Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

IBN TUMART
The Mahdi of the Almohads and founder of Almohad movement. The biographies of so celebrated a figure inevitably contain much legendary matter besides evident contradictions. He was born between 471/1078 and 474/1081 in the Anti-Atlas of Morocco. His father belonged to the Hargha and his mother to the Masakkaia, both of which are divisions of the Masmuda tribal group and there can be no doubt that he was a pure Berber despite the various Sharifian genealogies attributed to him. Of his first 30 or 50 years we have no real knowledge. In 500/1106 he left his native mountains and went first to Cordova, where he spent a year. Only Ibn Kunfudh gives any information as to what he did there, saying merely that he studied with the Qazi Ibn Hamdin. Ibn Tumart next embarked at Almeria for the East. At Alexandria he met Abu Bakr al-Turtushi and then went via Makkah to Baghdad, where he met Abu Bakr al-Shashi and Mubarak b. ’Abd al-Jabbar. Ibn Tumart reached Baghdad al-Ghazali had already left the city for good and had been for over ten years in Khurasan, where it is never hinted that Ibn Tumart ever went.
He return towards the Maghrib began in 510/1116 or

511/1117. It was a turbulent journey. Ibn Tumart caused public disturbances and put himself in danger of his life by his uncompromising insistence on the punctilious observance of religious obligations. At the same time his learning and piety made an impression, and during the many long halts in his journey he found ready audience. En route, probably at Tunis, he was joined by Abu Bakr b. AM al-Sanbadi, surnamed al-Baydhak, who became his devoted follower and whose memories are a prime source of information for the remainder of Ibn Tumart’s career and that of his successor Abd al-Mu’min. At Mallala, near Bougie (Bidiaya), the momentous meeting between Ibn Tumart and ’Abd al-Mu’min took place. Love of the supernatural has embellished the circumstances of this meeting with a \\ealth of picturesque detail but subsequent events confirmed the power of tfiis combination of Ibn Tumart’s personal magnetism and Abd al-Mu’min’s administrative and militarv sjenius.

Eminent Scholars of Medieval Islam
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This peculiar force of personality must be invoked to explain why Ibn Tumart, despite the continual riots which he provoked, ran the gauntlet of lesser authorities unscathed and finally confronted the Al-Moravid sultan himself at Marrakush. This was in 514/1120. ’Ali b. Yusuf b. Tashfin arranged a debate between Ibn Tumart and a group of fukaha, who were as nonplussed as Ali himself. One party, represented by the wazir Malik b. Wuhayb, saw in Ibn Tumart’s preaching a serious threat to the regime and so advocated his destruction. Others, among whom Yintan b. ’Umar is mentioned, could not stomach the punishment of one who could not be convicted of any crime against the Shari’a. While the pacific Ali vacillated, Yintan took Ibn Tumart under his protection. But Yintan succeeded in convincing the stubborn and now perhaps over-confident Ibn Tumart of his mortal danger, so he prudently withdrew to Aghmat. There the usual disturbances took place and a new stage in his career began,
Until now Ibn Tumart had apparently not viewed himself as the actual or potential leader of a movement or as a rebel against established authority; he was merely an individual fulfilling his religious obligations as he conceived them. But now the situation had changed. Ali b. Yusuf had finally overcome his scruples at the news of the latest troubles in Aghmat and despatched a messenger to order the return of the trouble-maker to Marrakush. Ibn Tumart refused to go and so was now in open rebellion. At the same time he had now won a powerful supporter in the person of Isma’il Igig, chief of the Hazarjia, who was soon after joined by ’Umar Inti and Yusuf b. Wanudin of the Hintata. He found himself apparently by accident the spiritual leader of substantial forces united, no doubt, more by tribal anti-Almoravid sentiments than by concern for the purity of the faith.
The idea of proclaiming himself Mahdi began to grow in his mind and from the time he finally reached his birthplace at Igilliz in

515/1121 and installed himself in a cave (al-Ghar al-mukaddas-not now identifiable with certainty) he devoted himself to spreading the belief that the appearance of the Mahdi in the Maghrib was imminent. At the end of one harangue in which he listed the attributes of the Mahdi he was finally acclaimed. ”When the Imam al-Mahdi finished his speech’’, says ’Abd al-Mu’min, ”ten men, of whom I was one, rushed up to him and I said: ”These signs are found only in you! You are the Mahdi!’ And so we swore fealty to him as the Mahdi.”

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