ABSTRACT
The Almohad conception of authority contained elements such as: inheritance of prophethood and infallibility, restoration of truth and revolutionary return of the imamate to those who had been deprived, Prophetic genealogy, and obedience like that owed to God and his Prophet. The early period of the Almohad caliphate is closer to the Fatimid model. Like the Fatimids, the Almohads did not count on the existing religious scholars but instead created their own elites, for whom they determined the training process and designated the contents of the message to be transmitted to the masses. As the Fatimid imam was the infallible source of all religious knowledge, the religious elites were directly dependent on him in doctrinal, but also political and economic terms. In a Sunni environment—where there is not a central focus of infallible knowledge—biographical dictionaries are written to record how religious scholars become such and how they relate to society and to the ruler.
