The Almoravids ( Imṛabḍen, Al-Murābiṭūn ) were a Berber dynasty of Morocco, who formed an empire in the 11th-century that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus.

The Almoravids were crucial in avoiding a precipitated fall of Al-Andalus to the Iberian Christian kingdoms, when they decisively beat a coalition of the Castilian and Aragonese armies at the Battle of Sagrajas.

The Almoravids, Berber residents of present-day North Africa, led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, were asked to help defend the divided Moors from Alfonso.

During the time of the Almoravids and especially the Almohads some were treated badly, in contrast to the policies of the earlier Umayyad Caliphs and later Emirs.

" Probable descendants of Bafours were pushed southward by the Berber dynasty of Almoravids.

Jews and Christians were alternately tolerated and persecuted, the most notable examples of the latter being the conquest of Islamic Spain by Berber-Arab forces from north Africa ( the Almoravids, followed by the Almohads from the mid-12th century ).

His father, Abu Al-Qasim Ahmad, held the same position until the Almoravids were replaced by the Almohads in 1146.

It is possible that the Berber Muslim Almoravids were originally from the area.

The situation changed in the mid-12th century, when the Almoravids, were displaced from al-Andalus and western Maghreb by the Almohad.

They ruled until they were eventually defeated by the Almoravids in May 1110.

The Almoravids, Berber residents of present-day North Africa, led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin, were asked to help defend the divided Moors from Alfonso.

On the West African coast they set up Zāwiyas on the shores of the river Niger and even established independent kingdoms such as al-Murābiṭūn or Almoravids. The Al Hakika Mizaan Mizaani Sufi Order deals with heavy internalization and meditations, their spiritual practice is called Al Qudra MizaanStates ) The Sanusi order were also highly involved in missionary work in Africa during the 19th century, spreading both Islam and a high level of literacy into Africa as far south as Lake Chad and beyond by setting up a network of zawiyas where Islam was taught.

In 1126, a great number of Mozarabs were expelled to North Africa by the Almoravids.

The Almoravids, were ousted from the peninsula in 1148 ; however, the peninsula was again invaded, by the even more puritanical Almohades.

The Almoravids were invited after the fall of Toledo ( 1085 ), and the Almohads after the fall of Lisbon ( 1147 ).

Even though the Barghawata were subsequently much weakened, they were still able to fend off Almoravid attacks — the spiritual leader of the Almoravids, Ibn Yasin, fell in battle against them ( CE 1058 ).

Although the Almoravids were dominant in the first few years, they were in decline when Afonso Henriques definitively captured Lisbon ( al-Ušbuna ) in October 1147.

After the pre-Romanesque period, in the architecture of Al-Andalus, important contributions were made by the Caliphate of Córdoba ( the Great Mosque of Córdoba ), the Taifas ( Aljafería, in Zaragoza ), the Almoravids and Almohads ( La Giralda, Seville ), and the Nasrid of the Kingdom of Granada ( Alhambra, Generalife ).

The Banu Ghaniya, distant relatives of the Almoravids, were a Sanhaja Berber dynasty.

Later, Abdelmoumen and the council of ten kept the death of Ibn Tumart secret for 3 years, since the Almohads were going into a difficult time in their fight against the Almoravids, he also feared that the Masmuda ( The Berber tribe of Ibn Tumart ) wouldn't accept him as their leader since he was an outsider.

The Almohads ( or Almohadis ) were similar to the Almoravids, in that they similarly attacked any alternative beliefs that they saw as corruptions of Islam.

El Cid's son Diego Rodríguez was killed while fighting against the invading Muslim Almoravids from North Africa at the Battle of Consuegra ( 1097 ).

The Crusades which started late in the eleventh century only exacerbated the religious ideology of reconquest, confronted at that time with a similarly staunch ideology found on the Muslim actors strong in Al-Andalus: the Almoravids and, more, the Almohads.

The boundary troubles with Castile restarted in 1164: he then met at Soria with the Lara family, who represented Alfonso VIII, and a truce was established, allowing him to move against the Muslim Almoravids who still held much of southern Spain, and to capture the cities of Alcántara and Alburquerque.

He endeavoured to curry favour with Yusuf by betraying the other Muslim princes to him, and intrigued to secure the alliance of Alfonso against the Almoravids.

In succeeding centuries, Al-Andalus became a province of the Berber Muslim dynasties of the Almoravids and Almohads, later fragmenting into a number of minor states, most notably the Emirate of Granada.

With the support of locals, the Almoravids deposed the taifa Muslim princes, after helping to repel Christian attacks on the region by Alfonso VI.

Beginning in 1090 the situation deteriorated further with the invasion of the Almoravids, a puritan Muslim sect from Morocco.

When the Almoravids conquered Spain in the 11th century they sent Muslim, Christian and Jewish artisans from Spain to Morocco to work on monuments.

** The Christian advance obliges the Muslim kings of Granada, Seville and Badajoz to call to their aid the Almoravids.

The Almoravids decisively beat the Castilians and many leaders are killed, including Sancho, Alfonso's only son ( by Zaïda, a Muslim princess ) and heir.

* 1151-The Almohads, another more conservative African Muslim dynasty who have displaced the Almoravids, retake Almería.

** Several Muslim Emirs ( namely Abbad III al-Mu ' tamid ) ask the Almoravids leader Yusuf ibn Tashfin for help against Alfonso VI of Castile.

The Arab geographer al-Zuhri writing in the middle of the 12th century, reported that the Almoravids helped Ghana in a war against Tadmekka in 1083-4 and as a result Tadmekka became Muslim.

However, the rule of the dynasty was relatively short-lived and the Almoravids fell-at the height of their power-when they failed to quell the Masmuda-led rebellion initiated by Ibn Tumart.

Although practical for the desert dust, the Almoravids insisted on wearing the veil everywhere, as a badge of " foreignness " in urban settings, partly as a way of emphasizing their puritan credentials.

It served as the uniform of the Almoravids, and under their rule, sumptuary laws forbade anybody else from wearing the veil, thereby making it the distinctive dress of the ruling class ( the later Almohads made a point of mocking the Almoravid veil as symbolic of effeminacy and decadence.

In the early 1050s, the Lamtuna, under the joint leadership of Yahya ibn Umar and Abdallah ibn Yasin-soon calling themselves the al-Murabitin ( Almoravids )-set out on campaign to bring their neighbors over to their cause.

From the year 1053, the Almoravids began to spread their religious way to the Berber areas of the Sahara, and to the regions south of the desert.

Under him, the Almoravids soon began to spread their power beyond the desert, and subjected the tribes of the Atlas Mountains.

The Berber dynasties ( Almoravids, Almohads, Marinids and Wattasids ) gave the Berber people some measure of collective identity and political unity under a native regime for the first time in their history, and they created the idea of an " imperial Maghrib " under Berber aegis that survived in some form from dynasty to dynasty.

During the reign of Almoravids, the position of the Jews was apparently free of significant abuses, but after another Berber dynasty, Almohads, conquered Córdoba in 1148 they have abolished the dhimma status ( i. e. state protection of life and wealth ) in some of their territories which threatened the Jewish and Christian communities with the choice of conversion to Islam, death, or exile.

In the time of the Almoravids professional warriors had fought as ' mujahideen ' in their holy war.

* The Almoravids loose their control of the Ebro valley:

The king of Takrur sided with the Berber and Tuareg tribes of the Almoravids in their political intervention of the Ghana Empire.

It was near this location, at a place called Tabfarilla, that the early Almoravids suffered their first significant defeat, when the Gudala crushed an Almoravid Lamtuna army based in Azuggi and killed their leader Yahya ibn Umar in 1056.

They managed to conquer southern Spain, and their North African empire extended further than that of the Almoravids, reaching to Egypt.

When the emir's own scholars reminded him the Almoravids too embraed puritanical ideals, and were committed to the Sunnah, Ibn Tumart pointed out that the Almoravids professed puritanism had been clouded and deviated by " obscurantists ", drawing attention to the ample evidence of laxity and impiety that prevailed in their dominions.

Of more particular concern to the Almoravids was their threat to the Ourika and Tizi n ' Tichka passes, that connected Marrakesh to the Draa valley on the other side of the High Atlas.

But the Almoravids were unable to send enough manpower through the narrow passes to dislodge the Almohad rebels from their easily-defended mountain strongpoints.

In early 1130, the Almohads finally descended from the mountains for their first sizeable attack on the Almoravids in the lowlands.

" The last threat of the 11th century came in the form of the Almoravids, who with their well disciplined forces first established a hegemony over Morocco and then extended it over al-Andalus.