Nomads from the southern Sahara built an empire that stretched from the Senegal River to central Spain. They founded Marrakech. They crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. They defeated the kings of Castile so thoroughly that the Christian reconquest stalled for a generation.
This is a fact that Spanish history prefers to mention briefly and Moroccan history prefers to mention often. The story of how desert monks became imperial conquerors involves a pilgrimage, a theological argument, and a military campaign that changed the map of medieval Europe. The Almoravid empire stretched from the Senegal River to the Ebro, from the Atlantic to Algiers. A Saharan empire that ruled half of Europe's southwest. The veils stayed on.
In the High Atlas, the Almohads rallied around Ibn Tumart, a scholar who declared himself the Mahdi — the divinely guided one. The war against the Almoravids lasted twenty-two years. His successor Abd al-Mu'min took Marrakech in 1147 and kept going. By 1172, all of Muslim Iberia answered to the Almohad caliph. The builders among them were extraordinary — the Koutoubia, the Giralda, the Hassan Tower, the ramparts of every major city. They built the way they conquered: on a scale that made argument difficult.
The end came at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The combined Christian kingdoms broke the Almohad army. Within fifty years, only Granada remained Muslim in Spain. The Berber caliphate — the empire that had governed from the Sahara to the Pyrenees — receded back across the strait. What it left behind is still standing.
The Almohad route from Tin Mal to Marrakech to Seville is a journey we're building. The mosque at Tin Mal still stands.
Tell us about your trip →The Facts
- —Almoravids: veiled Sanhaja nomads from Mauritania
- —Founded Marrakesh ~1070
- —Battle of Sagrajas 1086 — crushed Alfonso VI of Castile
- —Empire: Senegal River to Ebro, Atlantic to Algiers
- —Almohads rallied around Ibn Tumart (declared himself Mahdi)
- —War lasted 22 years
- —Abd al-Mu'min took Marrakesh 1147
- —All Muslim Iberia under Almohad caliph by 1172
- —Las Navas de Tolosa 1212 — empire fractured
- —Within 50 years only Granada remained Muslim in Spain
Sources
- Kennedy, Hugh. Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus. Longman, 1996
- Fletcher, Richard. Moorish Spain. University of California Press, 1992
- Abun-Nasr, Jamil. A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge University Press, 1987
