Editing Almoravid dynasty (section)

=== Southern Almoravids and the Ghana Empire ===
After leaving Yusuf Ibn Tashfin in the north and returning south, Abu Bakr Ibn Umar reportedly made Azuggi his base. The town acted as the capital of the southern Almoravids under him and his successors.<ref>{{harvnb|Messier|2010|p=86}}: "Nor did Abu Bakr interfere with Yusuf's free hand in Morocco or Spain. The old amir ruled in the Sahara in the same way that tribal chiefs among the Sanhaja had done for generations, through a combination nation of tribal loyalties, religious appeal, and military strength. He had every intention to continue the religious revival in the vein of strict Malikite Islam. He brought to the desert a teacher from the city of Aghmat, the Imam al-Hadrami. The latter had studied Malikite law in both Qayrawan and Andalusia. Abu Bakr made him qadi, judge, in Azuggi. From there, Imam al-Hadrami went out to preach among the unbelievers."</ref><ref name=":14">{{harvnb|Bennison|2016|p=2}}: "The Arabic narrative, such as it is, posits that Abu Bakir b. 'Umar returned to the Almoravids' southern base or capital at Azuggi in modern Mauritania with a handful of Maliki jurists, including Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Muradi from Qayrawan, to orchestrate the Almoravid advance south against the Soninke kingdom of Ghana, which was successfully conquered around 1076–77 and subsequently collapsed. (...) The nature of the Almoravid encounter with Ghana—conquest or partnership—and the ethnic and religious origins of those involved is impossible to determine in the absence of new sources. However, the Almoravids clearly achieved control of the salt trade and the gold flow north, their primary economic objective, and Islam did take root among the population of Ghana, their religious objective. Abu Bakr maintained Almoravid control of the Sahara at least in the vicinity of Azuggi, and the expansion of the Sanhaja eastwards appears to have been led by the Almoravid Masufa, a group with strong marriage and maternal connections to the Lamtuna, who migrated into the vast zone between Sijilmasa and Waraqlan, led quite possibly by Abu Bakr's son, Yahya, known as al-Masufi due to his maternal lineage."</ref><ref name=":11" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Norris |first=H. T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pztzAAAAMAAJ&q=azougui |title=The Arab Conquest of the Western Sahara: Studies of the Historical Events, Religious Beliefs and Social Customs which Made the Remotest Sahara a Part of the Arab World |date=1986 |publisher=Longman |isbn=978-0-582-75643-4 |page=243 |language=en |quote=Its present capital is Āṭār, though in the mediaeval period its principal towns were Azuqqi (Azougui), which, for a while, was the "capital" of the southern wing of the Almoravid movement, (...)}}</ref><ref name=":10" /><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Norris |first1=H.T. |title=Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition |publisher=Brill |year=1993 |isbn= |editor-last=Bosworth |editor-first=C.E. |volume=7 |location= |pages=583–591 |language=en |chapter=Mūrītāniyā |quote=The movement of the 'men of the ribāṭ', the Almoravids [see al-murābiṭūn ], became established in the Río de Oro and in parts of Mauritania by missionaries who were adepts of the saint Wad̲j̲ād̲j̲ b. Zalw, who had previously established a ribāṭ at Aglū in the Sūs of Morocco, not far from present-day Tīznīt and Ifnī (see F. Meier, Almoraviden und Marabute , in WI, xxi, 80–163). However, the raids of the Saharans who joined the movement were primarily launched from within against Morocco itself, so that Mauritania never became its major centre. Only Azuggī, the capital of the southern wing, under Abū Bakr b. ʿUmar and his successors, was considered worthy of mention by such geographers as al-Idrīsī and Ibn Saʿīd al-Mag̲h̲ribī. |editor2-last=van Donzel |editor2-first=E. |editor3-last=Heinrichs |editor3-first=W.P. |editor4-last=Pellat |editor4-first=Ch.}}</ref> Despite the importance of the Saharan trade routes to the Almoravids, the history of the southern wing of the empire is not well documented in Arabic historical sources and is often neglected in histories of the Maghreb and al-Andalus.{{Sfn|Bennison|2016|p=37}} This has also encouraged a division in modern studies about the Almoravids, with archeology playing a greater role in the study of the southern wing, in the absence of more textual sources. The exact nature and impact of the Almoravid presence in the Sahel is a strongly debated topic among [[African studies|Africanists]].{{Sfn|Bennison|2016|p=37}}

According to Arab tradition, the Almoravids under Abu Bakr's leadership conquered the [[Ghana Empire]], founded by the Soninke, sometime around 1076–77.<ref name=":14" /> An example of this tradition is the record of historian [[Ibn Khaldun]], who cited Shaykh Uthman, the [[Faqīh|faqih]] of Ghana, writing in 1394. According to this source, the Almoravids weakened Ghana and collected tribute from the Sudan, to the extent that the authority of the rulers of Ghana dwindled away, and they were subjugated and absorbed by the [[Sosso Empire|Sosso]], a neighboring people of the Sudan.<ref>Ibn Khaldun in Levtzion and Hopkins, eds. and transl. ''Corpus'', p. 333.</ref> Traditions in [[Mali]] related that the Sosso attacked and took over Mali as well, and the ruler of the Sosso, Sumaouro Kanté, took over the land.<ref>Nehemia Levtzion, ''Ancient Ghana and Mali'' (New York, 1973), pp. 51–52, 58–60.</ref>

However, criticism from Conrad and Fisher (1982) argued that the notion of any Almoravid military conquest at its core is merely perpetuated folklore, derived from a misinterpretation or naive reliance on Arabic sources.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Masonen | first1=Pekka | last2=Fisher | first2=Humphrey J. | title=Not quite Venus from the waves: The Almoravid conquest of Ghana in the modern historiography of Western Africa | year=1996 | journal=History in Africa | volume=23 | pages=197–232 | jstor=3171941 | url=http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~amcdouga/Hist446/readings/conquest_in_west_african_historiography.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~amcdouga/Hist446/readings/conquest_in_west_african_historiography.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live | doi = 10.2307/3171941 | s2cid=162477947 }}</ref> According to Professor Timothy Insoll, the archaeology of ancient Ghana simply does not show the signs of rapid change and destruction that would be associated with any Almoravid-era military conquests.{{sfn|Insoll|2003|p=230}}

Dierke Lange agreed with the original military incursion theory but argues that this doesn't preclude Almoravid political agitation, claiming that the main factor of the demise of the Ghana Empire owed much to the latter.{{sfn|Lange|1996|pp=122–159}} According to Lange, Almoravid religious influence was gradual, rather than the result of military action; there the Almoravids gained power by marrying among the nation's nobility. Lange attributes the decline of ancient Ghana to numerous unrelated factors, one of which is likely attributable to internal dynastic struggles instigated by Almoravid influence and Islamic pressures, but devoid of military conquest.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Lange|first= Dierk|date=1996|title=The Almoravid expansion and the downfall of Ghana|journal= Der Islam|volume= 73|number= 73 |doi= 10.1515/islm.1996.73.2.313|s2cid= 162370098|pages= 122–159}}.</ref>

This interpretation of events has been disputed by later scholars like Sheryl L. Burkhalter,<ref name=":15">{{Cite journal |last=Burkhalter |first=Sheryl L. |date=1992 |title=Listening for Silences in Almoravid History: Another Reading of 'The Conquest That Never Was' |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171996 |journal=History in Africa |volume=19 |pages=103–131|doi=10.2307/3171996 |jstor=3171996 |s2cid=163154435 }}</ref> who argued that, whatever the nature of the "conquest" in the south of the Sahara, the influence and success of the Almoravid movement in securing west African gold and circulating it widely necessitated a high degree of political control.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gómez-Rivas |first=Camilo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eCWeBQAAQBAJ |title=Law and the Islamization of Morocco under the Almoravids: The Fatwās of Ibn Rushd al-Jadd to the Far Maghrib |publisher=Brill |year=2014 |isbn=978-90-04-27984-1 |page=13 |language=en}}</ref>

The Arab geographer [[Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri]] wrote that the Almoravids ended [[Ibadi Islam]] in Tadmekka in 1084 and that Abu Bakr "arrived at the mountain of gold" in the deep south.<ref name=":7" /> Abu Bakr finally died in [[Tagant Region|Tagant]] in November 1087 following an injury in battle—according to oral tradition, from an arrow<ref>P. Semonin (1964) "The Almoravid Movement in the Western Sudan: A review of the evidence" ''Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana'', v. 7: p. 58</ref>{{Sfn|Messier|2010|p=209}}—while fighting in the historic region of the [[Sudan (region)|Sudan]].{{Sfn|Messier|2010|p=86}}

After the death of Abu Bakr (1087), the confederation of Berber tribes in the Sahara was divided between the descendants of Abu Bakr and his brother Yahya, and would have lost control of Ghana.<ref name=":7">''The Cambridge History of Africa, Volume 3: From c. 1050 to c.  1600''</ref> Sheryl Burkhalter suggests that Abu Bakr's son Yahya was the leader of the Almoravid expedition that conquered Ghana in 1076, and that the Almoravids would have survived the loss of Ghana and the defeat in the Maghreb by the Almohads, and would have ruled the Sahara until the end of the 12th century.<ref name=":15" /> Some local oral histories support this, describing a southern Almoravid dynasty that lasted 200 years after Abu Bakr's death. When it finally split apart in the 13th century, one branch (by now thoroughly integrated into the local culture of [[Takrur]]) may have been led by the legendary [[Ndiadiane Ndiaye]], founder of the [[Jolof Empire]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ba |first1=Abdourahmane |editor1-last=Villasante Cervello |editor1-first=Mariella |editor2-last=Taylor |editor2-first=Raymond |title=Histoire et politique dans la vallée du fleuve Sénégal: Mauritanie. Hiérarchies, échanges, colonisation et violences politiques, VIIIe-XXIe siècle |date=2017 |publisher=Harmattan |page=144 |language=French |chapter=Chapitre 1, Le Takrur Historique Et l'Héritage Du Fuuta Tooro}}
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