The Berber Caliphate
When Saharan nomads ruled Spain
For two centuries, the kings of Castile and Aragon paid tribute to Berber chieftains from the Sahara.
The Almoravids emerged from the sand in the 1050s—veiled Sanhaja nomads from what is now Mauritania. By 1070, they founded Marrakesh. By 1086, they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, crushing Castile's Alfonso VI at the Battle of Sagrajas.
The Almoravid empire stretched from the Senegal River to the Ebro, from the Atlantic to Algiers.
In the High Atlas, the Almohads rallied around Ibn Tumart, who declared himself the Mahdi. The war lasted twenty-two years. His successor Abd al-Mu'min took Marrakesh in 1147. By 1172, all of Muslim Iberia answered to the Almohad caliph.
The end came at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Within fifty years, only Granada remained Muslim in Spain.
Sources
- Bennison, Amira K., The Almoravid and Almohad Empires (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) Kennedy, Hugh, Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus (Routledge, 1996) Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'Almoravids' and 'Almohad Caliphate' Cambridge History of Africa, Vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press)
