Product Code Database
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn Tūmart (, ca. 1080– August 1130) was a Muslim religion scholar, teacher and political leader, from the Sous in southern present-day Morocco. He founded and served as the spiritual and first military leader of the Almohad dynasty movement, a puritanical reform movement launched among the Masmuda Berber people of the Atlas Mountains. Ibn Tumart launched an open revolt against the ruling Almoravids during the 1120s. After his death his followers, the Almohads, went on to conquer much of North Africa and part of Spain. Although the Almohad movement itself was founded by Ibn Tumart, his disciple Abd al-Mu'min was the founder of the ruling dynasty.
Ibn Khaldun reports that Muhammad ibn Tumart himself was very pious as a child, and that he was nicknamed Asafu (Berber for "firebrand" or "lover of light") for his habit of lighting candles at mosques.Dramani Issifou (1988) "Islam as a social system in Africa since the seventh century", in M. Elfasi, editor, General History of Africa, Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, ch.4, p. 99
Ibn Tumart came from a humble family, and his father was a lamplighter at the mosque.History of Ibn Khaldun He and his followers claimed he was a descendant of Idris I of Morocco and thus Hasan ibn Ali, grandson of the prophet Muhammad, who took refuge in present-day Morocco in the eighth century. However, despite being supported by ibn Khaldun, this is today largely disputed. At the time, it was common for Berber leaders and tribes to claim a lineage to gain religious authority.
It was probably while in Baghdad that ibn Tumart began to develop a system of his own by combining the teachings of his Ash'arite masters with parts of the doctrines of others, with a touch of Sufism imbibed from al-Ghazali. Almohad hagiographers report that ibn Tumart was in al-Ghazali's presence when news arrived that the Almoravids had proscribed and publicly burned his recent great work, Ihya' Ulum al-Din, upon which al-Ghazali is said to have turned to ibn Tumart and charged him, as a native of those lands, with the mission of setting the Almoravids right.
Ibn Tumart's main principle was a rigid unitarianism ( tawhid), which denied the existence of the attributes of God as incompatible with his unity and therefore a polytheistic idea. Ibn Tumart represented a revolt against what he perceived as anthropomorphism in the Muslim orthodoxy, but he was a rigid predestinarian and a strict observer of the law. He blamed the caliphate's "theological flaws" upon the ruling dynasty of the Almoravids. Ibn Thumart strongly opposed their sponsorship of the Maliki school of jurisprudence, whom he accused of neglecting the Sunnah and hadith (traditions and sayings of Muhammad and his companions) and relying too much on ijma (consensus of jurists) and other sources, an anathema to the stricter Zahirism favored by ibn Tumart. Ibn Tumart condemned the subtle reasoning of Maliki scholars as "innovations" ( bid‘ah), obscurantist, perverse and possibly heretical. Ibn Tumart also blamed the Almoravid governance for the latitude he found in Maghrebi society, notably the public sale of wine and pork in the markets, foodstuffs forbidden for Muslims. Another reform was the destruction or hiding of religious art in mosques. His rule and the rule of the Almohads after were Almohad reforms that attempted to turn the area under his control into a place where his doctrines held sway.
In a powerful display of unity and solidarity, Ibn Tumart's followers took up the name al-Muwwahidun, meaning those who affirm the unitarianism of God. This name was later translated by Spanish authors as Almohades.
His antics and fiery preaching prompted fed-up authorities to hustle him along from town to town. After being expelled from Bejaia, Ibn Tumart set himself up c.1119 at an encampment in Mellala (a few miles south of the city), where he began receiving his first followers and adherents. Among these were al-Bashir (a scholar, who would become his chief strategist), Abd al-Mu'min (a Zenata Berber who would become his eventual successor) and Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Baydhaq (who would later write the Kitab al-Ansab, the chronicle of the Almohads.) It was at Mellala that Ibn Tumart and his close companions began forging a plan of political action.
In 1120, Ibn Tumart and his small band of followers headed west into present-day Morocco. He stopped by Fez, the intellectual capital at the time, and engaged in polemical debates with the leading Malikite scholars of the city. Having exhausted them, the ulama of Fez decided they had enough and expelled him from the city. He proceeded south, hurried along from town to town like a vagabond (reportedly, he and his companions had to swim across the Bou Regreg, as they could not afford the ferry passage). Shortly after his arrival in Marrakesh, Ibn Tumart is said to have successfully sought out the Almoravid ruler Ali ibn Yusuf at a local mosque. In the famous encounter, when ordered to acknowledge the presence of the emir, Ibn Tumart reportedly replied "Where is the emir? I see only women here!" - an insulting reference to the tagelmust veil worn by the Almoravid ruling class.Messier (2010: p. 141)
Charged with fomenting rebellion, Ibn Tumart defended himself before the emir and his leading advisors. Presenting himself as a mere scholar, a voice for reform, Ibn Tumart set about lecturing the emir and his leading advisors about the dangers of innovations and the centrality of the Sunnah. When the emir's own scholars reminded him the Almoravids too embraced puritanical ideals, and were committed to the Sunnah, Ibn Tumart pointed out that the Almoravids professed puritanism had been clouded and deviated by "obscurantists", drawing attention to the ample evidence of laxity and impiety that prevailed in their dominions. When countered that at least on points of doctrine, there was little difference between them, Ibn Tumart brought out more emphasis on his own peculiar doctrines on the tawhid and the attributes. After a lengthy examination, the Almoravid jurists of Marrakesh concluded Ibn Tumart, however learned, was blasphemous and dangerous, insinuating he was probably a Kharijite agitator, and recommended he should be executed or imprisoned. The Almoravid emir, however, decided to merely expel him from the city, after a flogging of fourteen lashes.
Ibn Tumart proceeded to Aghmat and immediately resumed his old behavior - destroying every jug of wine in sight, haranguing passers-by for impious behavior or dress, engaging locals in controversial debate. The ulama of Aghmat complained to the emir, who changed his mind and decided to have Ibn Tumart arrested after all. He was saved by the timely intervention of Abu Ibrahim Ismail Ibn Yasallali al-Hazraji ("Ismail Igig"), a prominent chieftain of the Hazraja tribe of the Masmuda, who helped him escape the city. Ibn Tumart took the road towards the Sous valley, to hide among his own people, the Haghra.
Towards the end of Ramadan in late 1121, in a particularly moving sermon, Ibn Tumart reviewed his failure to persuade the Almoravids to reform by argument. After the sermon, having already claimed to be a sayyid of Muhammad, Ibn Tumart suddenly 'revealed' himself as the true Mahdi, the expected divinely guided justicer. He was promptly recognized as such by his audience. This was effectively a declaration of war on the Almoravid state. For to reject or resist the Mahdi's interpretations was equivalent to resisting God, and thus punishable with death as apostasy.
(Notions of mahdism were not unfamiliar in that part of present-day Morocco - not long before, the Sous valley had been a hotbed of Waqifite Shia, a remnant of Fatimid influence, and descendance from Muhammad had been the principal recommendation of the fondly remembered ).
At some point he was visited by Abu Hafs Umar ibn Yahya al-Hintati ("Umar Hintati"), a prominent Hintata chieftain (and stem of the future ). Omar Hintati was immediately impressed and invited Ibn Tumart to take refuge among the Masmuda tribes of the High Atlas, where he would be better protected from the Almoravid authorities. In 1122, Ibn Tumart abandoned his cave and climbed up the High Atlas.
In later years, Ibn Tumart's path from the cave of Igiliz to mountain fort of Tinmel - another conscious echo of the Muhammad's life (the hijra from Mecca to Medina) - would become a popular pilgrimage route for the Almohad faithful. The cave itself was preserved as a shrine for many years, where apparently Almohad partisans, regardless of their origin or background, would ceremonially reject their past affiliations and be "adopted" into Ibn Tumart's Hargha tribe).Fromherz (2005: p. 181)
Six principal Masmuda tribes adhered to the Almohad rebellion: Ibn Tumart's own Hargha tribe (from the Anti-Atlas) and the Ganfisa, the Gadmiwa, the Hintata, the Haskura and the Hazraja (roughly from west to east, along the High Atlas range).Julien, p.99
For the next eight years, the Almohad revolt was largely confined to an irresolute guerilla war through the ravines and peaks of the Atlas range. The principal damage done by the Almohads at this stage was the disruption of Almoravid tax-collection, and rendering insecure (or altogether impassable) the roads and mountain passes south of Marrakesh. The Sous valley, surrounded on three sides by Almohadist Masmuda mountaineers, was nearly cut off and isolated. Of more particular concern to the Almoravids was their threat to the Ourika River and Tizi n'Tichka passes, that connected Marrakesh to the Draa River valley on the other side of the High Atlas. These were the principal routes to the all-important city of Sijilmassa, gateway of the trans-Saharan trade, by which gold came from west Africa to present-day Morocco. But the Almoravids were unable to send enough manpower through the narrow passes to dislodge the Almohad rebels from their easily defended mountain strongpoints. The Almoravid authorities reconciled themselves to setting up strongpoints to confine them (most famously the fortress of Tasghimout that protected the approach to Aghmat), while exploring alternative routes through more easterly passes.Messier, 2010: p.153-54)
Ibn Tumart's closest companion and chief strategist, al-Bashir, took upon himself the role of political commissar, enforcing doctrinal discipline among the Masmuda tribesmen, often with a heavy head. This culminated in an infamous purge ( tamyiz) conducted by al-Bashir in the winter of 1129–30, with mass executions of disloyal partisans, which has been characterized as a brief "reign of terror".Messier (2010: p. 149) reports 15,000 men of Tinmel area were killed, and their wives and belongings distributed among the Almohad warriors.
In a bizarre and chilling footnote in the aftermath, it is said that Ibn Tumart returned to the battlefield at night with some of his followers, and ordered them to bury themselves in the field with a small straw to breathe by. Then, to invigorate the rest of the demoralized Almohads, he challenged those who doubted the righteousness of their cause, to go to the battlefield and ask the dead themselves if they were enjoying the blisses of heaven after falling in the fight for God's cause. When they heard the positive reply from the buried men, they were assuaged. To prevent the ruse from being revealed, it is said Ibn Thumart left them buried there, filling their straws so they would suffocate.James Edward Budgett-Meakin, (1899) The Moorish Empire: a historical epitome, London: Sonnenschein, p.69
Ibn Tumart had set up the Almohad commune as a minutely detailed pyramidical hierarchy with fourteen grades. At the top was the Ahl ad-Dar (the Mahdi's family), supplemented by a privy council known as the Council of Ten ( Ahl al-jamāʿā) which included the Ifriqiyan migrants who had first joined Ibn Tumart in Mellala. There was also a wider consultative "Council of Fifty", composed of the of the major Masmuda Berber tribes - the Hargha (Ibn Tumart's tribe, which had primacy in the hierarchy among the tribes), the Ganfisa, the Gadmiwa, the Hintata, the Haskura and the Hazraja. The Almohad military had been organized as arranged "units" named by tribe, with sub-units and internal hierarchies carefully and exactly spelled out. There were also organized groups of Talba and Huffaz, the preachers that had been the original missionaries and spreaders of Ibn Tumart's message.
| + ! width="200" | Notes |
| originally from Tagra (near Tlemcen, modern Algeria), Abd al-Mu'min was a Berber of the Kumiya tribe of the Zenata confederation.Julien, p.93 Abd al-Mu'min adhered at Mellala, and was given the appellation of "Lamp of the Almohads" ( Siraj al-Muwahhidin). He became Almohad emir and the first Almohad caliph after Ibn Tumart's death in 1130. | |
| a Sanhaja Berber, prob. adhered at Mellala Died c. 1142 of natural causes. Sometimes said to be the brother of the Almohad chronicler al-Baydhaq. | |
| from the people of Aghmat. His name was Arabized, he was known to the Berbers as bn al-Baqqāl and Ibn Tāʿḍamiyīt. Killed at battle of al-Buhayra in 1130. | |
| chieftain of Hazraja tribe of the Masmuda, who spirited Ibn Tumart from Aghmat to the High Atlas in 1120. Later appointed to lead Ibn Tumart's own Hargha tribe. | |
| chieftain of the Gadmiwa tribe of the Masmuda of the High Atlas. Killed at 1130 battle of al-Buhayra | |
| from the Hintata tribe. He was killed in the 1130 battle of al-Buhayra. His son would briefly serve as Almohad governor of Cordova. | |
| originally from the Massakala tribe. He came from Ānsā, an oasis in south of the Anti-Atlas. | |
| prob. adhered at Mellala, later appointed as sheikh of the Ganfisa tribe of the Masmuda. He disputed the succession with Abd al-Mu'min, but was defeated and executed in 1132. | |
| A scholar from Oran, prob. adhered at Mellala. He became Ibn Tumart's early right-hand-man and chief strategist and enforcer. Known as "the Herald" ( al-Bashir), he was killed in the 1130 battle of al-Buhayra. | |
| chieftain of the Hintata tribe of the Masmuda of the High Atlas. Omar Hintata became the father-in-law and principal ally of Abd al-Mu'min. A major military leader, he is the stem of the later Hafsid dynasty of Ifriqiya. | |
Of the Council of Ten, five were killed at al-Buhayra in 1130, two died in subsequent years, and only three survived well into the height of the Almohad empire - Abd al-Mu'min, Omar Hintata and Ismail al-Hazraji.
Exactly how Abd al-Mu'min imposed himself is uncertain. As a Zenata Berber, Abd al-Mu'min was an alien among the Masmuda. But that foreignness itself might have recommended him as a neutral choice to the Masmuda sheikhs, as it would avoid the appearance of favoritism towards any particular tribe. Nonetheless it is reported that the more easterly Masmuda tribes, the Haskura and the Harzaja, rejected Abd al-Mu'min's leadership and broke away from the Almohad coalition at this stage.Messier (2010: p. 153) Abd al-Mu'min would have to force them back to the fold. (Ibn Khaldun reports (improbably) that Abd al-Ma'mun managed to conceal the death of Ibn Tumart for nearly two years, in order to gather allies and marry the daughter of Omar Hintati, who would become his principal ally.) His principal rival Ibn Malwiya was captured, condemned and executed by 1132, and Ibn Tumart's own family soon disappears from significance, their roles eclipsed by Abd al-Mu'min's own family, the future dynasty of Almohad caliphs. Whatever doubts lingered about Abd al-Mu'min's leadership certainly dissipated a decade later, when Abd al-Mu'min led the renewed Almohads down from the mountains on a seven-year campaign of conquest of present-day Morocco, culminating in the fall of Marrakesh in 1147.
|
|
