The Sultan of the Maghreb - The Life of Yusuf Ibn Tashfin, from 'Issâ Meyer

The history of the Murâbitûn movement is perhaps above all the praise of the will and, above all, of the Faith; the proof that a handful of men hitherto isolated from the great movements of humanity, lifted by an extraordinary enthusiasm, pushed by an incredible vital impulse, carried by a sublime spiritual impulse, can overthrow all the established powers , burn down all the idols and forever change the face of a significant part of the world.

One man dominates this formidable epic, this fantastic march from the Sahara to the Pyrenees: Yusuf ibn Tashfin . Archetype of the just and valiant Muslim sovereign, to the point that some called him the incorruptible "sixth well-guided caliph", close to his men and the ulema, a wise manager and a fine diplomat with easy forgiveness, he was the antithesis of the despot . Armed ideologist, virtuous and ascetic statesman, empire builder and warlord, his name alone, which inspired terror and dread in the hearts of tyrants, will be chanted from Fez to Seville, from Valence to Algiers, by all the peoples of the Muslim West in search of justice.

Because Yusuf ibn Tashfin was, above all, the standard bearer of a cause, a furious revolt against the dramatic state of the Maghreb at the time and a radical religious reform to which he had entirely devoted his life, summed up in this slogan: “Spread the Truth, suppress injustice, abolish illegal taxes. ”

With nearly a millennium of hindsight, his work accomplished in barely half a century seems immense to us: the union of the two shores of the Mediterranean into one of the most powerful empires that Islamic civilization has known , but also and especially the massive spread of Maliki Islam which still today punctuates the lives of hundreds of millions of Muslims in Africa...