Yusuf ibn Tashfin

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Yusuf ibn Tashfin or Tashufin (c. 1006 - 1106) (Amazigh: Arabic: يوسف بن تاشفين) was the Berber Almoravid ruler in North Africa and Al-Andalus (Morrish Iberia).

He took the title of amir al-muslimin (commander of the Muslims). He was either a cousin or nephew of Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar, the founder of the Almoravid dynasty. He united all of the Muslim dominions in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain) to the Kingdom of Morocco (circa 1090), after being called to the Al-Andalus by the Emir of Seville.

Yusuf bin Tashfin is the founder of the famous Moroccan city Marrakech (in Arabic Murakush, corrupted to Morocco in English). He himself chose the place where it was built in 1070 and later made it the capital of his Empire. Until then the Almoravids had been desert nomads, but the new capital marked their settling into a more civil way of life.

[edit] Bibliography

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, (Oxford, 1856)

Codera, Decadencia y desaparicion de los Almoravides en España (1889)

Preceded by: Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar

Almoravid 1061–1106

Succeeded by: Ali ibn Yusuf