Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0247/02478.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 33KB | 526 lines

$Unique_ID{COW02478}
$Pretitle{249}
$Title{Morocco
Chapter 1B.   Almohads}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{morocco
al
berber
tribes
century
makhzan
dynasties
dynasty
spain
sultan}
$Date{1986}
$Log{Figure 4.*0247802.scf
Figure 5.*0247803.scf
Figure 6.*0247804.scf
Table A.*0247801.tab
}
Country:     Morocco
Book:        Morocco, a Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1986

Chapter 1B.   Almohads

     The Masmoudas of the Anti-Atlas area expressed their discontent with
Almoravid rule in a new religious reform movement whose followers, known as
unitarians (al muahhid; literally, those who proclaim the oneness of God,
transliterated Almohad), preached a doctrine of moral regeneration through
reaffirmation of monotheism. Although it appeared to be a sectarian struggle,
Almohad opposition to the Almoravids was the result of long-standing animosity
between the mountain tribes and the desert nomads. The Masmoudas had already
organized a tribal state in the Atlas bilad al siba, which they would use as a
base for attacking the Sanhajas and conquering Morocco.

     The Almohad movement was founded by Ibn Tumart (died 1130), a member of
the Sunni ulama who returned from his pilgrimage to Mecca to denounce the
Almoravids for their decadence. Recognized as the Mahdi-the "Sinless One"
sent from God to redeem his people-by his followers in 1121, Ibn Tumart
condemned the anthropomorphism found in Berber folk religion that was allowed
to continue unchecked by the sultan. God, he taught, is wholly abstract,
without dimensions and resembling nothing; therefore, knowledge of God can be
attained through the use of reason, which is also abstract and objective.

     As judge and political leader as well as spiritual director, Ibn Tumart
gave the Masmouda Almohads the formal governmental structure that the Sanhaja
Almoravids had lacked. It was based on a hierarchical and theocratic
centralized government, but one that recognized Berber traditions of
representative government and provided for a consultative assembly composed of
tribal leaders. Ibn Tumart tried unsuccessfully to bridge the gap that
divided the tribes. Before his death he handpicked as his successor Abd al
Mumin (1130-63), a Zenata. Abd al Mumin assumed the title amir al muminin
(commander of the faithful), which would remain the appellation of Morocco's
sultans.

     By 1140 the Almohad sultan occupied most of Morocco, and in 1146 he took
Marrakech, massacred its inhabitants, and put an end to the Almoravid
dynasty. But Marrakech remained as the capital of the new Berber dynasty,
which under Sultan Yacub al Mansur (1184-99) stretched from Tripoli to Spain
and achieved its apogee under Sultan Mohammed al Nasir (1199-1214).

     Even before they had completed their conquest of Morocco, the Almohads
entered Spain at the invitation of the taifas, which had risen against the
Almoravids at Seville. Once again the Berbers carried forward the border of
Muslim Spain at the expense of the Christian kingdoms. The Andalusian amirs
were disappointed, however, to find the Almohads even more puritanical than
their predecessors originally had been. Abd al Mumin forced their submission
and proclaimed the reestablishment of the caliphate of Cordova, giving the
Almohad sultan supreme religious as well as political authority.

     Theology gradually gave way to dynastic politics as the obvious
motivating force behind the Almohad movement as blood ties replaced moral
qualities as qualification for high office. By 1156 a distinction was made
between leaders drawn from the sultan's family and tribal leaders drawn from
the Almohads and, as its empire grew, the dynasty became more removed from
the Berber support that had launched it. The dynasty's power base shifted to
Spain. Hilalian Arabs, defeated in battle by the Almohads, were nonetheless
allowed to settle in Morocco. Four of the Hilalian tribes, designated as jaysh
(army), were granted land tenure and exemption from taxation in return for
military service and were employed as tax collectors. The growth of the empire
also outstripped the capacity of Ibn Tumart's constitution to manage it.
Within 50 years after his death, he was denounced as a heretic, and his
religious teachings were rejected.

     The Almohads shared the crusading instincts of their Castilian opponents,
but the continuing wars in Spain overtaxed their resources. They were
decisively defeated in the epic battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), a
watershed in the history of the Christian reconquest of Spain, and Muslim
strength ebbed thereafter. Seville fell in 1248, reducing Andalusia to the
amirate of Granada, which had bought its safety by betraying the Almohad's
Spanish capital. The Hafsids, hereditary viceroys of the Almohad sultan,
wrested control of Ifriquiya from the empire, and the Almohad position in
Morocco was compromised by factional strife and a renewal of tribal warfare.

     Some sources find it ironic that a high culture should have flourished
in Morocco under the patronage of what had been at the outset puritanical
and intolerant sectarians from primitive desert and mountain tribes. But the
Almoravids were impressed by the patently superior civilization that they
found in Spain; and the Almohads, who had risen in reaction to the moral
accommodations that their predecessors had made there, were themselves soon
enticed by the sweetness of Andalusian life to abandon Ibn Tumart's strictures
against art and music.

     Morocco and Spain, linked under the Berber dynasties and forming a
natural geopolitical unit, shared a common culture-called Moorish-that was
a fusion of Andalusian taste and sensitivity and Berber forcefulness.
Andalusian civilization was in turn the product of an earlier synthesis of
Muslim Arab with Latin and Greek-Christian and classical-and Jewish cultural
values on Spanish soil. But Moorish culture, indeed the Moorish spirit,
transcended dynastic lines, political boundaries, and even religious barriers
in creating the new and unique forms of Islamic art, literature and
architecture that spread from Spain to the Maghrib. These are still clearly
seen in the elaborate arches and stucco sculpture of Moroccan mosques and
palaces of the period, in ivorywork and metalwork, in the distinctive
Maghribi style of Arabic calligraphy, and in the Andalusian music that
remains the classical expression of that art form in Morocco.

     Moorish culture and technology struck responsible chords in Christian
Europe and the tension and interplay between the Islamic and Christian worlds
in Spain was a principal source of Europe's twelfth-century renaissance. It
was in large part through Moorish scholars writing in Arabic, for example,
that classical Greek learning in science, medicine, and philosophy was
transmitted to medieval Europe.

     Muslim Spain's most important scholars of the twelfth century spent the
decisive years of their careers in Morocco, occupying court positions under
the Almoravids and Almohads. They combined interest in philosophy, theology,
and the physical and natural sciences. The Almoravid vizier Ibn Bajja
(called Avempace, 1090-1138) not only corrected errors in Ptolemy's
astronomical calculations and speculated on the nature of the soul but also
composed a treatise on platonic love that was one of the sources for the
Romantic strain in European literature. The philosophers Ibn Tufayl (1110-85)
and Ibn Rushd (called Averroes, 1126-98), who succeeded Ibn Tufayl as court
physician at Marrakech, were intimate advisers of Almohad sultans. European
scholars studied Aristotle through Latin translations of Averroes'
commentaries of his work.

     Jews made contributions to the Moorish achievement disproportionate to
their numbers. A few rose to high positions in government under the Berber
dynasties; others prospered in trade or as craftsmen. But as a group, Jews
were also subject to legal restrictions and