58 CHAPTER THREE
they behave like our coreligionists and adhere to our tradition; but God
alone knows what they hide in their hearts and what they do in their
houses.”^21
The persecution of religious minorities contributed to the depiction of
the Almohads in modern scholarship as benighted fanatics,^22 what can be
described as “fundamentalists” in the pejorative sense sometimes attached
to this word today. More recent scholarship revokes this description, un-
derlining the intellectual openness of the Almohads toward the study of
philosophy.^23 As I have argued elsewhere, this last depiction is also greatly
exaggerated.^24 The goal of the present study, however, is not to evaluate
the Almohads, but rather to examine the impact of their thought on Mai-
monides. In this context, and before approaching the thought of Maimo-
nides himself, it is worth noting a central trait of Almohad revolutionary
thought: the primary place of usul, a term denoting both the authorita-
tive primary sources of law and the fundamental doctrines of belief. In
this sense, one is tempted to see them as “fundamentalists” in the origi-
nal sense of the word, as coined to describe some trends in late nineteenth-
century Christian thought: namely, a militant movement that formulates
the foundational doctrines of religion, and regards them as the sole
binding “testimony of truth.”^25 Unlike modern- day fundamentalists,
however, the Almohads did not advocate a literalist interpretation of
the Scriptures. This point is worth stressing: several sources indicate that
theZahiri Andalusi scholar Ibn Hazm (d. 1026) was respected by the
Almohads, and that they were infl uenced by his literalist thought. In
particular, the second Almohad ruler, Abu Yaqub Yusuf,seems to have
had some sympathy with the Zahiri school.^26 The Almohads’ strict rejec-
tion of anthropomorphism, however, precludes seeing them as literalists
or scripturalists. We may thus use the term “fundamentalists”— in its
original sense— in order to highlight the paramount importance of usul
(^21) Marrakushi,Mujib, 435; and see Roth, Jews, Visigoths and Muslims, 118; and see note
36, below.
(^22) See, for instance, Goldziher, “Introduction,” in Luciani, Le Livre de Mohammed Ibn
Toumert, 1: “Le mouvement almohade qui, en peu de temps, devait répandre la terreur à
travers le monde maghrébin,” or: “l’ardeur dogmatique d’un pauvre berbère fanatique.”
(^23) See, for instance, Fierro, “The Legal Policies of the Almohad Caliphs,” 239; Fricaud,
“LesTalaba dans la société almohade”; G. F. Hourani, “Averroes: The Decisive Treatise,
Determining what the Connection is between Religion and Philosophy,” in Lerner and
Mahdi, eds., Medieval Po litical Philosophy, 164; Geoffroy, “L’almohadisme théologique
d’Averroès,” 9– 47.
(^24) See Stroumsa, “Philosophes almohades?” 1139– 44.
(^25) See, for instance, M. Marsden, “Evangelical and Fundamental Christianity,” in The En-
cyclopedia of Religion, ed. M. Eliade (New York and London, 1987), 5:190– 97, esp. 193,
and bibliography there.
(^26) See below, apud note 115.