Yusuf ibn Tashfin

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يوسف بن تاشفين Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Amir Al-Muslimin
Gold dinar issued under Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Amir of the Almoravids
Reign	1061–1106
Predecessor	Abu Bakr ibn Umar
Successor	Ali ibn Yusuf
Died	1106 Marrakesh
Spouse	Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah
Issue	Abu Bakkar ibn Yusuf[1] Tamim ibn Yusuf[2] Ali ibn Yusuf Sourah bint Yusuf[3] Tamima bint Yusuf
Names Yusuf ibn Tashfin
Dynasty	Almoravid
Father	Tashfin ibn Ibrahim Talagagin
Mother	Fatima bint Syr[4]
Religion	Islam

Yusuf ibn Tashfin, also Tashafin, Teshufin, (

Yusuf ibn Tashfin was a Berber of the Banu Turgut, a branch of the Lamtuna, a Tuareg tribe belonging to the Sanhaja group.^[12] The Sanhaja were linked by medieval Muslim genealogists with the Himyarite Kingdom through semi-mythical and mythical pre-Islamic kings and for some reason, some of the contemporary sources (e.g., ibn Arabi) add the nisba al-Himyari to Yusuf's name to indicate this legendary affiliation. For example, his surname is documented as Al-Sanhaji al-Himyari in the 14th-century work of Ismail ibn al-Ahmar. Modern scholarship rejects this Berber–Yemeni link as fanciful.^[13][14]

Abu Bakr ibn Umar, a leader of the Lamtuna and one of the original disciples of Abdallah ibn Yasin, who served as a spiritual liaison for followers of the Maliki school, was appointed chief commander after the death of his brother Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni. His brother oversaw the military for ibn Yasin but was killed in the Battle of Tabfarilla against the Godala in 1056. Ibn Yasin, too, would die in battle against the Barghawata three years later.

Abu Bakr was an able general, taking the fertile Sous and its capital Aghmat a year after his brother's death, and would go on to suppress numerous revolts in the Sahara, on one such occasion entrusting his pious cousin Yusuf with the stewardship of Sous and thus the whole of his northern provinces. He appears to have handed him this authority in the interim but even went as far as to give Yusuf his wife, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, purportedly the richest woman of Aghmat.^[15] This sort of trust and favor on the part of a seasoned veteran and savvy politician reflected the general esteem in which Yusuf was held, not to mention the power he attained as a military figure in his absence. Daunted by Yusuf's new-found power, Abu Bakr saw any attempts at recapturing his post as politically unfeasible and returned to the fringes of the Sahara to settle the unrest of the southern frontier.

Expansion in Maghreb

Yusuf was an effective general and strategist who put together a formidable army comprising Sudanese contingents, Christian mercenaries and the Saharan tribes of the Gudala, Lamtuna and Masufa,

I have no desire to be branded by my descendants as the man who delivered al-Andalus as prey to the infidels. I am loath to have my name cursed in every Muslim pulpit. And, for my part, I would rather be a camel-driver in Africa than a swineherd in Castile.[17]

Battle of az-Zallaqah

By the time Abu Bakr died in 1087, after a skirmish in the Sahara as the result of a poison arrow, Yusuf had crossed over into

The spreading of righteousness, the correction of injustice and the abolition of unlawful taxes.

Marrakech. He took the title of Amir al-muslimin (Prince of the Muslims), seeing himself as humbly serving the caliph of Baghdad, but to all intents and purposes he was considered the caliph of the western Islamic empire

. The military might of the Almoravids was at its peak.

Military structure

The

Ibn Maymun, the governor of Almeria, had a fleet at his disposal. Another such example is the Banu Ghaniya fleet stationed off the Balearic Islands that dominated the affairs of the western Mediterranean for much of the 12th century.^[19]

Siege of Valencia

Although the Almoravids had not gained much in the way of territory from the

Alfonso VI, making his way towards the all but abandoned, yet historically important, Toledo

. Such a concerted effort was meant to draw the Christian forces, including those laying siege to Valencia, into the center of Iberia. On August 15, 1097, the Almoravids delivered yet another blow to Alfonso's forces, a battle in which El Cid's son was killed.

El Cantar del Mio Cid

.

Description and character

He was described as:

A wise and shrewd man, neither too prompt in his determinations, nor too slow in carrying them into effect

Yusuf was very much adapted to the rugged terrain of the Sahara and had no interests in the pomp of the Andalusian courts.^[20] He spoke Arabic poorly.^[21]

According to medieval Arabic writers, Yusuf was of average build and stature. He is further described as having

had a clear brown complexion and he had a thin beard. His voice was soft, his speech elegant. His eyes were black, his nose was hooked, and he had fat on the fleshy portions of his ears. His hair was curly and his eyebrows met above his nose.^[22]

Legacy

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He was married to Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyah, whom he reportedly trusted in political matters.^[23]

His son and successor,

Andalusian architects, who also built the central aisle of the Great Mosque of Tlemcen, Algeria

, in 1136.

Almohads, beginning about 1120, were to engulf the southern frontier. This ultimately led to the disintegration of Yusuf's hard-gained territories by the time of Ibrahim ibn Tashfin (1146) and Ishaq ibn Ali

(1146–1147), the last of the Almoravid dynasty.

In popular culture

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• In the 1961 movie El Cid, Yusuf ibn Tashfin is portrayed, under the name "Ben Yussuf", by Herbert Lom.
• Yusuf appears in Age of Empires II: The Conquerors as one of the primary antagonists in the "El Cid" campaign. However, he is described as "never showing his face", always covering it with a cloth.
• Yusuf ibn Tashfin appears as protagonist in Naseem Hijazi's Urdu Novel "Yusuf bin Tashfeen".
• Yusuf ibn Tashfin appears as Hero in the Drama Serial "Pukaar", presented by Pakistan's Pakistan Television Corporation in 1995. In this series, the main characters were Yousaf bin Tashfin (played by Asal Din Khan), Zainab (Yousaf's wife), Ali (Yousaf's son), Alfonso VI (played by Ayub Khosa), Mutamid bin abi Abbad (played by Hissam Qazi (Late)), and a princess of Leon (played by Laila Wasti).
• Yusuf appears in El Cid: the Legend as the primary antagonist. In the film, he is a cruel, unforgiving and evil man. Much unlike his alleged reputation as an honorable man.

References

1. ^ ben Khaled En-Naciri Es-Slaoui, Ahmed (1925). Archives Marocaines kitab al-istiqsa li-akhbar doual al-maghrib al -aqsa (Histoire du Maroc) (in French). Vol. XXXI. Direction des affaires indigenes et du service des renseignements (section sociologique). p. 197.
2. ^ ben Khaled En-Naciri Es-Slaoui, Ahmed (1925). Archives Marocaines kitab al-istiqsa li-akhbar doual al-maghrib al -aqsa (Histoire du Maroc) (in French). Vol. XXXI. Direction des affaires indigenes et du service des renseignements (section sociologique). p. 198.
3. ^ "Femmes médiévales | Études marocaines, Osire Glacier" (in French). Retrieved 2022-10-15.
4. ^ al-Fāsī, ʻAlī ibn ʻAbd Allāh Ibn Abī Zarʻ; al-Gharnāṭī, Ṣāliḥ ibn ʻAbd al-Ḥalīm (1860). Roudh el-Kartas: Histoire des souverains du Maghreb (Espagne et Maroc) et annales de la ville de Fès (in French). Impr. impériale. p. 190. his mother was Lemtouna ... Fathma bent Syr son of Yhya ben Ouaggag ben Ouartakthyn
5. ISBN 978-0-86154-192-8. They then paid obedience to the caliph in Baghdad as Prince of the Believer (amir al mu'minin
   ), inventing for themselves the lesser title of Prince of the Muslims (amir al-muslimin)
6. ISBN 978-0-8264-1417-5
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7. ISBN 978-0-8264-1837-1
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8. ISBN 978-0-02-865981-7
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11. ISBN 978-90-04-31520-4
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12. ISBN 9004081143
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13. ISBN 978-0-7486-4498-8
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14. ISBN 2744902071
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15. ^ "Yusuf ibn Tashufin | biography - Almoravid ruler | Encyclopædia Britannica". britannica.com. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
16. ^ Halima Ferhat, “Yūsuf b. Tās̲h̲ufīn”, in: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, Edited by: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel, W.P. Heinrichs. Consulted online on 30 August 2020 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_8042>
17. ^ The Poems of Mu'tamid, King of Seville - Dulcie Lawrence Smith - Adobe Reader PDF eBook - eBookMall eBooks Archived October 1, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
18. ^ "Medieval Spains: Seville". Archived from the original on 2003-08-15. Retrieved 2015-02-26.
19. ISBN 9789004085503
    . Retrieved 2015-02-26.
20. ISBN 9780933121928
    . Retrieved 2015-02-26.
21. ISBN 978-1-4422-7724-3
    .
22. ISBN 0582783038
    . Retrieved 20 August 2016.
23. ISBN 978-0-19-579868-5
    .

Sources

• Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain, (University of California Press, 1992)
• Ibn Idhari, Al-bayan al-mughrib
  Part III, annotated Spanish translation by A. Huici Miranda, Valencia, 1963.
• Almoravids
  ; the selections cover some (but not all) of the information above.
• E. A. Freeman
  , History and Conquests of the Saracens, (Oxford, 1856)
• Codera, Decadencia y desaparición de los Almorávides en España (1889)
• H. R. Idris, Regierung und Verwaltung des vorderen Orients in islamischer Zeit, (Brill Academic Publishers, 1997)

Regnal titles
Preceded by Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar	Almoravid dynasty 1061–1106	Succeeded by Ali ibn Yusuf