Military Jihād against Muslims: ‘Abd Allāh b. Yāsīn and the Foundation of a Saharan Political Unit that Would Conquer the Maghreb and al-Andalus (Eleventh Century)

ABSTRACT In 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Urban II delivered a speech that roused the crowds against the infidels. 1 1 Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London and New York: Continuum, 2003), pp. 13–30. Soon thereafter, the Christian sovereigns rallied the troops, targeting Jerusalem. Even in the Iberian Peninsula, the population went into raptures at the prospect of taking up arms, 2 2 William J. Purkis, Crusading Spirituality in the Holy Land and Iberia (c. 1095–c. 1187) (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008), pp. 120–38. and had to be appeased by the Pope so as not to undermine the military efforts against Muslims. Urban II viewed the First Crusade as a triptych composed of the conquest of Sicily (1091), the successes in Iberia, which included the taking of Toledo (1085) and Lisbon (1093), and the conquest of Jerusalem (1099). 3 3 Paul E. Chevedden, “‘A Crusade from the First’: The Norman Conquest of Islamic Sicily, 1060–1091”, Al-Masāq 22/2 (2010): 91–225, p. 292. However, the winds of war changed in 1086, when the Almoravids won the Battle of Zallāqa. 4 4 Javier Albarrán Iruela, “Una reconquista de la reconquista: La reacción ideológica islámica al avance cristiano (ss. XI–XIII)”, in La Reconquista: Ideología y justificación de la Guerra Santa peninsular, ed. Carlos de Ayala Martínez, Isabel Cristina Ferreira Fernandes and J. Santiago Palacios Ontalva (Madrid: La Ergástula Ediciones, 2019), pp. 233–57, esp. 238–44. The Berbers, who expanded their power over al-Andalus until 1095, 5 5 Inês Lourinho, Fronteira do Gharb al-Andalus: Terreno de confronto entre Almorávidas e Cristãos (1093–1147) (Lisbon: Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa, 2020), pp. 179–92. saw themselves as defenders of the community against Christians. However, in the foundation of their movement they engaged in military jihād against Muslims.