Ibn Barrajan's summons and death took place against a background of political, economic, and military crisis in al-Andalus caused by the Christian advance onto the peninsula and accentuating the decline of the
Almoravids during the first half of the sixth/twelfth century.
Based on his reading of there varied sources, Wasserstein persuasively argues against the accepted view that the deposition of Caliph Hisham III by Cordoban dissidents in 1031 signalled not only the end of his personal rule and the collapse of Umayyad family power, but also the disappearance of the caliphal institution itself Instead, a critical assessment of the ideas about the caliphate held by those who exercised power following the events of 1031--the Hammudid dynasty and the smaller taifa rulers--reveals that the institution endured until the
Almoravids invaded Iberia more than fifty years later.
The dinars of the
Almoravids and Merinids were among the most superb produced in the Islamic world--and almost all were made from West African bullion.
A Tuareg Berber and a disciple of the religious leader Mahdi Mohammed ibn-Tumart; leader of the Almohad sect after Tumart's death (1130), he struggled with the waning
Almoravid dynasty for control of Morocco (1130-1140); assumed the title of caliph (1140); defeated the
Almoravids in Morocco (1140-1147) and invaded Spain (1145); captured Cordoba (1148), Almeria (1151), and Granada (1154), subduing all of Muslim Spain; repulsed an invasion of southern Spain by Alfonso VII of Castile and Leon (1157); led a series of campaigns east along the African coast, subjugating North Africa as far as western Tripolitania (1149-1160); died in 1163.
The Almohads, like the
Almoravids earlier, were northwest-African Kharijites who were also greatly influenced by Berber reform movements.
Dierk Lange's article on the
Almoravids and the Islamization of West African states traces the advance of Berber forces into Ghana, Gawgaw (Gao), and Kanem during the eleventh century, replacing the indigenous dynasties there with Muslim regimes.
Although the
Almoravids did not construct such towers, the Almohads conceived of them as "architectural statements .
To review the poets treated in this book: Ibn Gabirol apparently wrote under patronage of various Jewish courtiers; Moses Ibn Ezra lost whatever public position he had on the arrival of the
Almoravids; Judah Halevi apparently lived from medicine and various business affairs; Todros enjoyed the patronage of Jewish courtiers, and Falaqera's life is unknown.
The courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque witnessed last Sunday, the first day of Eid al-Adha, and immediately after the Eid prayers, stormed by the settlers and protected by the occupation forces, and soldiers attacked the
Almoravids and wounded dozens of them.
The history of the
Almoravids and Almohads in the Islamic West, she argues, is as significant as that of the Seljuk Turks in the East.
(76) However at the same time, and probably due to a phonetic proximity between Latin and Arabic, it also started to be given another more restrictive meaning to refer to the
Almoravids (al-murabitun), the Berber dynasty that took power in the Western Maghreb in the second half of the eleventh century, and later ruled over al-Andalus from 1086.