Almoravid dynasty

Almoravid dynasty

 Arabic al-Murabitun

The 12th-century gateway Bab Agnaou, at the entrance to the medina (ancient Moorish quarter) of …

(credit: © 1997; AISA, Archivo Iconográfico, Barcelona, España)

(1056–1147) Berber confederation that succeeded the Fatimid dynasty in the Maghrib. It flourished in the 11th and early 12th centuries. Its founder, 'Abd Allah ibn Yasin, was a Muslim scholar of the Maliki school who used religious reform as a means of gaining followers in the mid-11th century. The Almoravids took over Morocco and then the rest of the Maghrib following the decline of the Zirid dynasty. By 1082 they ruled Algiers. By 1110 they also controlled Muslim Spain, but the Christians began to win back territory in 1118. In the 1120s another Berber coalition, the Almohads, started a rebellion, eventually displacing the Almoravids.