Abu Bakr ibn Umar

Abu Bakr ibn Umar on a depiction from 1413

Abu Bakr ibn Umar ( Arabic أبو بكر بن عمر, DMG Abū Bakr b. ʿUmar ; † 1087 ) was 1056-1087 leader of the Almoravids .

Abu Bakr ibn Umar was the brother of Yahya ibn Umar , the leader of the Lamtuna , a Sanhajah tribe in the western Sahara . When the religious scholar Ibn Yasin began to preach his teachings among the Sanhajah Berbers around 1046 , the two brothers joined him.

During the uprising of the Judala , which had led to the temporary expulsion of Ibn Yasin and his followers, the latter appointed Yahya ibn Umar as the secular leader of the newly formed Almoravid League . Yahya fell in 1056 fighting the Judala. Thereupon Abu Bakr was appointed by Ibn Yasin as the new leader of the Almoravids. As such, he put down a Magrawa uprising in Sidschilmasa and settled in Aghmat . Abu Bakr married Zaynab an-Nafzawiyya, the widow of the Masmuda prince of Aghmat, and was thus able to further expand his influence among the tribes of the Atlas . After the death of Ibn Yasin (1059), Abu Bakr united the secular and spiritual leadership role with the Almoravids in his person.

To give the movement a new center, Marrakech was founded on May 7th, 1070 . (The establishment by Yusuf ibn Tashfin in 1062 is now attributed to a legend.) When a new uprising broke out in the Sahara, Abu Bakr appointed his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin as his deputy. But Yusuf used this to expand his own rule. When Abu Bakr returned to Morocco in 1072 , he was de facto disempowered. He renounced a power struggle with Yusuf ibn Tashfin (1072-1106) and withdrew to the Sahara. He was formally recognized by Yusuf ibn Tashfin as the leader of the Almoravids.

With the separation, the Sanhaja tribes in the Sahara lost their importance for the Almoravid movement. Abu Bakr continued the fight against pagan tribes in the Sahara and Sudan until his death in 1087 . His greatest success was the interventions in the Empire of Ghana , where Muslim rulers were enforced. This initiated the Islamization of the African tribes of the Niger region .

literature

• Ulrich Haarmann : History of the Arab World. Edited by Heinz Halm. 4th revised and expanded edition. CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-406-47486-1 , ( Beck's historical library ).
• Stephan Ronart, Nandy Ronart: Lexicon of the Arab World. A historical-political reference work. Artemis Verlag, Zurich et al. 1972, ISBN 3-7608-0138-2 .

predecessor	Office	successor
Yahya ibn Umar and Abd Allah Ibn Yasin	Almoravid ruler (in the first years with Abd Allah Ibn Yasin ) 1056-1087	Yusuf ibn Tashfin