CHAPTER  THE FOURTH
THE CONSOLIDATION  OF EMPIRE

(MURABTI  PERIOD)
1061-1149

CONTEMPORARY with the Norman conquest of the
1061.   Saracens in  Sicily, and of the  Anglo-Saxons
1066.       in   south-eastern   England,   rose   the   Moorish
Empire, of which hitherto the foundations alone
State of Morocco    had been laid.    Not one of the petty Berber
States into which Morocco was then divided was able to
take the lead or to coerce the others, and it was not until
an outside kindred  power came amongst them, and by
one  fierce   on-rush   broke  down   tribal   barriers,  that  it
was possible to weld them into one.    Such a power was
the house of Tashfin, afterwards known as the Murabti*

* On the authority of ancient writers whom he names, the author of
Raod el Kartas^ tells how these Berbers earned their name of Murabti,
which by European writers has been corrupted into '' Almoravide." One of
their leaders, Yahya bin Ibrahim, having abdicated that he might perform the
pilgrimage to Mekka, on his way home met at Kairwan a learned teacher
from Fez, who, hearing from him of the ignorance of the Sanhaja, tried in
vain to institute a mission from his students for their instruction. Neverthe¬
less he succeeded in inspiring Yahya with a zeal to perform this task, in
which he found a colleague among the pupils of a teacher of Jebel Nafis.
This colleague not only induced the Lamtuna to heed his words, and among
other reforms to reduce their unlimited number of wives to the four allowed
by Mohammed, but gathered round him, in a hermitage which he established,
a thousand of the principal Sanhaja.    These he daily instructed, and they ~

1 pp. 165 to 174.
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