peace appears to have subsisted in Spain between the Mohammedans and the Christians. Fearing a new irruption of Africans, Alfonso contented himself with fortifying Toledo; and Yusuf felt little inclination to renew the war with one whose prowess he had so fatally experienced. But Christian Spain was, at one moment, near the brink of ruin. The passion for the Crusades was no less ardently felt by the Spaniards than by other nations of Europe. Fortunately, Pope Paschal II, in answer to the representations of Alfonso, declared that the proper post of every Spaniard was at home, and there were his true enemies. Yusuf returned to Morocco in 1103, where he died in 1106, after living one hundred Arabian or about ninety-seven Christian years.

13[Sidenote: [1103-1130 A.D.]]

14Ali was only in his twenty-third year when he succeeded his father, whose military talents he inherited, and whom he surpassed in generosity. On the death of Alfonso, in 1109 A.D., Ali entered Spain at the head of one hundred thousand men, to prosecute in person the war against the Christians. But though he laid waste the territory of Toledo, and invested that city, he soon abandoned the siege. A second army sent by Ali had no better success. In 1118 Saragossa, after a siege of some months, fell into the power of the Christians, and the north of Spain was forever freed from the domination of the Mohammedans. The following year the Aragonian hero destroyed twenty thousand of the Africans, who had advanced as far as the environs of Daroca; while another division of the Almoravids, under Ali in person, was compelled to retreat before the army of Leon and Castile.

15At this very time the empire of the Almoravids was tottering to its fall. It had never been agreeable to the Mohammedans of Spain, whose manners, from their intercourse with a civilised people, were comparatively refined. The sheikhs of Lamtuna were so many insupportable tyrants; the Jews, the universal agents for the collection of the revenues, were here, as in Poland, the most pitiless extortioners; every savage from the desert looked with contempt on the milder inhabitant of the peninsula. The domination of those strangers was indeed so odious that, except for the divisions between Alfonso and his ambitious queen, Donna Urraca, who was sovereign in her own right, all Andalusia might speedily have been subjected to the Christian yoke. Even while Ali remained in Spain, there was an open revolt of the inhabitants, who could not longer support the excesses of the barbarian guard.

16But the cause which most menaced the existence of Ali’s throne, and which was destined to change the whole face of western Africa and southern Spain, originated, like the power of Yusuf ben Tashufin, in the deserts bordering on Mount Atlas. Muhammed ben Abdallah, the son of a lamp-lighter in the mosque of Cordova, was distinguished for great curiosity and an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Whether Muhammed was a fanatic or a knave, or composed of a large mixture of both, is not easy to be determined. He wandered from place to place, zealously preaching doctrines dangerous to the faith of Islam. His reception, however, was long cool; and from one town, where he had held forth in the mosque, he was compelled to flee to Tlemcen. On his way he fell in with a youth, Abdul-Mumin by name, whom he persuaded to share his fortunes. The two friends subsequently travelled to Fez, and thence to Morocco.

17The artful rebel was permitted to follow his vocation till the excitement produced by his fanatic appeals to the ignorant populace was too great to be overlooked, and he was ordered to leave Morocco. At a short distance from the city, however, probably in its public cemetery, he built a hut among the graves, as a residence for himself and his faithful Abdul-Mumin. As he had anticipated, he was soon followed by crowds who venerated his prophetic character, and who listened with pleasure to vehement denunciations which fell with terrific effect on their superiors. He inveighed against the impiety of the Almoravids, who appear not to have been more popular in Mauretania than in Spain. Ali ordered the rebel to be secured.

18Muhammed, who had timely notice of the fate intended him, fled to Agmat, accompanied by a host of proselytes; but finding that his liberty was still in danger, he hastily retreated to Tinmal in the province of Sus. His success in this region was so great that he had soon an army of disciples, all devoted to his will, because all believed in his divine mission. For some time he preached to them the coming of the great mahdi, who should teach all men the right way and cause virtue and happiness to reign over the whole earth; but he carefully refrained from acknowledging himself to be the mighty prophet, doubtless because he was fearful of shocking the credulity even of his own followers.

19One day, in conformity with a preconcerted plan, as he was expatiating on the change to be effected by the long-promised teacher and ruler, Abdul-Mumin and nine other men arose, saying: “Thou announcest a mahdi; the description applies only to thyself. Be our mahdi and imam; we swear to obey thee!” The Berbers, influenced by the example, in the same manner arose and vowed fidelity even unto death.

20[Sidenote: [1130-1143 A.D.]]

21From this moment he assumed the high title of mahdi, and proclaimed himself as the founder of a new people. He instituted a regular government, confiding the administration to Abdul-Mumin, his minister, with nine associates, but reserving the control to himself. Seventy Berbers or Alarabs formed the council of the new government. An army of ten thousand horse and a far greater number of foot was speedily organised, with which he took the road to Agmat just as Ali returned to Morocco from Spain. The Almohads [_Unitarians_], for such was the name assumed by the followers of Muhammed, defeated the troops of Ali four times.

22At length Muhammed resolved to reduce the capital of Morocco. At his voice forty thousand men took the field. The preparations of Ali were immense; one hundred thousand men were ranged round his standard. They were again defeated, were pursued to the very walls of Morocco, and that capital was invested with a vigour which showed that the Almohads were intent on its reduction. But Ali led his troops against the rebels, whom he completely routed. Abdul-Mumin rallied the fugitives, and effected an orderly retreat. But time was necessary to repair the misfortune, especially as some of the savage tribes of the desert withdrew from Muhammed’s banner, on finding that his power was that of a mere mortal.

23In 1130 the mahdi commanded all to assemble the following day near the great mosque, to bid adieu to their chief. All wondered at the command, except such as were acquainted with his long hidden disease. He exhorted them to persevere in the doctrine he had taught them; announced his approaching death; and when he saw them dissolved in tears, inculcated the duty of resignation to the divine will. He then retired with his beloved disciple, to whom he presented the book containing the tenets of his faith--a book which he had received from the hands of Al-Gazali. The fourth day he expired. The chiefs of the state were soon afterwards assembled to deliberate on the form of government; a monarchy was chosen; and by their unanimous suffrages Abdul-Mumin was proclaimed imam and almumenin.

24For the next three years the new caliph was diligently employed in extending his conquests. The whole country, from the mountains of Darah to Salee, all Fez and Tasa, received his spiritual and temporal yoke. The empire of the Almoravids was now bounded within a narrow sphere. Ali became dejected and unhappy; his troops were everywhere defeated; his towns were rapidly delivered into the power of a savage enemy, who had vowed his destruction; and though, in compliance with the advice of his counsellors, he associated with him in the empire his son Tashufin, whose exploits in Spain had obtained him much celebrity, that prince was too busily occupied with the Christians and his discontented subjects of Andalusia to prop the declining empire in Africa.

25[Sidenote: [1143-1145 A.D.]]

26Tashufin ben Ali succeeded in 1143 to his father, who died at Morocco--more from grief at the declining state of affairs than from any other cause. His first object was to assemble an army to strike another blow for the defence of his empire. At first he was successful. Abdul-Mumin was compelled to fall back on his mountain; but in a second action Tashufin was defeated; in a third he was also compelled to retreat. Ali saw that his only hope of safety lay in an escape to Spain. One night he resolved to make a desperate effort to gain the port where his vessels were still riding at anchor. Unfortunately either he mistook his way or his mule was terrified by the roaring of the waves, for the next morning his mangled corpse was found at the foot of a precipice on the beach.

27[Illustration: ARAB SOLDIER]

28But Morocco, Fez, and some other cities were yet in the power of the Almoravids, who raised Ibrahim Abu Ishak, son of Tashufin, to the throne. The vindictive Abdul-Mumin, however, left them little time to breathe. Tlemcen he took by assault, and massacred the inhabitants; Fez he also reduced. The siege of Morocco was prosecuted with vigour. The inhabitants were so fatally repulsed in a sortie that they durst no longer venture outside the walls. Famine soon aided the sword; the number who died of starvation is said to have amounted to three-fourths of the whole population. Such a place could not long hold out; and accordingly it was carried in the first general assault. Ibrahim and the surviving sheikhs were instantly brought before the conqueror. Not only were he and his chiefs led out to instant execution, but a general massacre of the surviving inhabitants was ordered. The few who were spared were sold as slaves; the mosques were destroyed and new ones erected; and the tribes of the desert were called to re-people the now solitary streets.

29During these memorable exploits in Africa, the Christians were rapidly increasing their dominions. Coria, Mora, etc., were in the power of Alfonso, styled the emperor; and almost every contest between the two natural enemies had turned to the advantage of the Christians. So long, indeed, as the walis were eager only to preserve or to extend their authority, independent of each other and of every superior, this success need not surprise us; we may rather be surprised that the Mohammedans were allowed to retain any footing in the peninsula. Probably they would at this time have been driven from it but for the seasonable arrival of the victorious Almohads. Both Christians and Africans now contended for the superiority.

30While the troops of Alfonso reduced Baeza, and with a Mohammedan ally even Cordova, Malaga and Seville acknowledged Abu Amram. Calatrava and Almeria next fell to the Christian emperor, about the same time that Lisbon and the neighbouring towns received Dom Henry (Henrique), the new sovereign of Portugal. Most of these conquests, however, were subsequently recovered by the Almohads. Being reinforced by a new army from Africa, the latter pursued their successes with greater vigour. They reduced Cordova, which was held by an ally of Alfonso; defeated, and forever paralysed, the expiring efforts of the Almoravids; and proclaimed their emperor Abdul-Mumin as sovereign of all Mohammedan Spain (1146).