Almohad Caliphate

The Almohad Caliphate was the Berber empire of the Maghreb and Muslim Iberia, raised by the doctrine of divine unity. Its name, al-Muwahhidun, meant the confessors of Oneness. Early in the twelfth century the theologian Ibn Tumart denounced the Almoravids and their Maliki jurists, declared himself the Mahdi, and forged a mountain movement. His successor Abd al-Mumin took the caliphal title in 1133, stormed Marrakesh in 1147 and made it his capital, and extinguished the Almoravid order. Under Abu Yaqub Yusuf and his son al-Mansur the empire reached its height, uniting the Muslim lands of Iberia in 1172 and carrying the offensive against the Christian north until the crushing defeat at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. Succession quarrels then split the house, the Iberian provinces fell away one by one, and in 1269 the Marinids took Marrakesh and ended the caliphate after a century and a half of dominion. Tinmel in the Atlas mountains, keeper of Ibn Tumart's tomb, stayed the spiritual heart of the movement to the end.