Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar

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Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar (died in 1087) (Arabic: أبو بكر بن عمر) was a Moroccan Almoravid ruler.

He was appointed General of the Moroccan al Murabitūn sect by its leader Abd Allah ibn Yasin on the death of his brother Yahya ibn Ibrahim in 1056. He captured Sūs and Aghmat in southern Morocco in 1057, and became leader of the Murabitūn on the death of Ibn Yasin in battle with the Berghwata Berbers in 1059. Abu Bakr subdued the Berghwata and sent a Murabitūn army northward under his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin while he raided south across the Sahara to West Africa in 1061.

He allowed Yusuf ibn Tashfin to continue autonomous operations after his own return from West Africa, subduing ancient Ghana in 1076 and initiating the spread of Islam on the southern periphery of the Sahara. Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar died shortly after receiving news of Yusuf Ibn Tashfin's victory at battle of az-Zallaqah near Badajoz (in modern Spain), in 1087.

A leader of remarkable ability, he fused his tribes with a religious reform movement; his remarkable tolerance of Ibn-Tashfin's insubordination preserved the infant Almoravid (al Murabitūn) state and permitted its rapid expansion into the Al-Andalus (Morrish Iberia) and most of North Africa as well.

Preceded by
Abd Allah ibn Yasin
Almoravid
10611087
Succeeded by
Yusuf ibn Tashfin
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