- 2 days ago
It is easy to think of Islamic North Africa as Arab rather than African, but the land that is now Morocco once lay at the centre of a vast African kingdom that stretched from northern Spain to the heart of West Africa. It was created by African Berbers and ruled for centuries by two dynasties that.....
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00:03The Sahara Desert, one of the harshest climates in the world.
00:11A huge expanse of unforgiving rock, scrub and sand the size of Europe.
00:21To me, it looks like a place of nothingness.
00:26But it was from here that a group of desert nomads
00:30came to transform the northwest corner of Africa
00:34into a vast empire that stretched from the Sahara to Spain.
00:43What started with one man's mission
00:45grew into a kingdom which lasted for centuries.
00:49Its rulers generated tremendous wealth,
00:52created great architecture and promoted sophisticated ideas
00:55in an ordered society.
00:59They were called the Berber,
01:01and they changed this part of Africa forever.
01:06We know less about Africa's past than almost anywhere else on Earth.
01:12But the scarcity of written records doesn't mean Africa lacks history.
01:17It's found in artefacts, culture, and the traditions of the people.
01:22In this series, I'm exploring some of the richest and most vibrant histories in the world.
01:31I'm here in Morocco to explore how a small collection of Berber nomads
01:35created a vast kingdom out of nothing,
01:38and how the very forces that created that kingdom
01:41ultimately helped to destroy it.
01:43time from the globe and many other people.
02:10It's found in the world,
02:11but this time includes one of my neighbors.
02:1121st-century Si'an-Lawait
02:13of history as diverse as its landscape.
02:20Morocco has coasts that face the Atlantic
02:23and the Mediterranean Sea,
02:25snow-covered mountains almost as high as the Alps,
02:28and the bone-dry fringes of the Sahara Desert.
02:43The dominant languages spoken here now
02:45are from Arabia and Europe,
02:48but nearly half the population still speak Berber,
02:51the language of the indigenous Africans.
02:57A thousand years ago, this was their land,
03:00but there was no sense of a nation-state.
03:03Instead, on either side of the Atlas Mountains
03:06live small, independent Berber clans
03:09of farmers, traders and nomads.
03:16These people were Muslim.
03:22But they maintained their traditional Berber customs.
03:26And they didn't always follow Islam to the letter of the law.
03:43But in the mid-11th century, one man changed everything.
03:48A Berber who'd studied the Koran,
03:50but had become a charismatic, fiery preacher.
03:55Idealistic and uncompromising, he had a clear mission
03:58to change his fellow Berbers into proper Muslims,
04:02schooled in the strict fundamentals of their religion.
04:06His name was Abdullah ibn Yassin,
04:09and his travels to Islamic centres of learning
04:12have left him a student of a strict legalistic interpretation
04:15of the Koran.
04:17He started his mission in the Western Sahara,
04:21where he pulled together an alliance of tribes
04:23and appointed himself a spiritual leader.
04:27In so doing, he started a series of events
04:30that completely transformed North-West Africa.
04:36In the year 1054, he led an army of thousands of nomads
04:40and headed for Sigil Masa,
04:42then a major trading post on the edge of the Sahara,
04:45and one of the most important cities in Africa.
04:52Ibn Yassin and his followers were called al-Muravids,
04:55from a phrase meaning those bound together in the cause of God.
04:59They were determined to bind everyone to the cause.
05:02They had one simple mission, jihad.
05:10The term jihad today carries connotations for many people
05:14of anti-Western extremism.
05:18But Ibn Yassin's holy war,
05:20his struggle to uphold a true understanding of Islam,
05:24was aimed at his fellow Muslim Berbers.
05:36This spectacular ruin is now all that's left of Sigil Masa,
05:41a city of well over 50,000 people,
05:44built in the middle of one of the biggest oases in Africa.
05:49Now a quiet and tranquil backwater,
05:52the date palms and irrigated fields hide clues
05:56to a much bigger and more significant past.
06:00And it's on a shingle bank, at the heart of the oasis,
06:03where the ruins of the mud-built city lie.
06:07The taking of Sigil Masa would be the first major building block
06:12of an al-Muravid kingdom.
06:14So what attracted Ibn Yassin here?
06:18The wealth of the city.
06:19This city was very prosperous.
06:21In fact, it was the commercial hub of Morocco,
06:24a huge city in a huge oasis.
06:27Dr Eric Ross has been involved in some of the recent
06:30archaeological studies here that have confirmed
06:33why this was such an important prize for Ibn Yassin.
06:37I call it the Casablanca of 1,000 years ago.
06:40Yes.
06:41Because Morocco wasn't looking to Europe or the Atlantic,
06:45it was looking across the Sahara.
06:46The Sahara was wide open to trade.
06:49So there were goods coming from all over the region
06:51and they were being traded and exchanged here?
06:53Yes.
06:54And what sorts of things are being traded here?
06:56Cloth, manuscripts and books, horses also.
07:00The most important was the gold,
07:02trading mostly south across the Sahara.
07:05Places like Mali and Senegal today were producing
07:09especially gold, so gold was the main part of the wealth
07:12of the city.
07:12We know gold coins were minted here, they were stamped here,
07:16and they were exported.
07:17And mostly they were exported eastward to Egypt, Iraq,
07:22Central Asia, and they ended up in places like India.
07:25Wow.
07:26So they're trading tendrils.
07:29They'd stretch all the way from West Africa
07:31as far as South Asia.
07:32Yes, absolutely.
07:34It's a trading powerhouse.
07:36Yes, it is.
07:37And the envy of empires across the continent,
07:40they all tried to take it.
07:41And Vyad Moravids succeeded in doing that.
07:49Once they had Sittil Masa under their control,
07:52the Almoravids set about securing the source
07:55of the city's gold trade.
07:57They crossed 1,000 miles back to the opposite side of the Sahara
08:01and seized the trading town of Odakost.
08:04By controlling the supply of gold across the desert,
08:08they had a virtual monopoly on this, the most lucrative of trades.
08:13With a considerably strengthened armory of weapons and camels
08:16taken from Sittil Masa, the Almoravids now had what they needed
08:20to carry their jihad beyond the Sahara.
08:27But they couldn't have done any of this
08:30without another important resource, the key to life itself.
08:38Water sustains everything in this harsh climate.
08:42And the Berbers had the know-how to find and to move it
08:46under the desert.
08:49These are Katara.
08:51They're part of an ancient Berber irrigation system.
08:57And you see these mounds stretching out across this landscape.
09:02What you see on the surface belies a very complex network
09:08of tunnels that sit underneath the ground,
09:11funneling the water across this landscape.
09:15Because water was such a rare resource.
09:19These access shafts are all that you see of the gently sloping tunnel system
09:25that taps into the underground water table.
09:28These systems could take water for miles in this very arid, dry, hot landscape.
09:35And to take it where it was needed.
09:37And it just says how the Berber understood this landscape.
09:43How they worked with it, how they used the small resources that they had to their advantage.
09:53With a powerful army,
09:55money and the rallying call of Islam,
09:58Ibn Yassin now had the potential to create a Berber nation.
10:05The Al-Muravid's Jihad had an unstoppable momentum,
10:09but now they wanted to take their brand of Islam to every Berber.
10:13And that meant crossing the Atlas Mountains.
10:22The high Atlas Mountains rise to over 13,500 feet,
10:27and they form a natural divide between the desert
10:30and the more fertile and populous lands on the other side.
10:38But these were dangerous times,
10:40and this was a perilous area to be travelling through.
10:48A thousand years ago,
10:49these valleys would have carried one of the main trade routes
10:52through the mountains.
10:54And that made it attractive to thieves.
10:59Ibn Yassin and his men were in bandit country.
11:04This is called The Road of a Thousand Kasbahs.
11:09And Kasbahs are these fortified houses
11:12that were once owned and used by Berber merchants.
11:16These buildings would have often been used
11:19to house things like gold and silks that came across the desert.
11:25And they had to be fortified because this was a dangerous territory.
11:29These are beautiful buildings,
11:32but their fortifications give a sense of what it was like in those days.
11:48The Almoravid army traversed this hostile environment
11:52with 400 horsemen, 800 cameleers and 2,000 foot soldiers.
12:00It was a treacherous journey in an alien landscape.
12:06A thousand years ago, when Ibn Yasin and his army came up these passes to cross these
12:12mountains, they were entering completely new territory.
12:20They were desert warriors, and these mountains and everything beyond was a completely different
12:26environment to them.
12:31But they had a clear goal.
12:33To the north-west of the mountains lived the tribes of Berbers that the Almoravids considered
12:38to be heretics.
12:43In 1058, the first people to feel the force of Ibn Yasin's army were the rulers of Ahmad,
12:49a small city nestling in a lush valley on the north side of the mountains.
12:57Ahmad became the new headquarters from where the army took their jihad to the tribes nearby.
13:05But it's been difficult for historians to uncover what life was like in Ahmad at the time, for
13:11one simple reason.
13:14No-one knew where ancient Ahmad was.
13:16It was thought to be a lost city, but actually, it was right here, beneath our feet.
13:26The dig has revealed only a small portion of the city so far, but this hammam, or bathhouse,
13:32is one of the most substantial and important finds.
13:34These remains illustrate the scale of the settlement here and show just how expertly they understood
13:41how to use water as a foundation of civic society.
13:50Abdullah Fili has been slowly unearthing the remains of the buildings here, since the dig
13:55first started.
13:58In addition to the use of water in public buildings such as the hammam, the mosque, the palace,
14:06etc., we also have the use of water in irrigation.
14:12We distribute the water in two components.
14:16The first component is the public buildings, the private buildings, the houses, etc.
14:21And then, after the three days, the three other days, it's for the irrigation of the
14:26fields.
14:27Remarkably, this entire building, which dates from the time of the Almoravids, more than
14:32a thousand years ago, was excavated almost intact.
14:36And, effectively, we find that it's one of the oldest hammams in Morocco.
14:45After that, it represents one of the oldest hammams in the Middle East.
14:53It represents one of the oldest hammams, which allows us to have an architectural chef-d'oeuvre
14:58extremely important.
15:00It's enormous, like the hammam.
15:04It is now 500 m2, which is exceptional for a hammam, because it requires a ingenuity in the
15:14way of heating and heating and cooking.
15:20This is absolutely amazing.
15:23I'm used to seeing their earth-built buildings.
15:26But to see this kind of stone and mortar construction, but also the water engineering, this is real innovation.
15:34It's so exciting.
15:37There was hot and cold running water.
15:40The temperature of the three rooms increased the nearer they were to the huge fires that
15:45heated the water as it came into the hammam.
15:47This is a civilized living.
15:51It's why the question of the water is really central to the work of a building that is
15:59such an important building, because it allows the purification of people.
16:05People come here to purify, for example, once a week, once a week, once a week, once a week,
16:20once a week.
16:29These are a people who came from the desert, for whom water was a precious resource.
16:36This is more than a bathhouse.
16:38This is a temple to water.
16:41and what a place.
16:51The Amoravids were beginning to appreciate city life,
16:54but there was a problem.
16:56For desert nomads, this city was just in the wrong place.
17:02Surrounded by mountains and hills on three sides,
17:06Aghmat was not in a good defensive position.
17:09As people most suited to fighting in the open,
17:12it made them feel vulnerable.
17:15After little more than a decade,
17:18the Amoravids looked for a new home,
17:20a new base from where they could expand
17:22and take on even more territory and infidels.
17:30The Amoravids had the desert in their DNA.
17:34And they chose a flat, dry, open piece of land
17:38around 20 miles from the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.
17:45They pitched their tents and maimed their city
17:48after the Berber words, the land of God.
17:57It was called Marrakesh.
18:03The founding of Marrakesh in 1070 represents a point
18:07when a loose band of marauding jihadists
18:10become an imperial force to be reckoned with.
18:15What began as a collection of tents
18:18rapidly became an established city.
18:21The Berbers who settled here were offered security in return for their taxes.
18:26And that paid for the further expansion of the Amoravids territory.
18:31The movement seemed unstoppable.
18:34Even when Ibn Yasin died while fighting Berber heretics,
18:38the holy enterprise continued unabated.
18:44After the death of the fiery preacher Ibn Yasin,
18:47a new man took charge of the jihad.
18:50His name was Yusuf Ibn Tashfin.
18:53And he made a greater contribution to the dynasty than any other man.
18:57He turned a fledgling kingdom into an empire.
19:04While Ibn Yasin had been the spiritual leader
19:07who'd inspired the al-Muravid movement and led it out of the desert,
19:11Ibn Tashfin would take the dynasty even further.
19:17It began with Marrakesh.
19:20Katara were dug to supply water to the growing population.
19:24And walls were built to surround it.
19:27The street that we are, it was made at this time.
19:31And especially the walls, we will see,
19:33the walls were made at this time.
19:36Former Minister of Education, Professor Mohamed Khanidri,
19:39knows Ibn Tashfin's city well.
19:41What sort of man was Ibn Tashfin?
19:44What was he like?
19:46Ibn Tashfin was a very high man,
19:51very courageous and beautiful, handsome.
19:54Beautiful, handsome.
19:55Handsome, yes, handsome.
19:57And he was especially very curious and very strong man.
20:02Very strong man and has a big personality.
20:05And how did he change Marrakesh?
20:07He said that here we'll have a palace.
20:10Here we'll have commerce.
20:11Here we'll have an administration.
20:13And he made a very good plan and he began to make construction of that,
20:17to realise.
20:18Really?
20:19Yes, yes.
20:19So he built these streets?
20:20Yes, the street was made at this time.
20:22Yeah.
20:22Just like as you see it now, with the commerce and with the cellars,
20:27the cellar of everything, vegetables and also spices,
20:32and with colours, smells and many smells, many colours.
20:36It was like that since a long time, since the 11th century.
20:41So wandering around here, you still get a flavour of the days of Ibn Tashfin.
20:46Yes, of course, yeah.
20:48The walls that Ibn Tashfin commissioned have been rebuilt many times.
20:54But one of his original gates, the Bab du Kala, still stands.
20:59It's huge, but it's remarkably simple.
21:02Yes.
21:03The architecture of al-Muravid is very simple.
21:08The al-Muravid came from the Sahara and they were Muslims.
21:13And they have the philosophy of Islam, which is that you have harmony,
21:17you have beauty, but simplicity.
21:20I love that, the idea of harmony, of beauty, of simplicity.
21:24All of those things together in this gate.
21:26And every time you pass through here, you're going to remember that.
21:30And for those people that felt part of this community,
21:34they were tied together by that simple, beautiful philosophy.
21:39And I think it's a philosophy of life.
21:42But it's something which begins here.
21:45That's right.
21:46The al-Muravids had created a worthy capital.
21:50Now they set about establishing an empire.
21:54Their army took the jihad north, taking city after city,
21:59expanding their influence east as far as Algiers,
22:03well beyond what we now call Morocco.
22:07Back in Marrakesh, the al-Muravid reflected on their extraordinary achievements.
22:14It had taken 26 years from their first incursion out of the desert with the taking of Sigil Marsa,
22:20to the point where they controlled the whole of North West Africa.
22:26their next move extended the al-Muravid's jihad beyond anyone's expectations, north into Europe.
22:41A parallel Islamic world had existed in Spain and Portugal since the early 8th century.
22:51It was called Al-Andalus, and it had flourished under the Caliph of Cordoba into a rich civilisation of lavish
23:00palaces and elegant gardens.
23:04Now in the 11th century, it had broken up into weaker city-states.
23:09These were being attacked by Christian armies from the north of Spain,
23:12and the Muslim rulers appealed to the al-Muravids for help.
23:25Yusuf Ibn Tashfin helped repel the Christians, but he was disgusted at the decadence of the Muslim princes he'd agreed
23:32to help.
23:34Ibn Tashfin had enough of these party princes and their moaning.
23:38He also disliked their lack of dedication to Islam.
23:42But he decided he had an obligation to save the souls of their Muslim subjects.
23:47And in 1090, he returned in force and opposed their rulers one by one.
23:54The al-Muravids now ruled over a vast kingdom that reached from the Sahara to Spain,
23:59and from Africa's Atlantic coast to Algeria.
24:03Never before had all this Muslim territory been united under one management.
24:08One kingdom united politically and spiritually.
24:13And it was the so-called barbarians of the desert that had done it.
24:17The beating heart of the kingdom was Marrakesh.
24:33This was a place where people came to exchange stories, ideas.
24:38Stories that had been traded across the desert from as far away as West Africa.
24:42Stories that had come from southern Europe, from the Middle East.
24:45They all ended up here, here in the central square in Marrakesh.
24:54By the beginning of the 12th century, the square here had become the news hub of the Empire.
25:01But in 1106, the news running around this square was of terrible importance.
25:06Yusuf Ibn Tashwin had died.
25:11Ibn Tashwin was more than 80 years old when he died.
25:15He had seen his Berber kingdom grow from the founding days of Marrakesh to the farthest reaches of his empire.
25:28But now, the warrior king was dead, and the mantle of ruler of the Almoravids dynasty passed to Ibn Tashwin's
25:3723-year-old son.
25:39And a very different era began.
25:41began.
25:45One of power and privilege.
25:50Ali was the first Almoravid leader not to have known the desert or its hardships.
25:56He knew the royal palace and its luxuries.
25:58At the time of his father's death, the royal treasury housed 13,000 boxes of silver and 5,400 boxes
26:07of minted gold.
26:08He was loaded.
26:13The new leader worked hard to make Marrakesh even more splendid, and he ordered a new palace to be built.
26:22It was part of a beautification plan for the city, which drew heavily on the architectural influences of Andalusia.
26:33It was thought that no buildings were left that could show us what Ali's grand vision might have looked like.
26:42Then, in 1952, buried under some outbuildings, they found this.
27:02It's not only a rare example of Almoravid architecture, but it gives us some sense of what this city looked
27:11like at the high point of the dynasty.
27:16This is the cupa.
27:18This is the masterpiece of the architecture of the Almoravid period.
27:23It is a masterpiece.
27:25Professor Mohamed Al-Faiz has written extensively on the buildings of Marrakesh.
27:31And I think that the architects came in from Andalusian Spain.
27:37They make this jewelry, this very, very beautiful.
27:41It's unique in the architecture of Morocco.
27:44Look at the simplicity of lines and the armory of proportions.
27:50It is absolutely gorgeous.
27:52So this was a place where people before prayer would come and they would wash their bodies.
27:59They wash their bodies and they prepare when they go to the mosque.
28:03It's a sumptuous building.
28:05It tells us just what Marrakesh may have looked like.
28:10It must have been a place with fantastic architecture and also very, very wealthy people who were obviously living the
28:20high life.
28:20It's a very rich civilization because Marrakesh was the capital of empire.
28:27Like actually when we have New York or other cities, very important.
28:36This delicately carved interior is such a contrast to the bold, simple shape we see outside.
28:43It was also highly fashionable.
28:46These wonderful scallop shell shapes were common in Andalusia.
28:51And this is the first time that they've been seen in Africa.
28:56Ali wanted nothing but the best.
28:59What was Ali bin Yusuf like?
29:02He's different from his father. He was a liberal man.
29:06I think that the reign of Ali bin Yusuf is very important because with him we have the development of
29:14architecture, of cultural humanities, poets, and it's not the same character of his father.
29:36This is a massive architectural statement in the palace grounds which shows just how far the Almoravids had come since
29:44their days as desert warriors bent on holy war.
29:51But while Ali beautified the Almoravid capital, the kingdom was starting to slip from his grasp.
30:05Under Ali, the link to the desert tradition was broken and to some the Almoravids seemed to be going soft.
30:16High in the mountains behind the city, a force even more powerful than the Almoravids was stirring.
30:25The fires of descent were being stoked by rival Berbers holed up in the high Atlas Mountains.
30:33This precarious mountain track leads to what was in effect their mountain hideout.
30:40The Almoravids were never comfortable in the hills and mountains of the high Atlas.
30:45And whenever they tried to root out trouble, they were evaded.
30:48And there was plenty of trouble brewing.
30:53Here, a new group of Islamic revolutionaries laid the groundwork for their domination of this whole region.
31:01They were called the Almohads, meaning the people who believed in the unity of God.
31:09The leader of the revolution was Muhammad ibn Tumat.
31:14He wasn't a desert warrior like the Almoravids.
31:17He was a mountain Berber.
31:21Ibn Tumat had spent decades studying Islam.
31:25He claimed to have been divinely chosen to restore the true faith as he understood it.
31:32This is Tin Mel, the village where Ibn Tumat started his revolution.
31:39From here, he preached against the arrogance and corruption of the Almoravids.
31:47Professor Mohamed Rabatatatdin has studied the power struggle that developed between the Almoravids and their fiercest critic.
31:56Professor Mohamed Rabatatatdin was a Muslim society.
32:03Ibn Tumat, the role of Ibn Tumat, was not to do Islamization or to do the second time the Islamization
32:15of the society.
32:16No.
32:18What he did was a politicization of religion to make or to give legitimacy to his political project.
32:32So your interpretation is that the religious manipulation of the text was something that Ibn Tumat was spearheading as a
32:44way of changing regimes.
32:48Professor Mohamed Rabatatatdin is also the creation of the great Islamic empire in the Western Mediterranean, which is the dynasty
33:00of the empire Al-Mohad.
33:03So Ibn Tumat wants to increase his political influence and then go down the mountain to attack Marrakesh.
33:12Ibn Tumat is the base and the point of departure towards Marrakesh.
33:21Ibn Tumat undermined support for the Almoravids by questioning their interpretation of Islam and therefore their claim to legitimate rule.
33:32And he goaded Ali bin Yusuf into combat.
33:38In 1130, the battle of words finally turned to war and the army of the Almohads came out of the
33:46mountains to face the Almoravids and lay siege to their cities.
33:50It would be a long campaign.
33:56In Marrakesh, the city walls were reinforced and rebuilt by the Almoravids in direct response to the Almohad threat.
34:06A culture based on nomadic traditions and tents turned in its most desperate moment to huge walls like this to
34:14protect themselves.
34:20But their ancient belief that walls imprisoned rather than protected proved true as they became increasingly confined to the city.
34:33It took almost 20 years of skirmishing battles for the Almohads to finally enter the city of Marrakesh.
34:41And in 1147, the dynasty of the Almoravids was finally over.
34:53Once inside the city walls, the Almohads wanted to stamp their authority on the city.
34:59And they started by replacing the most significant of the Almoravids' buildings.
35:06This is the Ketubia Mosque, named after the Al-Ketubian, or the booksellers who used to ply their trade here.
35:12It's also Marrakesh's most important building.
35:21Legend has it that the predecessor to this mosque was torn down by the Almohads because it wasn't correctly aligned
35:29with Mecca.
35:31In fact, all the mosques in the city were pulled down and replaced on religious grounds.
35:38This sent a big, bold message to the people of Marrakesh.
35:44They were making it clear that their way and their interpretation of Islam was the correct one.
35:53And anyone arriving in the city got a similar message.
35:59This is the Bab Agnew, or the Gate of Guinea.
36:04It was built by one of Ibn Tumat's successors, Sultan Yaqub el-Mansur, in 1185.
36:15It's a beautiful gate, this one. So ornate.
36:19This is an Al-Mohad Gate. And it's so different.
36:24Earlier I just did a quick sketch of the Almoravid Gate.
36:30And the Almoravid Gate is just one of those perfect, very, very simple gates.
36:38But this one is so different from the Almoravids and that modesty.
36:44It's so much more sumptuous.
36:46Layers upon layers of decoration that have been built up with this beautiful green stone.
36:54This is an empire, a kingdom, and he's very, very pleased to announce it to everyone who enters the city.
37:07Almost everything the Almoravids built seemed more substantial, more impressive,
37:12than that built by their predecessors.
37:15And that included the Berber Kingdom.
37:18Just like the rulers before them, the Almoravids used Marrakesh as an imperial base
37:24for an expansion even more ambitious than their predecessors.
37:32The Almoravids took over almost all the territory previously run by the Almoravids.
37:37And they also seized the neighbouring lands of Ifrica, which stretched into what is now Libya.
37:43In Spain they took Angliothea and made Seville their second capital after Marrakesh.
37:52Under the Almoravids, the kingdom was to become an even stronger force in the Mediterranean than the Almoravids had been.
38:03And their wealth and ideas went hand in hand.
38:07Here in the Bank of Maghreb is evidence to show how both dynasties used their currency to spread the word
38:14of Islam.
38:17This is a gold dynasties.
38:19Yeah, it's from Sijil Masa, Almoravid dynasty.
38:22I see. That's beautiful.
38:25With an Arabic inscription right in the centre.
38:30What does it say on there?
38:36It shall not be acceptable that anyone takes a faith other than Islam.
38:44That's in the centre of the coin, so they're actually helping to evangelise.
38:50Those coins will circulate it off a lot of Mediterranean Sea.
38:56We have it in Spain, in Portugal, in London, in Germany and Holland and China.
39:04Really? Yeah.
39:06This was the dollar of its day? Yeah.
39:08It's about trade, but it's also taking wherever it goes, religion.
39:14Yeah. Because a lot of the Christian kingdom used these coins at this time.
39:23It's a beautiful thing. Absolutely beautiful.
39:26The Almoravids dynar was widely valued.
39:29The Almoravids wanted to build on its success, but they also wanted to do things differently.
39:35They introduced innovations, including a new coin with a square design that proclaimed the ambition of their jihad.
39:44So, this one is the first round jirham, minted by Almoravid.
39:53It's round, but with a square in the middle.
39:57But after this one, so here, voila, okay.
40:02Now, that's square. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's square.
40:05So, they created these circular coins first with the square inscription in the centre,
40:12and then they reduced them down just to these squares.
40:16Technically, in the mint of coins, it's easy to do something with the coins which is square.
40:24So, these squares were much more efficient to be minted because there was much less wasted from a square sheet
40:32of silver.
40:33That's correct.
40:34And it's amazing that that's just a tiny, thin wafer of silver, and yet it represents so much.
40:41These four sides were seen as being symbolic of the four sides of the kingdom.
40:50Yeah. Of the different directions.
40:51Different directions.
40:52Looking eastward.
40:53Yeah.
40:53Eastward towards India, towards China.
40:57looking north, up toward Europe, looking south towards the desert, and west towards new opportunities.
41:07But this is about an empire expanding.
41:11Yeah.
41:17Under the Almohads, the Berber kingdom had become extraordinarily powerful and wealthy.
41:24They undertook increasingly ambitious projects to reflect the magnificence of their empire.
41:39These are the Agdal Gardens in the grounds of the Royal Palace in Marrakesh.
41:46Almost a thousand acres of orange, lemon, fig, apricot and pomegranate trees, linked by olive-lined walkways,
41:57all irrigated by water brought from the mountains over 20 miles away.
42:02And I think they're beautiful.
42:21What a gorgeous place.
42:23This is the Almohad using water in such a luxuriant way.
42:30I mean, this setting was meant to be a place in which you could come and reflect on this landscape.
42:38And what they're using are all the traditional constituent parts of Berber culture.
42:43You have here water, you have the palms, you have olives, you have fruit trees.
42:50These are things that they would have had in their oases.
42:53But what they're using them for here is for recreation.
42:57And just simply for people to come and reflect on the beauty of Berber culture.
43:05And even today, hundreds of years on, who can doubt that they succeeded?
43:15MUSIC PLAYS
43:29At the end of the 14th century, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun wrote about the Berber state being just like
43:39a garden.
43:40Within this garden, the government turned like a wheel.
43:46He said that there was no justice without the monarch.
43:50No monarch without the army.
43:53No army without taxes.
43:55No taxes without wealth.
43:58And no wealth without justice.
44:02Ibn Khaldun's vision of a garden in perfect balance highlighted just how interdependent these elements of government were.
44:11Justice was defined by the monarch, who were supported by the army.
44:16They were paid for by taxes that were generated by the wealth of its citizens.
44:22While all of those things were in place and intimately connected, the wheel could continue to turn.
44:34And 240 miles north of Marrakesh is a city that shows how well the system worked while it remained in
44:42perfect balance.
44:46It's Medina is probably the most complete medieval city centre in the world.
44:52A place that has changed little since the days of the Almohads.
44:59This is Fez, one of the great sitters of the empire.
45:04Then, as now, a great centre of trade.
45:08From here, the Almohad traded in things like sugar cane and cotton, like gold and copper and pottery.
45:17But some of the most significant things they dealt in were ideas.
45:22In spite of their religious views, the Almohad were not intellectually repressive.
45:28The ancient University of Fez attracted thinkers and scholars from right across the Mediterranean.
45:36Deep in the centre of the old Medina is a theological college.
45:42It welcomed hundreds of scholars through its doors during the years of the Almohad reign.
45:50Librarian Abu Bakr showed me some of the most priceless books in the collection.
45:56And this volume is actually illuminated and that some of the words are picked out in gold and this plate
46:03here.
46:04Written by Ibn Tumat, he describes in detail his interpretation of the finer points of the Quran.
46:11Oh!
46:13Look at that!
46:19You'd come in here obviously to learn, but this is just so uplifting visually as well.
46:24It's just such a privilege to see.
46:27It's just the richness of it.
46:31A big scientific movement, and a major scientific movement,
46:37especially from the appearance of characteristics of marmouqa in different studies,
46:42whether in the world of the theory or history or medicine or philosophy or religion,
46:51and the religious studies and other other studies.
46:53One of the scholars who worked here, perhaps surprisingly,
46:56was Moses Maimonides, still regarded as the most important Jewish philosopher
47:01for the past 2,000 years.
47:04And this beautifully bookworm-ridden volume
47:07was written by another of the intellectual titans that were based here,
47:12the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rashid,
47:15known in Europe as Abaroaz.
47:18Oh, look at that.
47:20Most famous for his commentary on the works of Aristotle,
47:22he was a significant link between the ideas of ancient Greece and medieval Europe.
47:30On its extremely delicate, wafer-thin pages are his thoughts on Islamic law.
47:53It's fascinating, because these are figures who talk about Islamic studies,
47:57but they're putting it into a much wider intellectual context.
48:02Here, there are all of these great thinkers all working together,
48:07and they're pushing philosophy, pushing on astronomy,
48:11pushing on a number of great disciplines,
48:14further than anywhere else in the area around the Mediterranean.
48:18We want us to make, in our positions,
48:23in our Indianjs,
48:27as a
48:28It says that the truth is a result of the believer
48:33where he found it, where he found it, where he found it
48:37so he can use it and he can use it and he can use it
48:40on all the knowledge, whether it was Islam or Islam
48:47so he can use it and try to use it in the knowledge of it
48:58These weren't just people who were interested in business
49:02in conquering their neighbours
49:04Just look at this
49:06They knew beauty
49:08and they knew how to celebrate it
49:10These are exquisite books
49:14Absolutely exquisite
49:25Directly outside the college, the atmosphere is peppered
49:28with the almost constant sound of hammering
49:31The Medina is still a place of work
49:36At the height of the Amohad Empire
49:39Fez had 372 mills
49:429,082 shops
49:4547 soap factories
49:47and 188 pottery workshops
49:50This wasn't so much as a market town
49:53as a centre of industry
49:58And in one corner of the Medina
50:00is an ancient industry
50:02as old as the city itself
50:13Binding and protecting the priceless books
50:15and their precious contents
50:17were some of the finest leather in the world
50:19And it's still made today
50:22as it would have been during the Amohad's reign
50:29The skins are first scraped free of hair and fat
50:32then soaked in lime bars
50:34before being softened in a mixture of guano and water
50:37It's a process that is still remarkably natural
50:44What do you actually use to dye it?
50:47This is a herb that you're using to dye it
50:49This is a herb that you're using to dye it
50:53This is all natural
50:56So this bright pink is a natural substance
50:59So this process literally has remained unchanged for hundreds of years
51:07Way before Henry Ford famously created his factory
51:10for assembling cars
51:11The Berbers of Fez already had a production line
51:25Intellectually and economically
51:27The Amohads were in charge of an empire
51:29that ranked alongside the greatest of that time
51:32anywhere in the world
51:36This was the high point of the Berber Kingdom
51:39But controlling such a massive realm
51:41brought its own problems
51:45By the end of the 12th century
51:47this fort at Rabat overlooked an armada of ships at anchor
51:52The Amohads controlled substantial amounts
51:55of the Atlantic and Mediterranean coast
51:57and armies were being carried by sea
51:59to far off battlegrounds
52:02Seaports like Rabat had become crucial
52:05and by the end of the 12th century
52:07the Amohads greatest ruler
52:09Yaqub el-Mansur
52:10developed the town into his military headquarters
52:20First came the fortification of the old town
52:23with ramparts and gates
52:24and then in 1195
52:26something really grand
52:34It had 400 columns and pillars
52:40It was big enough to hold an entire army
52:44And it would have been the largest mosque in the Islamic West
52:48if not the entire Muslim world
52:53As ambitious as the great Roman architecture of North Africa
52:57or the buildings of Mecca
52:59It spoke to their heritage and to God
53:01and it was as permanent a statement as could be made
53:07But we'll never know
53:09if this would have been the grandest mosque in the world
53:11As this isn't just a ruin
53:14It's an unfulfilled dream
53:18The reason why there's no top on the minaret
53:21or roof on the prayer hall here
53:22is that in 1199
53:24only four years after work started
53:26Yaqub el-Mansur died
53:30The mosque remained in this unfinished state
53:33His grand vision was never completed
53:37El-Mansur was the last strong leader of the Amohads
53:41and his death marked a critical turning point
53:46It was the beginning of the end of the Amohad dynasty
53:52Squabbles over his succession
53:53allowed rival Berber tribes to vie for power
53:57and the weakness at the centre
53:59had repercussions further afield
54:03In Andrew Thea
54:05a fundamentalist Christian crusade
54:07gained the upper hand
54:08against the equally fundamentalist jihad
54:11The Amohads were humiliated by the Christians
54:14in a decisive battle in Spain
54:16from which their army never really recovered
54:18and the grip on Ifrica was lost
54:21as Arab tribes rebelled against the Amohad rulers
54:30Professor El-Faiz has studied the factors
54:33that led to the decline of the Amohad's Berber kingdom
54:36There are external factors
54:41Amohad army facing the Christian army in Spain
54:45Yes
54:45They don't succeed
54:47They lost also the control of the Mediterranean Sea
54:50So on every front
54:52things are collapsing in
54:53economic factors
54:55economic factors are very important
54:57in the explanation of the decline
55:00They don't control the trade
55:04There is no money, no budget
55:07to control population
55:08Internally, they lose their tax revenue
55:11as local people begin to turn against them
55:14The different ethnic groups
55:15then begin to fracture
55:17and fight against the regime
55:19Yes
55:20And gradually
55:20the empire begins to disintegrate
55:23It is that kind of
55:24that wheel
55:25that problem
55:26of one of those factors
55:28breaking down
55:29means that the whole empire
55:31then begins to fail
55:32All these factors contribute in time
55:35to the collapse of this dynasty
55:38In 1269
55:40Amohad rule ended
55:42when a rival Berber dynasty
55:44seized power in Marrakesh
55:47The collapse of the Amohad Empire
55:49didn't happen overnight
55:50It happened over decades
55:52But nothing that followed
55:54could come even close
55:56to what they had achieved
55:58None of the Berber dynasties
56:00that succeeded the Amohads
56:02was powerful enough
56:03to rule North Africa
56:07Attempts to return to the glory days
56:09of the Amohads failed
56:15In the 16th century
56:17the Kingdom of Morocco was revived
56:25But this vast palace
56:27was built by a different dynasty
56:29claiming the right to rule
56:31as true interpreters of Islam
56:33and these people
56:35saw themselves as Arabic
56:37not Berber
56:41The importance of Islam
56:43altered the identity
56:45of the Kingdom
56:48The same religious zeal
56:50that had brought
56:50the African Berbers
56:52an Islamic Empire
56:53had ensured
56:54that it would be
56:55an Arab dynasty
56:56claiming direct descent
56:58to the Prophet Muhammad
56:59that would rule
57:00the Kingdom
57:01that the Berber
57:02had created
57:07An Arab dynasty
57:09is still
57:10in power today
57:22After five centuries
57:24of Arab rule
57:25many now think
57:26of Morocco
57:27Morocco
57:27as an Arab state
57:28with an Arab history
57:33This is a Kingdom
57:34with roots
57:35that are distinctly
57:37African
57:39A group of Indigenous nomads
57:41from the desert
57:42had achieved
57:43what no one else
57:44has ever done
57:45They united
57:47a disparate group
57:48of Berber peoples
57:49under the banner
57:50of Islam
57:50and created
57:52an African Empire
57:53that stretched
57:54into Europe
57:57The Berber story
57:58deserves its place
57:59among the continent's
58:01great histories
58:02This is the
58:06I am
58:19I am
58:23I am
58:25I am
58:27I am
58:28I am
58:28I am
58:29I am
58:31You
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