Yahya ibn Umar

Yahya ibn Umar , Arabic  يحيى بن عمر , DMG Yaḥyā b.ʿUmar , (died March / April 1056), with full name Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Umar ibn Talagagin ibn Turgut ibn Wartasin and the suffix al-Lamtuni al-Sanhadschi , was the leader of the Berber tribe of the Lamtuna from 1040 to 1056 and from 1046 first emir of the Almoravids .

genealogy

Not much is known about the early years of Yahya ibn Umar. His mother was a princess of the Judala . Chronicles trace his family tree back to the Lamtuna leader Turgut ibn Wartasin (with full name Yahya ibn Umar ibn Ibrahim (alias Talagagin) ibn Turgut ibn Wartasin al-Lamtuni ). His brothers were Yannu ibn Umar , the builder of the fortress Ardschi (or Arji ) at Azougui , and Abu Bakr ibn Umar , the second emir of the Almoravid. Yahya had three sons, Ali ibn Yahya , who was appointed governor of Sidschilmasa from 1057 to 1069 after the death of his father , Muhammad ibn Yahya and Isa ibn Yahya.

Life path

In 1035, Yahya ibn Umar decided to convert his tribe, which belonged to the Sanhādscha covenant , to Islam . For this purpose he allied himself with Abdallah ibn Yasin , a devout Berber. Both founded the Almoravid movement together in 1040. After the death of Yahya ibn Ibrahim , the leader of the neighboring tribe of the Judala, Yahya was elected head of the Sanhajah Confederation against all expectations that same year. In 1046 he took over the military leadership of the Almoravids and was named their first emir. According to al-Qādī ʿIyād , Yahya was the first to bear the title of Emir ( amīr al-muʾminīn ), which then became common among later Almoravid rulers.

The original goal of the Almoravids was to convert all Sanhajah to Islam of Maliki character and to subject the Berbers, who had only superficially converted since the 7th century, to a strict purification of their faith. After converting the warlike Judala, Yahya was able to rally around him from 1050 the Sanhajah Berber groups of the Western Sahara, such as the Massufa and the Banu Warith , and restore the political unity of the Sanhajah under a religious goal.

After several skirmishes with allies of the Zanata , Yahya and his desert warriors succeeded in conquering the Zanata ( Magrawa ) ruled Sidschilmasa in southern Morocco in 1053 (or 1054) . A year later he was also able to take Aoudaghast , which was held by the Zanata as governor of the Empire of Ghana .

During a campaign to subjugate the Zanata in Sidschilmasa, who had in the meantime again seized power, the Judala mutinied. Yahya was therefore forced to split his forces in two. He instructed his brother Abu Bakr to keep Sidschilmasa in check while he headed for the Mauritanian Atlantic coast to force the Judala back into the alliance if necessary. When he had reached the fortress of Arji in central Mauritania , he realized that he was not up to the proposed undertaking alone. He therefore sent messengers to his new ally, King War Jabi of Takrur in Senegal, and asked for support. But before his auxiliary troops, led by his son Labi, could arrive, the Judala took the initiative and besieged Yahya ibn Umar in the mountains of Adrar . In March / April of the year 1056 the battle of Tabfarilla took place near Azougui , in which the outnumbered Almoravids suffered their first major defeat and Yahya was killed.

outlook

Yahya's short career as the first Emir of the Almoravids came to an early end. After his death, Abdallah ibn Yasin, the spiritual leader of the Almoravids, appointed Yahya's brother Abu Bakr as the new emir. Under Abu Bakr, the Almoravids were supposed to recapture Sidschilmasa, bring all of Morocco under their influence in the 1070s, and smash the rest of Ghana in the 1080s.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} N. Levtzion and JFP Hopkins (editors): Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History . University of Ghana 2000, p. 409 .
2. ^ Messier, RA: The Almoravids and the Meanings of Jihad . Praeger, Santa Barbara, Calif. 2010.

predecessor	Office	successor
Abd Allah Ibn Yasin and Yahya ibn Ibrahim	Almoravid ruler (together with Abd Allah Ibn Yasin ) 1046–1056	Abd Allah Ibn Yasin and Abu Bakr ibn Umar