Almoravid Dynasty - Name

Name

The term "Almoravid" comes from the Arabic "al-Murabitun" (المرابطون) which is the plural form of "al-Murabit" literally meaning "One who is tying" but figuratively means "one who is ready for battle at a fortress". The term is related to the notion of Ribat, a frontier monastery-fortress, through the root r-b-t (ربط "Rabat": to tie or رابط "Raabat": to encamp).

It is uncertain exactly when or why the Almoravids acquired that appellation. al-Bakri, writing in 1068, before their apogee, already calls them the al-Murabitun, but does not clarify the reasons for it. Writing three centuries later, Ibn Abi Zar suggested it was chosen early on by Abdallah Ibn Yasin because, upon finding resistance among the Gudala Berbers of Adrar (Mauritania) to his teaching, he took a handful of followers to erect a makeshift ribat (monastery-fortress) on an offshore island (possibly Tidra island, in Arguin bay). Ibn Idhari wrote that the name was suggested by Ibn Yasin in the "persevering in the fight" sense, to boost morale after a particularly hard-fought battle in the Draa valley c. 1054, in which they had taken many losses. Whichever explanation is true, it seems certain the appellation was chosen by the Almoravids for themselves, partly with the conscious goal of forestalling any tribal or ethnic identifications.

It has also been suggested that the name might be related to the ribat of Waggag ibn Zallu in the village of Aglu (near present-day Tiznit), where the future Almoravid spiritual leader Abdallah ibn Yasin got his initial training. The 13th-century Moroccan biographer Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadili and Qadi Ayyad before him in the 12th-century, note that Waggag's learning center was called Dar al-Murabitin (The house of the Almoravids), and that might have inspired Ibn Yasin's choice of name for the movement.

Contemporaries frequently referred to them as the al-mulathimun ("the veiled ones", from litham, Arabic for "veil"). The Almoravids veiled themselves below the eyes (see tagelmust), a custom they adapted from southern Sanhaja Berbers (as can still be seen among the modern Tuareg people), but unusual further north. 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.)