Yusuf ibn Tashfin

Yusuf ibn Tashfin or Tashafin (reigned c. 1061 - 1106) (Arabic: يوسف بن تاشفين or يوسف بن تشفين) was an ethnic Berber and Almoravid ruler in North Africa and Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia).

The Almoravids

The Almoravids became a dynasty ruling in the Maghrib and parts of Andalusia but began as a religious reformist movement inspired by Yahya ibn Ibrahim who after performing the hajj in 1240 returned to North Africa determined to reform what he saw as the ignorant and corrupt Islam of his fellow Berbers. He then attended the famous university at Kairouan where he gained the support of an established teacher, ibn Yasin. Ibn Yasin became the movement's spiritual teacher; Yahya assumed military leadership. From 1053, having attracted enough followers to the reformist cause, the Almoravids (which probably means "those who band together for the defense of the faith" were ready to spread orthodoxy by conquest as well as preaching. By 1054, they ruled a small state in what is today Senegal. Yahya was killed fighting in 1056. Yasin named Abu Bakr ibn Umar as his successor. Under his military leadership, the movement spread out into the Atlas Mountains where they conquered, among others, the Berghouata. Abu Bakr married their Queen, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyat, reputedly a rich and beautiful woman. In 1059, Abu Bakr left his gifted cousin, Yusuf ibn Tashfin in charge of the territory over which the Almoravids now ruled whole he went off the crush a rebellion in the Sahara. Divorcing Zaynab, he gave her in marriage to Yusuf. Yusuf proved to be a very successful deputy; he subdued Morocco, Western Sahara and Mauretania in 1062 founded the city of Marrakech as his capital. In 1080, he conquered the kingdom of Tlemcen (in modern-day Algeria) and founded the present city of Algiers, extending his rule as far east as Oran. Abu Bakr had returned to resume the leadership in 1060 but seeing his cousin well established and secure in his position, he decided to continue campaigning in the Sahara. He may have reached Ghana in 1076. He is said to have died from a poisoned arrow in 1087. Yusuf now adopted the title, "Amir of the believers" (Amir al-Mu'minin) and became the undisputed leader of the movement.

Taifa appeal

The Almoravids were already contemplating taking their movement across the Straits into Spain; they were "shocked by the goings-on" there where Muslims "were being forced to pay tribute to non-Muslims and were raising taxes unmentioned in the Koran in order to do so." When the last sovereign king of al-Andalusia, al-Mutamid, fearing that Seville would fall to the increasingly stronger king of Castile-León, Alfonso VI invited Yusuf to Spain to aid him in the defense of the Muslim taifa, he readily responded. The Taifa were the many small city-states that succeeded the unified period of [[Umayyads|Umayyaf Andalusia, which ended in 1031. Previously, al-Mutamid had launched a series of aggressive attacks on neighboring kingdoms to gain more territory for himself, but his military aspirations and capabilities paled in comparison to those of the Castilian king, who in 1085 captured the culturally refined Toledo and demanded parias, or tribute, from the proud Muslim princes. The tribute of the emirs bolstered the economy of the Christian kingdom. al-Mutamid's son, Rashid, advised him not to call on Yusuf ibn Tashfin, to which al-Mutamid replied:

"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."

Rashid may have realized that Yusuf would not stop at helping the emirs defend their territories but would export his reformist ideology into Andalusia and take political power for himself.

Military exploits

Yusuf crossed to al-Andalus with a force of 15,000 men, armed with javelins, daggers, Indian swords and shields covered in animal hide, as well as drummers for psychological combat. Yusuf's cavalry was said to have included 6,000 shock troops from Senegal mounted on white Arabian horses. Camels were also put to use. On October 23, 1086 at the Battle of Sagrajas, the Almoravid forces, accompanied by 10,000 Andalusian fighters from local Muslim provinces, decisively checked the Reconquista, defeating the largest Christian army ever assembled up to that point, significantly outnumbered. When Yusuf returned home the emirs thought he had accomplished what they wanted from him had left Iberia for good. This proved to be wishful thinking. In 1090, he crossed back to al-Andalus and set about annexing the Taifa states.

The emirs in such cities as Seville, Badajoz, Almeria, and Granada had grown accustomed to extravagant lifestyles; in contrast, the Almoravids were puritanical. as well as paying tribute to the Christians and giving Andalusian Jews unprecedented freedoms and authority at least as far as the reformists were concerned, they levied burdensome taxes on the populace to maintain this lifestyle. After a series of fatwas declaring that it was morally permissible for him to depose the corrupt Taifa rulers, and careful deliberation, Yusuf launched his campaign. That year he exiled the emirs 'Abd Allah and his brother Tamim from Granada and Málaga, respectively, to Aghmāt, and a year later al-Mutamid of Seville suffered the same fate. Yusuf succeeded in re-uniting all the Muslim dominions of the Iberian Peninsula, with the exception of Zaragoza, to his own Kingdom of Morocco. He continued to govern from his royal court at Marrakech.

The Almoravid confederation, which consisted of a hierarchy of Lamtuna, Musaffa and Djudalla Berbers, represented the military's elite. Amongst them were Andalusian Christians and Africans, taking up duties as diwan al-gund, Yusuf's own personal bodyguard; including 2,000 black horsemen, whose tasks also included registering soldiers and making sure they were compensated financially. The occupying forces of the Almoravids were made up largely horsemen, totaling no less than 20,000. Into the major cities of al-Andalus, Seville (7,000), Granada (1,000), Cordoba (1,000), 5,000 bordering Castile and 4,000 in western Andalusia, succeeding waves of horsemen in conjunction with the garrisons that had been left there after the Battle of Sagrajas, made responding, for the Taifa emirs, difficult. Soldiers on foot used bows & arrows, sabres, pikes and Indian javelins, each protected by a cuirass of Moroccan leather and bearing shields made of antelope hide. During the siege of the fort-town Aledo, in Murcia, captured by the Spaniard Garcia Giménez previously, Almoravid and Andalusian hosts are said to have used catapults, in addition to their customary drum beat. Yusuf also established naval bases in Cadiz, Almeria and neighboring ports along the Mediterranean. Ibn-Maymun, the governor of Almeria, had a fleet at his disposal.

The siege of Valencia

Although the Almoravids had not gained much in the way of territory from the Christians, rather they merely offset the Reconquista, Yusuf did succeed in capturing Valencia. A city divided between Muslims and Christians, under the waffling rule of a petty emir paying tribute to the Christians, including the famous El Cid, Valencia proved to be an obstacle for the Almoravid military, despite their untouchable reputation. Abu Bakr ibn Ibrahim ibn Tashfin and Yusuf's nephew Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad both failed in defeating the El Cid. Yusuf then sent Abu'l-Hasan 'Ali al-Hajj but he was not successful either. In 1097, upon his fourth trip to al-Andalus, Yusuf sought to personally dig down and fight the armies of Alfonso VI, making way toward the all but abandoned, yet historically important, Toledo. Such a concerted effort was meant to draw the Christian forces, including those laying siege to Valencia, into the center of Iberia. On August 15, 1097, the Almoravids delivered yet another blow to Alphonso VI's forces, a battle in which the El Cid's son was killed.

Muhammad ibn 'A'isha, Yusuf's son, who he had appointed governor of Murcia, succeeded in delivering an effective pounding to the El Cid's personnel at Alcira, still not capturing the city, but satisfied with the results of his campaigns, Yusuf left for his court at Marrakesh only to return two years later on a new effort to take the provinces of eastern Andalusia. El Cid had died in the same year, 1099, and his wife, Chimena, had been ruling until the coming of another Almoravid campaign at the tail end of 1100, led by Yusuf's trusted lieutenant Mazdali ibn Banlunka. After a seven month siege, Alphonso and Chimena, hopeless to the prospects of staving off the Almoravids, set fire to the great mosque in anger and abandoned the city. Yusuf had finally conquered Valencia and exerted complete dominance over the east of al-Andalus, now unquestionably the most powerful ruler in western Europe. He receives mention in the Spanish epic Poema del Cid, also known as El Cantar del Mio Cid, the oldest of its kind.

Description and character

"A wise and shrewd man, neither too prompt in his determinations, nor too slow in carrying them into effect", Yusuf was very much adapted to the rugged terrain of the Sahara and had no interests in the pomp of the Andalusian courts. According to Abd Allah's "Roudh el-Kartas" (History of the Rulers of Morocco) and A.Beaumier's French translation of the 14th century work, Yusuf was of "teint brun, taille moyenne, maigre, peu de barbe, voix douce, yeux noirs, nez aquilin, meche de Mohammed retombant sur le bout de l'oreille, sourcils joints l'un a l'autre, cheveux crepus"; meaning - "Brown color, middle height, thin, little beard, soft voice, black eyes, straight nose, lock of Muhammad falling on the top of his ear, eye brow joined, wooly hair"[1] He went on to reach the 100 years old mark and, unlike his predecessors, not die in battle.

Legacy of the Almoravids

Since Yusuf's reign represented the apogee of the Almoravid dynasty, something has to be said for its certain demise after his death. His son and successor, Ali ibn Yusuf, was viewed just as devout a Muslim but he neither commanded the same respect nor retained the clientela of his father. As he prayed and fasted the empire crumbled about him. Córdoba, in about 1119, served as the launch pad for Andalusian insurrection. Christians on the northern frontier gained momentum shortly after his father's death, and the Almohads, beginning about 1120, were to engulf the southern frontier; both respective hosts seeing to the ultimate disintegration of Yusuf's hard-fought territories by the time of Ibrahim ibn Tashfin (1146) and Ishaq ibn Ali (1146-1147), the last of the Almoravid dynasty.

Much of the disparaging things written about the Almoravids, whether it be from Almohads or Christian sources, was propaganda. While Yusuf was the most honorable of Muslim rulers, he spoke Arabic poorly. To the credit of some of Yusuf's successors, namely Ali ibn Yusuf, in 1135 he exercised good stewardship by attending to the University of Al-Karaouine and ordering the extension of the mosque from 18 to 21 aisles, expanding the structure to more than 3,000 square meters. Some accounts suggest that Ali Ibn Yusuf hired two Andalusian architects to carry out this work who also built the central aisle of the Great Mosque of Tlemcen, Algeria, in 1136.

To further quote Richard Fletcher's classic "Moorish Spain"

The Almoravids had never been liked in al-Andalus outside the limited circles of the rigorist critics of the taifa rulers. They had come as deliverers but they behaved like conquerors. The leadership may have been sincerely devout but the rank and file were not. Almoravid rule has been described by a modern authority as 'an extended looting expedition' ... To the end of the Almoravid regime there was not a single traceable Berber among its civil servants: instead, Andalusi clerks were shipped over to Morocco. The Almoravids indulged in all the luxuries and delights of al-Andalus but failed to do the job they had been called into do: the lost territories in the Tagus and Ebro valleys remained in Christian hands.

Bibliography

• Clancy-Smith, Julia Ann. 2001. North Africa, Islam, and the Mediterranean world: from the Almoravids to the Algerian War. Cass series—history and society in the Islamic world. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 9780714651705.
• Fletcher, R. A. 1992. Moorish Spain. New York: H. Holt. ISBN 9780805023954.
• Freeman, Edward Augustus. 2008. The history and conquests of the Saracens: six lectures delivered before the Edinburgh philosophical Institution. Kessinger Publishing's rare reprints. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Pub. ISBN 9781417948291.
• Hopkins, J. F. P., and Nehemia Levtzion. 1981. Corpus of early Arabic sources for West African history. Fontes historiae Africanae, 4. Cambridge [Eng.]: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521224222.
• Rodriguez-Manas, Francisco. 2005. "Yusuf ibn Tashfin: Almoravid empire: Maghrib, 1070-1147". 1686-1688. Encyclopedia of African History. 1686-1688. OCLC 143618422

Preceded by: Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar

Almoravid 1061–1106

Succeeded by: Ali ibn Yusuf

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