History of Medieval Tunisia - Berber Islamic Movements

Berber Islamic Movements

In the medieval Maghrib, among the Berber tribes, two strong religious movements arose one after the other: the Almoravids (1056–1147), and the Almohads (1130–1269). Professor Jamil Abun-Nasr compares these movements with the 8th-and-9th-century Kharijites in the Magrib including Ifriqiya: each a militant Berber movement of strong Muslim faith, each rebellious against a status quo of lax orthodoxy, each seeking to found a state in which "leading the Muslim good life was the professed aim of politics". These medieval Berber movements, the Almoravids and the Almohads, have been compared to the more recent Wahhabis, strict fundamentalists of Saudi Arabia.

The Almoravids began as an Islamic movement of the Sanhaja Berbers, arising in the remote deserts of the southwest Maghrib. After a century, this movement had run its course, losing its cohesion and strength, thereafter becoming decadent. From their capital Marrakech the Almoravids had once governed a large empire stretching from Mauritania (south of Morocco) to al-Andalus (southern Spain), yet Almoravid rule had never reached east far enough to include Ifriqiya.

The rival Almohads were also a Berber Islamic movement, whose founder was from the Masmuda tribe. They defeated and supplanted the Amoravids and themselves established a large empire, which embraced the region of Ifriqiya, formerly ruled by the Zirids.