9-th, 2004 - 09: 1   (Posted By: Webmaster)
Yusuf ben Tachfin

Yusuf ben Tachfin
SULTAN OF AFRICA AND CONQUEROR OF THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM (c. 1080)

FOR RAPIDITY of rise from insignificance to the height of power, history affords no more striking example than the Almoravids, a Negro Mohammedan people, under their leader, Yusuf ben Tachfin.

In this respect they were not excelled even by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. Originating in what became French West Africa, chiefly around Timbuctoo, Upper Senegal, the seat of many another great Negro civilization, these people traversed the vast distance into Morocco, made that the center of their empire, and then crossed into Europe where they became the foremost power in the eleventh century A.D. F. Ossendowski says, "In the expanses of Senegal arose a powerful dynasty of sultans, the Almoravides, who struggled against Gau, subdued Morocco and Spain and by the sword of the magnificent Yusuf ibn Tashfin, left after them a proud memory in the form of Arab-Negro mulattoes."

These African blacks, with a vastly inferior force, broke the power of white Christendom and defeated its best commanders. Among those who fell under the fury of their onslaught was Rodrigo Dfaz de Bivar, better known as the Cid, the most renowned white champion of the time, and the foremost character in Spanish literature. The beginnings of the Almoravid Empire were far less auspicious than those of the Macedonian. An Almoravid, Yahya, returning as a pilgrim from Mecca with advanced ideas, founded a new religious sect. In less than half a century this sect had become the most powerful in Northwest Africa. Their first commander was Abu Bekr, a conqueror of repute; his second in command was Yusuf ben Tachfin. Tall, handsome, dashing, of agreeable and fascinating manners, generous and with a reputation for valor, the swarthy Yusuf was the best beloved person in the empire. In the gratification of his personal ambitions, however, he was, like most great men, thoroughly unscrupulous.

Abu Bekr loved and trusted Yusuf. When he left on an expedition to distant Tunis, he placed Yusuf in command. The latter, however, soon started to supplant his chief by winning over the army with presents of money, expensive garments, horses, suits of armor, and Christian captives and slaves dressed in costly silk. He next won Abu Bekr's favorite wife, Zeinab, a woman of remarkable intelligence, rare energy, and great beauty. Abu Bekr had captured her from another king and her wise counsel had aided greatly in his rise to power. On the other hand, it may have been Zeinab who won Yusuf, as she had long admired the handsome usurper. The marabouts, or chief priests, finding reasons why Yusuf should be proclaimed ruler, with Zeinab as queen, seated him on Abu Bekr's throne.

Yusuf's first step was to build a capital worthy of himself, with splendid homes, a magnificent palace, and beautiful gardens. To inspire the laborers, he himself worked as a hod-carrier. The city he built, Marrakesh, or Morocco City, is still the native capital of Morocco. At last Abu Bekr, successful in his expedition against Tunis, started to return and dispatched envoys to Yusuf to notify him, but even the envoys were bought off, and Abu Bekr, realizing that all was lost, retired into the Sudan and died there fighting in 1088. Yusuf continued his conquests until his empire stretched from Senegal in the south to the Atlantic on the west, and included Algeria and Tunis, an area larger than Western Europe. At that time, across the waters of the Mediterranean in Spain ruled the original Moors, a people composed of all shades from time immemorial. Three centuries before, A.D. 711, under their leader Tarik they had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar, defeated the Goths, built the great fortress Gebel-Tarik, named in honor of their

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