ABU BAKR IBN Umar, the emir of the Saharan Lamtuna tribe, was focused on building a city, the future capital of a forthcoming Maghrebi and Andalusian empire, when he was called away from this project to help his own people, who were being attacked by their neighbours in the desert. According to Ibn Idari, one of the main Muslim sources for this period, emissaries reported that men were being killed and property was being stolen1 Given the seriousness of this situation, Abu Bakr could not leave his own people to their fate, but he could not abandon the building of the city that would be called Marrakesh either. According to the same source, he asked for divine inspiration in order to find a substitute while he was away, and this consultation revealed the name of his cousin Yusuf ibn Tashfin. Ibn Idari says that this event took place in the Hijrah year of 463, which occurred between October 9, 1070, and September 28, 1071. However, al-Bakri's information may be more accurate, since this Muslim scholar was a contemporary of the events, and we can infer from his work that they took place at least five years earlier, around 1065 or 1066. This pivotal moment would mark the beginning of Yusuf ibn Tashfin's career as a political leader, who would eventually conquer and unify both the Maghreb and the al-Andalus— Muslim Hispania. But he did not do it all by himself. On his way to power he greatly benefited from the support of Zaynab bint Ishaq al-Nafzawwiyya, the then wife of Abu Bakr ibn Umar. When leaving for the desert, to help his fellow tribesmen, Abu Bakr divorced his wife and suggested that Yusuf marry her, and this may have changed the course of the Almoravids’ growing empire. This chapter charts the life of Zaynab bint Ishaq al-Nafzawwiyya, highlighting her crucial role in the rise of the Almoravid Empire and in the complicated politics of its court.

A Brief History of the Almoravids and the Rise of Abu Bakr

The Almoravids were a political group of tribes hailing from the Sahara Desert, founded roughly two decades earlier by an imam named Abd Allah ibn Yasin.