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Azougui
Azougui (or Azuggi, ar, آزوكي) was a town in north western Mauritania, lying on the Adrar Plateau, north west of Atar. In the eleventh century it was the first capital of the Almoravid dynasty, who conquered a territory stretching from the Ghana Empire to Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula. The chronicler al-Bakri claims a fortress "surrounded by 20,000 palms" was built here by Yannu ibn Umar, a brother of the first Almoravid chieftains, Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni and Abu Bakr ibn Umar, and marked the frontier between the dominions of the Lamtuna and the Gudala. Both of them Berber Sanhaja desert tribes and one time allies, the Lamtuna formed the core of the Almoravids after the Gudala broke away. It was near this location, at a place called Tabfarilla, that the early Almoravids suffered their first significant defeat, when the Gudala crushed an Almoravid Lamtuna army based in Azuggi and killed their leader Yahya ibn Umar in 1056. Azuggi and the nearby battlefield s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Imam Al-Hadrami
Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Murādī al-Ḥaḍramī () or el Mûradi Al Hadrami or al-shaykh al imâm Al Hadrami was an 11th century North African Islamic theologian and jurist. He died in 1095.Russell Hopley: Hadrami, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Muradi al- (d.1095/1096) in: Dictionary of African Biography, . Biography ''Al-Hadrami'' was born in the city of Kairouan in present-day Tunisia to an Arab family with origins in the Hadramawt region of southern Arabia. In his native town he received his education, studying with a number of scholars, including Abu Imran al-Fasi. Ibn Bashkuwāl reports, that al-Hadrami stayed in 1094 for a brief of study in Córdoba. After the Almoravid conquest of Azougui, close to Atar in present-day Mauritania by Abu Bakr ibn Umar, al-Hadrami followed him to that city. In Azougui he served as qadi until his death in 1095. He wrote several political and theological treatises. From the second half of the 17th century, the memory of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Tabfarilla
The Battle of Tabfarilla was a military conflict between the Lamtuna and the Godala. Both of them Muslim Berber Sanhaja tribes of the Sahara Desert and one time allies, the Lamtuna formed the core of the Almoravids after the Godala broke away. The Almoravid Emir Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni was sent against the Godala. The battle took place in the Sahara between 21 March and 19 April of 448 AH/1056 AD at a spot called ''Tabfarilla'' near Azougui in present-day central Mauritania. The battle continued until night. The Almoravids, although reinforced by the Takrurs, were defeated and Yahya ibn Umar was killed in the battlefield. Retrieved 25 February 2020. The geographer |
Yahya Ibn Umar Al-Lamtuni
Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Umar ibn Talagagin ibn Turgut ibn Wartasin, commonly suffixed al-Lamtuni al-Sanhaji, (d. near Azuggi, 1056; Arabic : يحيى إبن عمر) was a chieftain of the Lamtuna, a tribe in the Sanhaja confederation. Yahya ibn Umar was the first emir of the Almoravids in the mid-11th century, a movement he constructed in collaboration with the religious leader Abdallah ibn Yasin. Yahya led the Almoravid armies in their first campaigns, including captures of Sijilmassa and Awdaghost in 1054/55, but was himself killed in battle against a dissident Berber faction in the Adrar. Yahya was succeeded as Almoravid emir by his brother, Abu Bakr ibn Umar. Background In the 11th century, the Sanhaja were divided into several tribes - the Lamtuna, the Massufa, the Banu Warith and the Gudala (or Judala). After their conversion to Islam during the 9th century, the Sanhaja desert tribes were united and, with the zeal of neophyte converts, launched a series of campaigns (''j ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adrar Plateau
The Adrar (, Berber for "mountain") is a highland natural and historical region of the Sahara Desert in northern Mauritania. The Adrar Region, an administrative division of Mauritania, is named after the traditional region. It is sometimes called Adrar Tamar to distinguish it from other areas called Adrar in the Sahara. Geography The Adrar is an arid plateau, known for its gorges, regs (stony deserts) and sand dunes. Structurally the Adrar is a low central massif which rises to over above sea level just east of Atar near the Amojjar Pass on the track to Chinguetti, then loses elevation and becomes subsumed by dunes to the south and east. Limited cultivation is only possible in the gorges at lower elevations such like oued Seguellil where the water table is high enough to support large palm groves. Notable features include the Oued el Abiod or 'White Valley', a dune-filled fault line along which many small settlements and palm groves are found. The Guelb Aouelloul crater i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almoravid Dynasty
The Almoravid dynasty ( ar, المرابطون, translit=Al-Murābiṭūn, lit=those from the ribats) was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus, starting in the 1050s and lasting until its fall to the Almohads in 1147. The Almoravid capital was Marrakesh, a city founded by the Almoravid leader Abu Bakr ibn Umar circa 1070. The dynasty emerged from a coalition of the Lamtuna, Gudala, and Massufa, nomadic Berber tribes living in what is now Mauritania and the Western Sahara, traversing the territory between the Draa, the Niger, and the Senegal rivers. The Almoravids were crucial in preventing the fall of Al-Andalus (Muslim rule in Iberia) to the Iberian Christian kingdoms, when they decisively defeated a coalition of the Castilian and Aragonese armies at the Battle of Sagrajas in 1086. This enabled them to control an empire that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mauritania
Mauritania (; ar, موريتانيا, ', french: Mauritanie; Berber: ''Agawej'' or ''Cengit''; Pulaar: ''Moritani''; Wolof: ''Gànnaar''; Soninke:), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania ( ar, الجمهورية الإسلامية الموريتانية), is a sovereign country in West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and the 28th-largest in the world, and 90% of its territory is situated in the Sahara. Most of its population of 4.4 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly one-third concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast. The country's name derives from the ancient Berber kingdom of Mauretania, located in North Africa within the ancient Maghreb. Berbers occupied what is now Mauritania ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guinea (region)
Guinea is a traditional name for the region of the African coast of West Africa which lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It is a naturally moist tropical forest or savanna that stretches along the coast and borders the Sahel belt in the north. Etymology The etymology of "Guinea" is uncertain. The English term ''Guinea'' comes directly from the Spanish word ''Guinea'', which in turn derives from the Portuguese word ''Guiné''. The Portuguese term emerged in the mid-15th century to refer to the lands inhabited by the ''Guineus'', a generic term used by the Portuguese to refer to the 'black' African peoples living south of the Senegal River (in contrast to the 'tawny' Sanhaja Berbers, north of it, whom they called ''Azenegues''). The term "Guinea" is extensively used in the 1453 chronicle of Gomes Eanes de Zurara. King John II of Portugal took up the title of ''Senhor da Guiné'' (Lord of Guinea) from 1481. It is believed the Portuguese borrowed ''Guineus'' from the Berber term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trans-Saharan Trade
Trans-Saharan trade requires travel across the Sahara between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa. While existing from prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century. The Sahara once had a very different environment. In Libya and Algeria, from at least 7000 BC, there was pastoralism, the herding of sheep, goats, large settlements, and pottery. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara ( Ahaggar) from 4000 to 3500 BC. Remarkable rock paintings (dated 3500 to 2500 BC) in places that are currently very dry, portray flora and fauna that are not present in the modern desert environment. As a desert, Sahara is now a hostile expanse that separates the Mediterranean economy from the economy of the Niger basin. As Fernand Braudel points out, crossing such a zone, especially without mechanized transport, is worthwhile only when exceptional circumstances cause the expected gain to outweigh the cost and the danger. Trade was conducted by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Takrur
Takrur, Tekrur or Tekrour ( 800 – c. 1285) was an ancient state of West Africa, which flourished roughly parallel to the Ghana Empire. Origin Takrur was the capital of the state which flourished on the lower Senegal River. Takruri was a term, like Bilad-ul-Sudan, that was used to refer to all people of West African ancestry, and is still in use as such in the Middle East, with some corruption, as in ''Takruni'', pl. ''Takarna'' تكروني in Saudi Arabia, and in Ethiopia and Eritrea, in the form Tukrir. The district of ''Bulaq Al-Dakrur'' بولاق الدكرور in Cairo is named after an ascetic from West Africa. The formation of the state may have taken place as an influx of Fulani from the east settled in the Senegal valley. John Donnelly Fage suggests that Takrur was formed through the interaction of Berbers from the Sahara and "Negro agricultural peoples" who were "essentially Serer". Centre of trade Located in the Senegal valley, along the border of prese ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Citadel
A citadel is the core fortified area of a town or city. It may be a castle, fortress, or fortified center. The term is a diminutive of "city", meaning "little city", because it is a smaller part of the city of which it is the defensive core. In a fortification with bastions, the citadel is the strongest part of the system, sometimes well inside the outer walls and bastions, but often forming part of the outer wall for the sake of economy. It is positioned to be the last line of defence, should the enemy breach the other components of the fortification system. The functions of the police and the army, as well as the army barracks were developed in the citadel. History 3300–1300 BC Some of the oldest known structures which have served as citadels were built by the Indus Valley civilisation, where citadels represented a centralised authority. Citadels in Indus Valley were almost 12 meters tall. The purpose of these structures, however, remains debated. Though the structures foun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soninke People
The Soninke people are a West African Mande-speaking ethnic group found in Mali, Fouta Djallon, southern Mauritania, eastern Senegal, Guinea and The Gambia. They speak the Soninke language, also called the Serakhulle or Azer language, which is one of the Mande languages. Soninke people were the founders of the ancient empire of Ghana or Wagadou c. 300–1240 CE, Subgroups of Soninke include the Maraka and Wangara. When the Ghana empire was destroyed, the resulting diaspora brought Soninkes to Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinée-Conakry, modern-day Republic of Ghana, and Guinea-Bissau where some of this trading diaspora was called Wangara. Predominantly Muslims, the Soninke were one of the early ethnic groups from West Africa to convert to Islam in about the 10th century. The contemporary population of Soninke people is estimated to be over 2 million. The cultural practices of Soninke people are similar to the Mandé peoples, and those of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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