The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Almohads (1130–1269)

The Almohad (or Mu’minid) dynasty was the first to rule a unified Islamic West (North Africa, excluding Egypt and the Iberian Peninsula) from 1130 to 1269.

The dynasty’s first ruler was ‘Abd al-Mu’min (r. 1130–63), a Zanata Berber from the area of Tlemcen and the conqueror of what are now Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, as well as Andalus (Muslim Spain and Portugal). ‘Abd al-Mu’min was a pupil of the Masmuda Berber Ibn Tumart (d. 1130), the founder of the Almohad (Arabic al-muwaḥḥid) movement, so-called because of the insistence on God’s unity (tawḥīd) and the rejection of the anthropomorphist beliefs with which the previous dynasty, the Almoravids, were charged. Characterized as a Mahdi—meaning a messianic figure whose doctrine guaranteed religious certainty and truth—and as the inheritor of the station of prophecy and infallibility (wārith maqām al-nubuwwa wa-l-‘iṣma), Ibn Tumart paved the way for ‘Abd al-Mu’min’s adoption of the caliphal title of “Commander of the Faithful” (amīr al-mu’minīn), first adopted in North Africa by the Fatimids. After defeating the Arab tribes (Qays ‘Aylan) Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal at Sétif in 1153, ‘Abd al-Mu’min incorporated them into the Almohad army to free himself from the original Almohad (mostly Masmuda) tribes whose shaykhs constituted the backbone of the political and military organization. ‘Abd al-Mu’min then adopted a Qaysi genealogy that included the Prophet Muhammad and the pre-Islamic Prophet Khalid b. Sinan, which—being a lineage of prophecy—was also a lineage entitled to the caliphate. In order to rule an extended empire, ‘Abd al-Mu’min created new political and religious elites, the ṭalaba and the ḥuffāẓ, who, after having received religious, intellectual, and military training, were sent to all the districts of the empire, charged with teaching Ibn Tumart’s creeds and implementing Almohad policies recorded in official epistles, some of which have been preserved. Jews and Christians were forced to convert in the same way that Muslims were obliged to adhere to Ibn Tumart’s understanding of true Islam. Changes were introduced in the direction and architecture of the mosques, new formulas were pronounced in the call to prayer, and the square shape came to characterize Almohad coins; all of these signs of the new era were brought on by the Mahdi. The Almohad anti-madhhab stance (i.e., rejection of legal discrepancies and therefore of the existing legal schools) led to a rapprochement to Zahirism and Ibn Hazm’s legal and doctrinal views. The Almohad caliph’s rule was assimilated to God’s order (amr Allāh).

Under ‘Abd al-Mu’min’s successors, Abu Ya‘qub Yusuf (r. 1163–84) and Abu Yusuf Ya‘qub al-Mansur (r. 1184–99), Sufism and philosophy flourished as possible developments of the Almohad reformulation of Islamic doctrinal and political thought, producing the important works of Ibn Tufayl (d. 1185), Ibn Rushd (d. 1198), and Ibn al-‘Arabi (d. 1240). Sufis and philosophers, however, were also subject to charges of heresy, with most Sufis emigrating to the Islamic East, as their claims to God’s friendship were seen as a threat to Almohad “totalism” (tawḥīd). The use of the Berber language declined as the original local focus (the Islamic West as a sort of “new Hijaz”) was gradually abandoned in favor of more universalistic tendencies, as shown in Ibn Jubayr’s (d. 1217) Riḥla (Travels).

Fights against the Christians in the Iberian Peninsula did not succeed in the permanent recovery of lost territories, and the victory at Alarcos (1195) was shortly followed by the defeat at Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) and the loss of Córdoba and Valencia (1236 and 1238) and later Jaén and Sevilla (1248). In North Africa, the Almoravid Banu Ghaniya posed a constant military threat, while internal opponents—sometimes with Mahdist claims—had to be fought. Internal divisions among the Mu’minids and the Almohad elites eventually led to civil strife and even rejection of Ibn Tumart’s figure and doctrine. The disintegration of the empire manifested itself in autonomous Hafsid rule in Tunisia and Eastern Algeria (1229) and in the conquest of Marrakesh by the Marinids in 1269, after their occupation of northern Morocco, while the ‘Abd al-Wadids carved out a kingdom of their own in western Algeria with their capital at Tlemcen.