History of Medieval Tunisia

History Of Medieval Tunisia

The medieval era opens with the commencement of a process that would return Ifriqiya, i.e., Tunisia, and the entire Maghrib to local Berber rule. The precipitating cause was the departure of the Shia Fatimid Caliphate to their newly conquered territories in Egypt. To govern Ifriqiya in their stead, the Fatimids left the Zirid dynasty. Yet the Zirids would eventually break all ties to the Fatimids, even to the point of formally embracing Sunni doctrines (rivals to the Shi'a).

At this period there arose in the Maghrib two strong local movements dedicated to Muslim purity and practice, one following the other. First, the Almoravids emerged in the far west, i.e., in al-Maghrib al-Aksa (Morocco); although establishing a large empire running from modern Spain to southern Mauretania, Almoravid rule did not reach to the east as far as Ifriqiya. Later another Berber religious leader Ibn Tumart founded the Almohad movement, which supplanted the Almoravids, and grew to unify under its rule all of the west of Islam, al-Andalus as well as al-Maghrib. In Ifriqiya at the city of Tunis, the Hafsids became the eventual successor to Almohad rule. The Hafsids were a local Berber dynasty, whose own rule would continue for centuries with varying success, until the arrival of the Ottomans in the western Mediterranean.