ABSTRACT

The story of the Almoravids is well known Early in the eleventh century, in the region of the southwestern Sahara close to the Bilad a!-Sudan (“ the land of the Blacks”), a leader of the Sanhaja "veiled Berbers" went on pilgrimage to Mecca. On his return he met a distinguished scholar in Qayrawan, Abu 'Im ran al-Fasi. The conversation with this faqih revealed the weaknesses o f Islam as practiced amongst the peoples of the southern Sahara. Yahya b. Ibrahim, the Sanhaja chief, could find no one in Qayrawan willing to cross the desert for the purpose of giving religious instruction to those remote Berbers. H ence, it was suggested that he seek out a disciple of Abu Imran, a certain Wajaj b. Zallu, who resided in southern Morocco. One of W ajaj’s disciples, ‘Abd Allah b. Yasin, was assigned to Yahya b. Ibrahim, and together they returned to the desert. After much initial discouragement, ‘Abd Allah b. Yasin succeeded in uniting the Sanhaja peoples in a movement inspired by a new religious message. Al-Murabitun (Almoravids), as they came to be known, set out in a united force to the south and the north. In the north they invaded Morocco and Spain, creating an empire which lasted about a century. They imposed upon their subject peoples a rigorous puritan brand of Islam based upon a strict interpretation and application o f Muslim la w according to the MalikI madhhab. In the south the Almoravids conquered the centuries old Sudanese kingdom of Ghana, and accelerated the pace of Islamisation in the Western Sudan.1