Almohad Movement in North Africa in the 12th and 13th Centuries

Almohad Movement in North Africa in the 12th and 13th Centuries PDF Author: Roger Le Tourneau
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400876699
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
This is an analysis of the powerful Islamic religious movement, initiated by Ibn Tūmart among the Berber tribesmen of North Africa, which culminated in the creation of the huge Almohad empire in the twelfth century. Professor Le Tourneau presents his reflections on the place of the movement in history as well as on its influence in present-day Africa. His principal aim is to elucidate how the Almohads managed to unite all of North Africa and Spain in one empire, and why they ultimately failed to hold their empire together. He also shows that some of the essential factors in Almohad society are still influential in Africa today and that the Almohad experience can aid contemporary promoters of North African unity and prevent them from repeating the mistakes of the twelfth-century rulers. Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Almohad Revolution

The Almohad Revolution PDF Author: Maribel Fierro
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351219480
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 527

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Book Description
The studies in this collection comprise a series of explorations into the revolutionary character of the Almohad movement in medieval North Africa and Spain and how it was expressed, including through compelling visual and auditory means. Almohad silver coins were minted square instead of round, and they carried no date, as if to indicate that a new era had begun. The new age was symbolized in the texts appearing on the coins, reminding Muslims that 'God is our Lord, Muhammad is our Prophet, the Mahdi is our imam', and that a new caliphate had begun. Almoravid mosques were purified and attempts were made to correct their orientation (qibla). Also, both non-Almohad Muslims and non-Muslims were obliged to learn the Almohad profession of faith, in what was in fact a forced conversion to the Almohad understanding of true religion. New scholarly elites - entrusted with the propagation and maintenance of Almohad beliefs and practices - were created by the Almohad caliphs. Philosophy flourished with Ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushd (Averroes) serving the new rulers. These articles by Professor Fierro are an attempt at explaining what put in motion such a revolution, how it developed and changed, and the influences it had both in the Islamic and non Islamic worlds. Eight of the studies have been translated into English, from Spanish and French, specially for publication here.

The Almohads

The Almohads PDF Author: Allen J. Fromherz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857712071
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
How did an obscure Islamic visionary found an empire? The Almohad Empire at its zenith in the 12th century was the major power in Mediterranean and North Africa, ruling a huge and disparate region from the Atlas Mountains to Tunisia, Morocco and Andalusia. Allen Fromherz, drawing on medieval Arabic and Berber sources, analyses the history and myths surrounding the rise of the Almohads. He shows how Muhammad Ibn Tumart, the son of an obscure Berber tribal chief, founded his mission to reform Islam - then at a low point in its history, battered by the crusades, having lost Jerusalem and been undermined by weak spiritual and political leadership. Ibn Tumart was proclaimed Mahdi by the Berber tribes, as one who heralded the golden age of Islam. He provided charismatic leadership, and a message of unswerving adherence to absolute monotheism and fundamental Islam, to be enforced by jihad - holy war. He died in 1130, before his dream could be accomplished but his successors quickly built on his foundation, conquering Marrakech - the door to the Sahara gold trade and the greatest city of commerce and trade in North Africa. Ibn Tumart and his legacy were to prove the launch-pad for empire, leading to Almohad domination of the Western Mediterranean from Tunisia to Morocco and Andalusia. It became the seat of a brilliant civilisation, the seed-bed of a 12th-century renaissance and flowering of scholarship which reached far into the Middle East and Europe. Fromherz shows how Tumart formed the sinews of empire - by charismatic leadership, a reformed and powerful Islam, unity based on the closely-knit traditions of the Berber tribes, military power and sound administration. This is the first account of the Almohads in English and will be essential for all who are interested in Islam, the Almohad Empire, North Africa and Middle East, and the lasting cultural effect on the region and on Europe.

Almoravid and Almohad Empires

Almoravid and Almohad Empires PDF Author: Amira K. Bennison
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748646825
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
A comprehensive account of two of the most important empires in medieval North AfricaThis is the first book in English to provide a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the Almoravids and the Almohads, the two most important Berber dynasties of the medieval Islamic west, an area that encompassed southern Spain and Portugal, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The a'anhAja Almoravids emerged from the Sahara in the 1050s to conquer vast territories and halt the Christian advance in Iberia. They were replaced a century later by their rivals, the Almohads, supported by the Maa'GBPmAda Berbers of the High Atlas. Although both have often been seen as uncouth, religiously intolerant tribesmen who undermined the high culture of al-Andalus, this book argues that the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were crucial to the Islamisation of the Maghrib, its integration into the Islamic cultural sphere, and its emergence as a key player in the western Mediterranean, and that much of this was due to these oft-neglected Berber empires.Key featuresThe first work in English to give a full account of the Almoravids and AlmohadsFeatures numerous translated quotes and anecdotes from Arabic primary sourcesProvides an intimate portrait of the daily lives and material culture of people living within the empires, as well as delivering a clear dynastic historyUses maps, genealogical tables, illustrations and a chronology

Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614

Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614 PDF Author: Brian A. Catlos
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521889391
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 649

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Book Description
An innovative study which explores how the presence of Muslim communities transformed Europe and stimulated Christian society to define itself.

Spanning the Strait

Spanning the Strait PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004256644
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Spanning the Strait: Studies in Unity in the Western Mediterranean brings together a multidisciplinary collection of essays that examines the deep connections that bound together the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib in the medieval and early modern periods. Six articles on topics ranging from the eighth-century slave trade to sixteenth-century apocalypticism trace and analyze movement, mutual influence and patterns shared in the face of political, religious, and cultural difference. By transcending traditional disciplinary and temporal divisions, this collection of essays highlights the long history of contact and exchange that united the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar. A comprehensive introduction by the editors contextualizes the articles within the last half-century of scholarship and salient contemporary trends. Contributors are Adam Gaiser, Linda G. Jones, Hussein Fancy, S.J. Pearce, David Coleman, and Marya T. Green-Mercado.

The Golden Rhinoceros

The Golden Rhinoceros PDF Author: François-Xavier Fauvelle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691217149
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
From the birth of Islam in the seventh century to the voyages of European exploration in the fifteenth, Africa was at the center of a vibrant exchange of goods and ideas. It was an African golden age in which places like Ghana, Nubia, and Zimbabwe became the crossroads of civilizations, and where African royals, thinkers, and artists played celebrated roles in the globalized world of the Middle Ages. Drawing on fragmented written sources as well as his many years of experience as an archaeologist, the author reconstructs an African past that is too often denied its place in history. He looks at ruined cities found in the mangrove, exquisite pieces of art, rare artifacts like the golden rhinoceros of Mapungubwe, ancient maps, and accounts left by geographers and travelers

The Dearest Quest: A Biography of Ibn Tumart

The Dearest Quest: A Biography of Ibn Tumart PDF Author: Wilyam Shar?f
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1445278251
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
The book tells the story of Ibn Tumart who founded a religious movement that imposed its version of Islam, founded the Almohad state, and put an end to the Almoravid state, which ruled many parts of North Africa and Spain in the 11th and 12th centuries.

A History of African Societies to 1870

A History of African Societies to 1870 PDF Author: Elizabeth Isichei
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521455992
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description
This comprehensive and detailed exploration of the African past, from prehistory to approximately 1870, is intended to provide a fully up-to-date complement to the Cambridge History of Africa. Reflecting several emphases in recent scholarship, it focusses on the changing modes of production, on gender relations and on ecology, laying particular stress on viewing 'history from below'. A distinctive theme is to be found in its analyses of cognitive history. The work falls into three sections. The first comprises a historiographic analysis, and covers the period from the dawn of prehistory to the end of the Early Iron Age. The second and third sections are, for the most part, organised on regional lines; the second section ends in the sixteenth century; the third carries the story on to 1870. A second volume, now in preparation, will cover the period from 1870 to 1995. This book attempts a more rounded view of African history than most of the other textbooks on the subject addressed to a (largely) undergraduate level student. Earlier histories have tended to ignore some of the current foci in the scholarly literature on Africa, generally not reflected in the textbooks: these include discussions of topical issues like ecology and gender. Isichei's book is also more radical.

Saladin, the Almohads and the Banū Ghāniya

Saladin, the Almohads and the Banū Ghāniya PDF Author: Amar S. Baadj
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004298576
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
In Saladin, the Almohads and the Banū Ghāniya, Amar Baadj gives us the first comprehensive, modern study of a fascinating but little-known episode in the history of the medieval Mediterranean. This is the story of the long struggle between the Almohad caliphs of the Maghrib, the Banū Ghāniya of Majorca, and the Ayyubids for dominance of North Africa. The author makes use of important textual sources that have been ignored as well as new archaeological evidence to challenge some of the basic assumptions about the events in question. He also successfully places these events in their wider temporal and geographical context for the first time.

The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh. Part 3

The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the Crusading Period from al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh. Part 3 PDF Author: D. S. Richards
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 9780754669524
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1228

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Book Description
The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233AD), entitled al-Kamil fi'l-Ta'rikh, is one of the outstanding sources for the history of the mediaeval world. It covers the whole sweep of Islamic history almost up to the death of its author; events in Iraq, Iran and further East run in counterpoint with those involving North Africa and Spain. From the time of the arrival of the Crusaders in the Levant, their activities and the Muslim response become the focus of the work. A focus of this third part is the internal rivalries of Saladin's Ayyubid successors, their changing relations with the Crusader states, the Damietta Crusade, and the first incursions of the Mongols.