1121–1269 Berber empire in North Africa and Iberia
Almohad Caliphate
ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ(Arabic) al-Muwaḥḥidūn
1121–1269
The Almohad empire at its greatest extent, c. 1180–1212[1][2]
Status
Caliphate (from 1147)
Capital
Tinmel (c. 1124–1147)
Marrakesh (1147–1269)
In Al-Andalus:
Seville (1147–1162)
Córdoba (1162–1163)
Seville (1163–1248)[3]
Common languages
Berber languages, Arabic, Mozarabic
Religion
Islam (Almohadism)
Mahdi
• 1121–1130
Ibn Tumart
Caliph
• 1130–1163 (first)
Abd al-Mu'min
• 1266–1269 (last)
Idris al-Wathiq
History
• Established
1121
• Almoravids overthrown
1147
• Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
1212
• Marinid suzerainty
1248
• Disestablished
1269
Area
1150 est.[4]
2,300,000 km2 (890,000 sq mi)
1200 est.[5]
2,000,000 km2 (770,000 sq mi)
Currency
Dinar[6]
Preceded by
Succeeded by
Almoravid dynasty
Hammadid kingdom
Second Taifas period
Kingdom of Africa
Khurasanid dynasty
Banu Ghaniya
Marinid Sultanate
Hafsid Sultanate
Kingdom of Tlemcen
Third Taifas period
Kingdom of Castile
Kingdom of Aragon
Kingdom of Majorca
Kingdom of Portugal
Kingdom of León
Emirate of Granada
The Almohad Caliphate (IPA: /ˈælməhæd/; Arabic: خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or دَوْلَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or ٱلدَّوْلَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِيَّةُ from Arabic: ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, romanized: al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit. 'those who profess the unity of God'[7][8]) or Almohad Empire was a North African Berber Muslim empire founded in the 12th century. At its height, it controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa (the Maghreb).[9][10][11]
The Almohad movement was founded by Ibn Tumart among the Berber Masmuda tribes, but the Almohad caliphate and its ruling dynasty, known as the Mu'minid dynasty,[12][13][14] were founded after his death by Abd al-Mu'min al-Gumi.[15][16][17][18] Around 1121, Ibn Tumart was recognized by his followers as the Mahdi, and shortly afterwards he established his base at Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains.[19] Under Abd al-Mu'min (r. 1130–1163), they succeeded in overthrowing the ruling Almoravid dynasty governing Morocco in 1147, when he conquered Marrakesh and declared himself caliph. They then extended their power over all of the Maghreb by 1159. Al-Andalus followed, and all of Muslim Iberia was under Almohad rule by 1172.[20]
The turning point of their presence in the Iberian Peninsula came in 1212, when Muhammad al-Nasir (1199–1214) was defeated at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena by an alliance of the Christian forces from Castile, Aragon and Navarre. Much of the remaining territories of al-Andalus were lost in the ensuing decades, with the cities of Córdoba and Seville falling to the Christians in 1236 and 1248 respectively.
The Almohads continued to rule in Africa until the piecemeal loss of territory through the revolt of tribes and districts enabled the rise of their most effective enemies, the Marinids from northern Morocco in 1215. The last representative of the line, Idris al-Wathiq, was reduced to the possession of Marrakesh, where he was murdered by a slave in 1269; the Marinids seized Marrakesh, ending the Almohad domination of the Western Maghreb.
^"Qantara". Archived from the original on 2016-06-11. Retrieved 2013-02-21.
^"Qantara". Archived from the original on 2016-06-11. Retrieved 2013-02-21.
^Le Moyen Âge, XIe- XVe siècle, par Michel Kaplan & Patrick Boucheron. p. 213, Ed. Breal 1994 (ISBN 2-85394-732-7)[1]
^Taagepera, Rein (September 1997). "Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia". International Studies Quarterly. 41 (3): 475–504. doi:10.1111/0020-8833.00053. JSTOR 2600793.
^Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 222. doi:10.5195/JWSR.2006.369. ISSN 1076-156X.
^(in French) P. Buresi, La frontière entre chrétienté et islam dans la péninsule Ibérique, pp. 101–102. Ed. Publibook 2004 (ISBN 978-2-7483-0644-6)
^"Definition of ALMOHAD". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
"Almohad definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary". www.collinsdictionary.com. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
^Gerhard Bowering; Patricia Crone; Mahan Mirza; Wadad Kadi; Muhammad Qasim Zaman; Devin J. Stewart (2013). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-691-13484-0.
^"Almohads – Islamic Studies". Oxford Bibliographies. 6 Jan 2020. Retrieved 11 Feb 2020.
^Naylor, Phillip C. (2015-01-15). North Africa, Revised Edition: A History from Antiquity to the Present. University of Texas Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-292-76190-2.
Arjomand, Said Amir (2022). Messianism and Sociopolitical Revolution in Medieval Islam. Univ of California Press. p. 285. ISBN 978-0-520-38759-1.
Bowering, Gerhard; Crone, Patricia; Mirza, Mahan (2013). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton University Press. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-691-13484-0.
^Julien 1970, p. 108
^السلاوي, أبي العباس شهاب الدين أحمد/الدرعي (2014). الاستقصا لأخبار دول المغرب الأقصى 1-3 ج1 [Survey of the news of the countries of the Far Maghreb 1-3 Part 1] (in Arabic). Dar Al Kotob Al Ilmiyah دار الكتب العلمية. p. 243. ISBN 978-2-7451-5495-8.
^Abun-Nasr 1987, pp. 87, 94, and others.
^Bennison 2016, pp. 58 and after.
^Hopkins, J.F.P. (1986) [1971]. "Ibn Tūmart". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Vol. 3. Brill. pp. 958–960. ISBN 978-90-04-16121-4.
^Lévi-Provençal, Évariste (1986) [1960]. "'Abd al- Mu'min". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Vol. 1. Brill. pp. 78–80. ISBN 978-90-04-16121-4.
Adamson, Peter; Taylor, Richard C., eds. (2005). The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52069-0.
^Bennison 2016, pp. 67, 339.
^Buresi, Pascal; El Aallaoui, Hicham (2012). Governing the Empire: Provincial Administration in the Almohad Caliphate (1224–1269). Studies in the History and Society of the Maghrib. Vol. 3. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-23333-1.
The AlmohadCaliphate (IPA: /ˈælməhæd/; Arabic: خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or دَوْلَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or ٱلدَّوْلَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِيَّةُ from Arabic: ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ...
seized Marrakesh, ending the Almohad domination of the Western Maghreb. The Fatimid Caliphate was an Isma'ili Shi'i caliphate, originally based in Tunisia...
Abbasids who claimed the caliphates for themselves, such as the Isma'ili Shia Fatimids, the Sunni Ummayyads in Córdoba and the Almohads, who followed their...
many taifas re-appeared only to be incorporated by the AlmohadCaliphate. The fall of the Almohads resulted in a flourishing of the taifas, and this was...
The caliphate of the Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: خلافت مقامى, romanized: hilâfet makamı, lit. 'office of the caliphate') was the claim of the heads...
treatment and persecution of Jews under Almohad rule was a drastic change. Prior to Almohad rule during the Caliphate of Córdoba, Jewish culture experienced...
the Rāshidūn Caliphate. The early Muslim conquests were responsible for the spread of Islam. By the 8th century CE, the Umayyad Caliphate extended from...
the Almoravid dynasty collapsed in the 1140s, and again when the AlmohadCaliphate declined in the 1220s.[citation needed] The Almoravids were a Muslim...
the Almohads, who were a newly formed caliphate in the western Maghreb, in the same time Abd al-Mu'min saw it as an opportunity to expand the Almohad rule...
power was held by Berber dynasties such as the Almoravid dynasty, AlmohadCaliphate, Zayyanid dynasty, Marinid Sultanate and Hafsid dynasty. Under Buluggin...
the Almohad army, made up of people from all over the AlmohadCaliphate. In 1195, the Almohads defeated Alfonso VIII of Castile in the Battle of Alarcos...
official state language of government across the entire caliphate. While the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) originally gained power by exploiting the social...
commissioned by Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur, the third caliph of the AlmohadCaliphate, near the end of the 12th century. The tower was intended to be the...
Africa (the Maghreb). The Almohad docrtine was founded by Ibn Tumart among the Berber Masmuda tribes, but the Almohadcaliphate and its ruling dynasty were...
years it fell under the control of neighboring Murcia, and later the AlmohadCaliphate. A third time, in 1229, Valencia saw almost a decade of local rule...
reduced to the southern parts of the peninsula governed by the AlmohadCaliphate. After Almohad control retreated in 1228, the ambitious Muhammad I Ibn al-Ahmar...
(present-day Morocco), the capital of the AlmohadCaliphate, to perform astronomical observations and to support the Almohad project of building new colleges....
Early in the reign of William I, the Kingdom of Africa fell to the AlmohadCaliphate (1158–1160). Its most enduring legacy was the realignment of Mediterranean...
borders with the growing force of the AlmohadCaliphate,: 47 and their emirate would finally be annexed by the Almohads in 1152 after a brief clash with them...
east. The Tlemcen Kingdom was established after the demise of the AlmohadCaliphate in 1236, and later fell under Ottoman rule in 1554. The capital of...
military watchtower in Seville, southern Spain. It was erected by the AlmohadCaliphate in order to control access to Seville via the Guadalquivir river....