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Libya
Hafsids
The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed the rise in Morocco
of two rival Berber tribal dynasties--the Almoravids and the Almohads,
both founded by religious reformers--that dominated the Maghrib
and Muslim Spain for more than two hundred years. The founder
of the Almohad (literally, "one who proclaims" the oneness of
God) movement was a member of the Sunni ulama (see Glossary),
Ibn Tumart (d. 1130), who preached a doctrine of moral regeneration
through reaffirmation of monotheism. As judge and political leader
as well as spiritual director, Ibn Tumart gave the Almohads a
hierarchical and theocratic centralized government, respecting
but transcending the old tribal structure. His successor, the
sultan Abdal Mumin (reigned 1130-63), subdued Morocco, extended
the Muslim frontier in Spain, and by 1160 had swept eastward across
the Maghrib and forced the withdrawal of the Normans from their
strongholds in Ifriqiya and Tripolitania, which were added to
the Almohad empire.
Mumin proclaimed an Almohad caliphate at Cordova, giving the
sultan supreme religious as well as political authority within
his domains, but theology gradually gave way to dynastic politics
as the motivating force behind the movement. The Almohads had
succeeded in unifying the Maghrib but, as its empire grew and
the Almohad power base shifted to Spain, the dynasty became more
remote from the Berber tribes that had launched it. By 1270 the
Almohads in Morocco had succumbed to tribal warfare and in Spain
to the steady advance of the Kingdom of Castile.
At the eastern end of the Almohad empire, the sultan left an
autonomous viceroy whose office became hereditary in the line
of Muhammad bin Abu Hafs (reigned 1207-21), a descendant of one
of Ibn Tumart's companions. With the demise of the Almohad dynasty
in Morocco, the Hafsids adopted the titles of caliph and sultan
and considered themselves the Almohads' legitimate successors,
keeping alive the memory of Ibn Tumart and the ideal of Maghribi
unity from their capital in Tunis.
The Hafsids' political support and their realm's economy were
rooted in coastal towns like Tripoli, while the hinterland was
given up to the tribes that had made their nominal submission
to the sultan. The Hafsids encouraged trade with Europe and forged
close links with Aragon and the Italian maritime states. Despite
these commercial ties, Hafsid relations with the European powers
eventually deteriorated when the latter intrigued in the dynasty's
increasingly troubled and complex internal politics. Theocratic
republics, tribal states, and coastal enclaves seized by pirate
captains defied the sultan's authority, and in 1460 Tripoli was
declared an independent city-state by its merchant oligarchy.
During the Hafsid era, spanning more than 300 years, however,
the Maghrib and Muslim Spain had shared a common higher culture--
called Moorish--that transcended the rise and fall of dynasties
in creating new and unique forms of art, literature, and architecture.
Its influence spread from Spain as far as Tripolitania, where
Hafsid patronage had encouraged a flowering Arab creativity and
scholarship.
Data as of 1987
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