Impress Moroccans with your
knowledge of the latest developments
in Moroccan society, Amazigh culture,
and North African politics, all covered
in English at
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoonA Travellers History of North Africa by
Barnaby Rogerson is a handy and
accessible guide that puts Morocco
into the wider currents of regional
history.foundations.
Almohad Demolition & Construction Crews
A bloody power struggle ensued between the sons of ibn Tumart and the sons of his generals
that wouldn’t be settled definitively until 1185, when Abu Yusuf Yacoub, the young son of the
Muslim governor of Seville and Valencia, rode south into Morocco and drove his foes into the
desert. But he also kept and expanded his power base in Spain, winning so many victories
against the princes of Spain that he earned the moniker Al-Mansour, ‘the victorious’. He
modelled Seville’s famous La Giralda after Marrakesh’s Koutoubia minaret, and reinvented
Marrakesh as an Almohad capital and learning centre to rival Fez.
Yacoub el-Mansour’s urban-planning prowess also made Fez arguably the most squeaky-
clean city of medieval times, with 93 hammams, 47 soap factories and 785 mosques complete
with ablutions facilities. Yacoub el-Mansour was also a patron of great thinkers, including
Aristotle scholar Ibn Rashid – whose commentary would help spark a Renaissance among
Italian philosophers – and Sufi master Sidi Bel-Abbes. However, Yacoub’s enlightenment and
admiration of architecture was apparently not all-encompassing; several synagogues were
demolished under his rule.
Defeated by Bulls & Betrayal
Similar thinking (or lack thereof) prevailed in 12th-century
Europe, where a hunt for heretics turned to officially sanctioned
torture under papal bulls of the egregiously misnamed Pope
Innocent IV. Bishop Bernard of Toledo, Spain, seized Toledo’s
mosque, and rallied Spain’s Castilian Christian kings in a
crusade against their Muslim rulers.
The Almohads were in no condition to fight back. When Yacoub’s 16-year-old son was
named caliph, he wasn’t up to the religious responsibilities that came with the title. Instead, he
was obsessed with bullfighting, and was soon gored to death.
Yacoub el-Mansour must’ve done pirouettes in his grave around 1230, when his next son
tapped as caliph, Al-Mamun, allied with his Christian persecutors and turned on his fellow
Almohads in a desperate attempt to hang onto his father’s empire. This short-lived caliph added
the ultimate insult to Almohad injury when he climbed the Koutoubia minbar (pulpit) and
announced that ibn Tumart wasn’t a true Mahdi (leader) of the faithful. That title, he claimed,
rightfully belonged to Jesus.
BY MARRIAGE OR MURDER: THE
MERENIDS
When Zenata Berbers from the Anti Atlas invaded the Almohad
capital of Marrakesh in 1269, the Almohad defeat was
complete. The Zenata had already ousted the Almohads in
Meknès, Salé, Fez and most of the Atlantic Coast. To win over
religious types, they promised moral leadership under their new Merenid dynasty. Making good
on the promise, the Merenids undertook construction of a medersa (school of religious learning)
in every major city they conquered, levying special taxes on Christian and Jewish communities
for the purpose. In exchange, they allowed these communities to practise key trades, and hired