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Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Yusuf ibn Tashfin, also Tashafin, Teshufin, (Arabic: يوسف بن تاشفين ناصر الدين بن تالاكاكين الصنهاجي, romanized: Yūsuf ibn Tāshfīn Naṣr al-Dīn ibn Tālākakīn al-Ṣanhājī, Berber languages: ⵢⵓⵙⴼ ⵓⵜⴰⵛⴼⵉⵏ; reigned c. 1061 – 1106) was a Sanhaja leader of the Almoravid Empire. He cofounded the city of Marrakesh and led the Muslim forces in the Battle of Sagrajas.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin came to al-Andalus from the Maghreb to help the Muslims fight against Alfonso VI of León, eventually achieving victory in Sagrajas and promoting an Islamic legal system in the region. In 1061 he took the title Amir al-Muslimin "Leader of the Muslims", recognizing the suzerainty of the Abbasid caliph as Amir al-Mu'minin "Leader of the Believers".
Yusuf ibn Tashfin was a Berber of the Banu Turgut, a branch of the Lamtuna, a tribe belonging to the Sanhaja confederacy. The Sanhaja were linked by medieval Muslim genealogists with the Himyarite Kingdom through semi-mythical and mythical pre-Islamic kings, and some of the contemporary sources (e.g., ibn Arabi) add the nisba al-Himyari to Yusuf's name to indicate this legendary affiliation. For example, his surname is documented as Al-Sanhaji al-Himyari in the 14th-century work of Ismail ibn al-Ahmar. Modern scholarship rejects this Berber–Yemeni link as fanciful.
Abu Bakr ibn Umar, a leader of the Lamtuna and one of the original disciples of Abdallah ibn Yasin, who served as a spiritual liaison for followers of the Maliki school, was appointed chief commander after the death of his brother Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni. His brother oversaw the military for ibn Yasin but was killed in the Battle of Tabfarilla against the Godala in 1056. Ibn Yasin, too, would die in battle against the Barghawata three years later.
Abu Bakr was an able general, taking the fertile Sous and its capital Aghmat a year after his brother's death, and would go on to suppress numerous revolts in the Sahara, on one such occasion entrusting his pious cousin Yusuf with the stewardship of Sous and thus the whole of his northern provinces. He appears to have handed him this authority in the interim but even went as far as to give Yusuf his wife, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, purportedly the richest woman of Aghmat. This sort of trust and favor on the part of a seasoned veteran and savvy politician reflected the general esteem in which Yusuf was held, not to mention the power he attained as a military figure in his absence. Daunted by Yusuf's new-found power, Abu Bakr saw any attempts at recapturing his post as politically unfeasible and returned to the fringes of the Sahara to settle the unrest of the southern frontier.
Yusuf was an effective general and strategist who put together a formidable Army comprising Sudanese contingents, Christian mercenaries and the Saharan tribes of the Gudala, Lamtuna and Masufa, which enabled him to expand the empire, crossing the Atlas Mountains onto the plains of Morocco, reaching the Mediterranean Sea and capturing Fez in 1075, Tangier and Oujda in 1079, Tlemcen in 1080, and Ceuta in 1083, as well as Algiers, Ténès and Oran in 1082–83. He is regarded as the co-founder of the famous Moroccan city Marrakech (in Berber Murakush, corrupted to Morocco in English). The site had been chosen and work started by Abu Bakr in 1070. The work was completed by Yusuf, who then made it the capital of his empire, in place of the former capital Aghmāt.
In the year 1091, the last sovereign king of al-Andalus, al-Mu'tamid, saw his Abbadid-inherited taifa of Seville, controlled since 1069, in jeopardy of being taken by the increasingly stronger king of León, Alfonso VI. The Taifa period followed the demise of the Umayyad Caliphate. Previously, the emir had launched a series of aggressive attacks on neighboring kingdoms, so as to amass more territory for himself, but his military aspirations and capabilities paled in comparison to those of the Leonese king, who in the name of Christendom, in 1085, captured Toledo and exacted parias, or tribute, from Muslim princes in places such as Granada, al-Mu'tamid of Seville being no exception. The tribute of the emirs bolstered the economy of the Christian kingdom and harmed the Muslim economy. These are the circumstances that led to the Almoravid conquest and the famous quote, rebuffing his son, Rashid, who advised him not to call on Yusuf ibn Tashfin, where al-Mu'tamid said:
I have no desire to be branded by my descendants as the man who delivered al-Andalus as prey to the infidels. I am loath to have my name cursed in every Muslim pulpit. And, for my part, I would rather be a camel-driver in Africa than a swineherd in Castile.
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Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Yusuf ibn Tashfin, also Tashafin, Teshufin, (Arabic: يوسف بن تاشفين ناصر الدين بن تالاكاكين الصنهاجي, romanized: Yūsuf ibn Tāshfīn Naṣr al-Dīn ibn Tālākakīn al-Ṣanhājī, Berber languages: ⵢⵓⵙⴼ ⵓⵜⴰⵛⴼⵉⵏ; reigned c. 1061 – 1106) was a Sanhaja leader of the Almoravid Empire. He cofounded the city of Marrakesh and led the Muslim forces in the Battle of Sagrajas.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin came to al-Andalus from the Maghreb to help the Muslims fight against Alfonso VI of León, eventually achieving victory in Sagrajas and promoting an Islamic legal system in the region. In 1061 he took the title Amir al-Muslimin "Leader of the Muslims", recognizing the suzerainty of the Abbasid caliph as Amir al-Mu'minin "Leader of the Believers".
Yusuf ibn Tashfin was a Berber of the Banu Turgut, a branch of the Lamtuna, a tribe belonging to the Sanhaja confederacy. The Sanhaja were linked by medieval Muslim genealogists with the Himyarite Kingdom through semi-mythical and mythical pre-Islamic kings, and some of the contemporary sources (e.g., ibn Arabi) add the nisba al-Himyari to Yusuf's name to indicate this legendary affiliation. For example, his surname is documented as Al-Sanhaji al-Himyari in the 14th-century work of Ismail ibn al-Ahmar. Modern scholarship rejects this Berber–Yemeni link as fanciful.
Abu Bakr ibn Umar, a leader of the Lamtuna and one of the original disciples of Abdallah ibn Yasin, who served as a spiritual liaison for followers of the Maliki school, was appointed chief commander after the death of his brother Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni. His brother oversaw the military for ibn Yasin but was killed in the Battle of Tabfarilla against the Godala in 1056. Ibn Yasin, too, would die in battle against the Barghawata three years later.
Abu Bakr was an able general, taking the fertile Sous and its capital Aghmat a year after his brother's death, and would go on to suppress numerous revolts in the Sahara, on one such occasion entrusting his pious cousin Yusuf with the stewardship of Sous and thus the whole of his northern provinces. He appears to have handed him this authority in the interim but even went as far as to give Yusuf his wife, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, purportedly the richest woman of Aghmat. This sort of trust and favor on the part of a seasoned veteran and savvy politician reflected the general esteem in which Yusuf was held, not to mention the power he attained as a military figure in his absence. Daunted by Yusuf's new-found power, Abu Bakr saw any attempts at recapturing his post as politically unfeasible and returned to the fringes of the Sahara to settle the unrest of the southern frontier.
Yusuf was an effective general and strategist who put together a formidable Army comprising Sudanese contingents, Christian mercenaries and the Saharan tribes of the Gudala, Lamtuna and Masufa, which enabled him to expand the empire, crossing the Atlas Mountains onto the plains of Morocco, reaching the Mediterranean Sea and capturing Fez in 1075, Tangier and Oujda in 1079, Tlemcen in 1080, and Ceuta in 1083, as well as Algiers, Ténès and Oran in 1082–83. He is regarded as the co-founder of the famous Moroccan city Marrakech (in Berber Murakush, corrupted to Morocco in English). The site had been chosen and work started by Abu Bakr in 1070. The work was completed by Yusuf, who then made it the capital of his empire, in place of the former capital Aghmāt.
In the year 1091, the last sovereign king of al-Andalus, al-Mu'tamid, saw his Abbadid-inherited taifa of Seville, controlled since 1069, in jeopardy of being taken by the increasingly stronger king of León, Alfonso VI. The Taifa period followed the demise of the Umayyad Caliphate. Previously, the emir had launched a series of aggressive attacks on neighboring kingdoms, so as to amass more territory for himself, but his military aspirations and capabilities paled in comparison to those of the Leonese king, who in the name of Christendom, in 1085, captured Toledo and exacted parias, or tribute, from Muslim princes in places such as Granada, al-Mu'tamid of Seville being no exception. The tribute of the emirs bolstered the economy of the Christian kingdom and harmed the Muslim economy. These are the circumstances that led to the Almoravid conquest and the famous quote, rebuffing his son, Rashid, who advised him not to call on Yusuf ibn Tashfin, where al-Mu'tamid said:
I have no desire to be branded by my descendants as the man who delivered al-Andalus as prey to the infidels. I am loath to have my name cursed in every Muslim pulpit. And, for my part, I would rather be a camel-driver in Africa than a swineherd in Castile.