The Almohads

The Almohads were a Morocco-based (Berber?) group who took power from the Almoravids in the mid-twelfth century and eventually ruled over al-Andalus from 1170s-1212.

Their spiritual founder, Muhammad Ibn Tumart (d. 1130) was from a town in the Atlas Mountains, but moved in 1106 to al-Andalus (Córdoba) to study as a young man. He then went to Baghdad in 1110, where he studied with al-Ghazali. He returned to the Maghrib and declared he was the mahdi, the messiah, and encouraged Muslims in the area, including al-Andalus, to renew their religious faith. He advocated following tradition (sunna) and consensus of religious authorities (so none of the Aristotelian or Maliki stuff that was so popular in Andalusia intellectual circles). He emphasized his version of Muslim monotheism tawhid, from which the Almohads get their name. The ruling Almoravids perceived Ibn Tumart and his followers as a threat and attempted unsuccessfully to silence him by force. Almohads were from a different regional group/s (the Masmudi and later Zanata) from the Almoravids (who were mostly of cenhegi origins) and they also arose in different regions: the Almoravids in the south (Northern Mauritania/southern Morocco), the Almohads in the Atlas Mountains.

The first Almohad to declare himself emir, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin (d. 1163) shifted the seat of Almohad power to al-Andalus. His son, Abu Ya'qub Yusuf and grandson, Abu Yusuf Ya'qub inherited their positions as rulers, becoming the Mu'minid dynasty. They suppressed local resistance from former Almoravids such as Ibn Mardanish and made alliances with Iberian Christian kings (as discussed below), and in 1171 Abu Ya'qub Yusuf "officially took the title Amir al-Mu'minin" (Catlos 276).

The Almohads controlled the Saharan gold route and used coinage as a means of propaganda. Their square-shaped dirhams did not use the name of the ruler or a date, opting instead for a statement on the unity and uniqueness of God (the basic message of their belief, tawhid) (Catlos 279).

The Almohads maintained political relations with Navarre, León, Genoa, Pisa, Castile and the papacy. According to Brian Catlos (Kingdoms of the Faithful), the Almohads often fought as allies to Christian kings in the Peninsula and employed thousands of Christian soldiers in their ranks. At one point there were some 12,000 Christian soldiers in the Almohad capital, Marrakech.

The Banu Ghaniya were an Almoravid dynasty in al-Andalus in the 12th and 13th centuries.

After the fall of the Almoravids to the Almohads on the Peninsula, they ruled the Balearic Islands as an independent kingdom from the 1140s to 1203. Ali ibn Ishaq and Yahya Ibn Ghaniya recovered territory in North Africa from the Almohads in the 1180s, including Bougie, Constantine and Algiers.

The philosopher and physician, Ibn Rushd, depicted Ibn Ghaniya--the Almoravid ruler of Cordoba--as a tyrant, justifying his overthrow by the Almohads in his commentary of Plato's Republic:

Take for example the rule existing in our own country, Cordova, after 500 H.R. [1106/7 CE]. For it was almost completely democratic, <but> then it turned into tyranny. It will be made evident in a statement and through an investigation how his <the tyrant's> rise will take place by these actions. . . . he thinks that once he has robbed <them of> their property they will not he able to shake him off. For they will be busy with themselves and seek their food every day, just as happened to the people of our district with the man who is known as Ibn Ghaniya. --Ibn Rushd's commentary on Plato's Republic, 235. (trans. and ed. EIJ Rosenthal)

Ibn Mardanīsh (d. 567 AH/1172 CE) was, in Catlos' terms "a neo-muwallad of Navarrese origin and former Almoravid commander, known to the Christian chroniclers as the 'Wolf King'" (275).

he was utterly dependent on Christian support, for which he was obliged to pay enormous sums in tribute. In return, Ramón Berenguer IV and Alfonso VII of Castile lent him troops and protection. His army became closely integrated with their such that in 1158, for example, Ibn mar danish led the forces of the urban militia of Christian Ávila against Seville, which had been established as the Almohad's Andalusi capital. Catlos, Kingdoms of Faith, 275-76

Ibn Mardanish created a small kingdom out of Valencia and Murcia. Abu Ya-qub Yusuf attacked and defeated Ibn Mardanish's son in 1171 and married ibn Mardanish's daughter, effectively neutralizing this threat.

Alfonso VII of León/ II of Castile (d. 1157), was the first Iberian monarch to make himself Emperor (in 1135). He founded the first Cistercian monastery in the Peninsula, Fitero.

He made the kings of Navarre and Aragón his vassals for a time. However, during his reign Portugal gained its independence and Ctaalonia and Aragón consolidated into the Crown of Aragón. Alfonso VII led a seven month campaign against Almoravid held territories in the south in 1138. The Almoravid ruler of Córdoba, Ibn Ghaniya became his vassal in 1144. During the Almohad period, he joined García Ramírez of Navarre and Ramon Berenguer IV to lead a group of Catalan, Frankish, Genoese and Pisan soldiers and sailors in a an attack of Almohad-held Almería--a campaign sanctioned by pope Eugene III as a Crusade. After conquering Almería in 1147, the imprisoned Muslim cleric/intellectual, Ibn Hubaysh of Almería (d. 1188) crafted for him a genealogy claiming to show he was a descendant of the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius (Fierro).

The Alcázar, the Giralda

The tower known as the Giralda in Seville is today the bell tower of the cathedral. It was built as a twin tower of the Kutubiyya mosque in Marrakech (see the opening photo, tower in distance) and they marked the limits of the Almohad empire, which spanned the Straights of Gibraltar.

The caliph Abu Yaqub Yúsuf ordered its construction and it was built under his son  Abu Yúsuf Yaqub al-Mansur  in 1184.

The tower was part of a large mosque, later converted into the cathedral. Like the Mosque of Córdoba, the cathedral of Seville maintains today an exterior patio of orange trees arranged in rows, echoing the columns of the no longer extant mosque.

"Averroes’ main concern was that everybody felt part of the same community and that difference of understanding – unavoidable –did not lead to alienation while not renouncing to elevate such understanding in those who could not attain the highest level as represented by philosophy. Education was necessary at all levels. . . . The traditional scholars (the fuqahā’) saw the danger of the legislative reform proposed by Averroes, the Almohad shaykhs saw the danger of sidelining Ibn Tūmart’s figure and his creed, some of the ṭalaba were also in favour of not abandoning the early teachings (the ṭālib ʽAlī al-Jazīrī had rebelled in 586/1190 claiming the revival of Almohadism) probably because philosophy was not open to all of them: it is in these circles where Averroes’ ‘disgrace’ was organized, that is, among those who were close to the philosopher and could therefore collect evidence in order to damage him when they felt that he had gone too far in what he represented. And what he represented was the ‘new man’ made possible by the Almohad revolution: member of the new religious and intellectual elites (the ṭalaba), philosopher, legislator, educator and political reformer." Maribel Fierro, "Averroes Disgrace and His Relation with the Almohads"

The Almohad army was destroyed and the Christian forces suffered only light casualties. Returning to Marrakech in defeat, the caliph retreated into his palace until his death in 1213 . . The victory, transformed through he propaganda of Archbishop Rodrio [Jiménez de Rada] into a divine triumph and a vindication of Castilian manifest destiny, has traditionally been seen by historians as precipitating the decline of the Almohads. But al-Nasir's defeat at las Navas was a symptom. . . . (Catlos 283)

I mean, they preserved Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada (d. 1247) the inventor/historian of the battle of las Navas de Tolosa as a clash of civilizations as a mummy!

Alfonso X (El Sabio)--An Almohad king?

Catlos, Brian. Kingdoms of Faith. New York: Basic Books, 2018.

Fierro, Maribel. "Alfonso X “The Wise”: The Last Almohad Caliph?" Medieval Encounters 15 (2009) 175-198.  https://doi.org/10.1163/157006709X458819 

---. "Averroes' Disgrace and his Relation with the Almohads."

Gónzalez Cavero, Ignacio. "The Almohad Caliphate: A Look at Al-Andalus through Arabic Documentation and Their Artistic Manifestations." Arts 2018, 7, 33; doi:10.3390/arts7030033

Huici Miranda, Ambrosio. 1949. La leyenda y la historia en los orígenes del Imperio Almohade. Al-Andalus 2 (1949): 339–76.

---. Historia política del Imperio Almohade. Granada: University of Granada, 2000. 

Ibn ‘Idari. Al-Bayanal-mugrib. Nuevos fragmentos almorávides y almohades. Trans. Huici Miranda. Valencia: Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Zaragoza, Aragón y Rioja, 1963.

Viguera Molins, María Jesús (2007). Los reinos de Taifas y las invasiones magrebíes: Al-Andalus del XI al XIII. RBA.