North Africa

Political fragmentation and the triumph of Islamic culture (c. 1250–c. 1500)

After the collapse of Almohad rule, the Maghrib became divided into three Muslim states, each ruled by a Berber (Amazigh) dynasty: the Ḥafṣids, whose territory included Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania; the Marīnids, ruling over Morocco; and the Zayyānids, whose capital was in Tlemcen, ruling over most of western Algeria when this region was not occupied by the Marīnids. Both the rigorist legalistic doctrine of the Almoravids and the more enlightened religious orientation of the Almohads had proved to be unsuitable as foundations for durable political authority. Furthermore, the rulers themselves were unsuitable to act as custodians of the faith. Islamic culture came of age in the Maghrib only after the rulers gave up attempting to identify their authority with a single religious doctrine and allowed religious life to develop freely through the interplay of religious ideas and social forces in relative independence from the state. The Maghribi rulers subsequently legitimized their authority by cultivating relations of trust and cooperation with the leading religious scholars of the time. Their capital cities became, consequently, the foremost centres of learning in their realms and were adorned not ... (200 of 24,330 words)