The Mercenary Mediterranean_ Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon - Hussein Fancy

10 introduction

tendencies of the prevailing Muslim orthodoxies of North Africa. His fol-

lowers took the name the Almohads (al- Muwaḥḥidūn), meaning the “Uni-

tarians.” Their revolution began in the High Atlas at Tinmallal (Tinmal),

but it was only after Ibn Tūmart’s death that the Almohad armies found

success beyond these mountains. By 1159 , the Almohads held the North

African coast from Tripoli to the Atlantic, and by 1172 , they held all of

al- Andalus.

Within the historiography of medieval Iberia, the arrival of the Almo-

hads has often been viewed as a step in the wrong direction, a moment at

which a world of secular tolerance and cultural efflorescence gave way to

blind religious intolerance and violent oppression. Amira K. Bennison

and Maribel Fierro have recently challenged this view.^24 First, they have

reevaluated the Almohads’ restrictive policies toward Christians and Jews

within Ibn Tūmart’s efforts to reform Islam, his claim to have restored an

authentic and universal monotheism for all believers. Second, they have

emphasized the influence of the Almohad rationalist political theology

upon European rulers from Frederick II to Alfonso X of Castile. The full

understanding of the history of jenets both hinges upon and extends the

significance of these insights.

Mediterran

ea

n

Sea

Valencia

Palermo

Barcelona

Alarcos

Las Navasde Tolosa

Toledo

Córdoba

Murcia

Granada

Tangiers Gibraltar Almería

Fez

Marrakesh

Algiers

Bougie Tunis

Jaén

Zaragoza Lérida

Tinmallal

Malaga

Sardinia

Corsica

Balea

ricIslands

(1195)

(1212)

0250

miles

Almohad Empire

Norman Sicily

High

Atla

s

3. The Almohad Caliphate (1214). Courtesy Dick Gilbreath, Gyula Pauer Center for Cartog-
   raphy and GIS, University of Kentucky.