This is the first book in English to provide a comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the Almoravids and the Almohads, the two most important Berber dynasties of the medieval Islamic west, an area that encompassed southern Spain and Portugal, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. The Sanhaja Almoravids emerged from the Sahara in the 1050s to conquer vast territories and halt the Christian advance in Iberia. They were replaced a century later by their rivals, the Almohads, supported by the Masmuda Berbers of the High Atlas. Although both have often been seen as uncouth, religiously intolerant tribesmen who undermined the high culture of al-Andalus, this book argues that the eleventh to thirteenth centuries were crucial to the Islamisation of the Maghrib, its integration into the Islamic cultural sphere, and its emergence as a key player in the western Mediterranean, and that much of this was due to these oft-neglected Berber empires.
Articles
Relations between rulers and ruled in the medieval Maghrib: The "social contract" in the Almoravid and Almohad centuries, 1050-1250, Comparative Islamic Studies 10: 2, 2014 |
Tribal identities and the formation of the Almohad élite: The salutory tale of Ibn ‘Aṭiyya, , 2012 |
Almohad tawḥīd and its implications for religious difference, Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, 2: 2, Special Issue, Religious Minorities under the Almohads, 2010 |