- 6 weeks 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.....
历史上曾有两个非洲柏柏尔王国先后征服了从西班牙北部到撒哈拉沙漠腹地的广袤疆域，但最终都被外敌摧毁....
历史上曾有两个非洲柏柏尔王国先后征服了从西班牙北部到撒哈拉沙漠腹地的广袤疆域，但最终都被外敌摧毁....
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TravelTranscript
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.
01:43But it was really important to produce a new list of all countries.
02:03A modern Islamic State, a modern Islamic State,
02:05a modern Islamic State of the Muslim Tradeной,
02:10He rules over a country but the culture and the history is diverse as its
02:15landscape
02:20Morocco has coasts face the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea snow-covered
02:26mountains almost as high as the Alps and the bone-dry fringes of the Sahara
02:42desert
02:43The dominant languages spoken here now are from Arabia and Europe
02:48But nearly half the population still speak Burban the language of the indigenous Africans
02:57a
02:58Thousand years ago. This was their land, but there was no sense of a nation-state
03:03Instead on either side of the Atlas Mountains this small independent Berber clans of 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-eleventh century one man changed everything a Berber who'd studied the Quran
03:50But had become a charismatic fiery preacher
03:55idealistic and uncompromising he had a clear mission to change his fellow Berbers into proper Muslims
04:02Schooled in the strict fundamentals of their religion
04:06His name was Abdullah Ibn Yasin and his travels to Islamic centers of learning
04:12I'd left him a student of a strict legalistic interpretation of the Quran
04:17He started his mission in the Western Sahara where he pulled together an alliance of tribes and appointed himself a
04:25spiritual leader
04:27In so doing he started a series of events that completely transformed Northwest Africa
04:36In the year 1054 he led an army of thousands of nomads and headed for sigil massa
04:42Then a major trading post on the edge of the Sahara and one of the most important cities in Africa
04:52Ibn Yasin and his followers were called al-Muravids from a phrase meaning those bound together in the cause of
04:58God
04:59They were determined to bind everyone to the cause. They had one simple mission
05:04Jihad
05:10The term jihad today carries connotations for many people of anti-Western extremism
05:18But Ibn Yasin's holy war his struggle to uphold a true understanding of Islam was aimed at his fellow Muslim
05:27Berbers
05:36This spectacular ruin is now all that's left of sigil massa
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 the date palms and irrigated fields hide clues to a much bigger and more
05:57significant past
06:00And it's on a shingle bank at the heart of the oasis where the ruins of the mud-built city
06:06lie
06:07The taking of sigil massa would be the first major building block of an al-Muravid kingdom
06:14So what attracted Ibn Yasin here?
06:18The wealth of the city. This city was very prosperous. In fact, it was the commercial hub of Morocco
06:23A huge city in a huge oasis
06:27Dr. Eric Ross has been involved in some of the recent archaeological studies here
06:32That have confirmed why this was such an important prize for Ibn Yasin
06:37I call it the Casablanca of a thousand years ago. Yes, because
06:42Morocco wasn't looking to Europe or the Atlantic. It was looking across the Sahara. The Sahara was
06:47Wide open to trade so there were goods coming from all over the region and they were being traded and
06:53exchanged
06:53Here yes, and what sorts of things are being traded cloth
06:57Manuscripts and books horses also the most important was the gold trading mostly south across the Sahara
07:04Places like Mali and Senegal today were producing especially gold so gold was the main part of the wealth of
07:12the city
07:12We know gold coins were minted here. They were stamped here and they were exported and mostly they were exported
07:19Eastward to Egypt
07:21Egypt Iraq Central Asia and they ended up in places like India
07:26So they're trading tendrils. They'd stretch all the way from West Africa as far as South Asia. Yes, absolutely
07:33It's a trading powerhouse
07:36Yes, it is and the envy of
07:38Empires across the continent they all tried to take it and
07:43Vyad Moravid succeeded in doing that
07:49Once they had city master under their control
07:51The Amoravids set about securing the source of the city's gold trade
07:57They crossed a thousand miles back to the opposite side of the Sahara and seize the trading town of Odakost
08:04By controlling the supply of gold across the desert. They had a virtual monopoly on this the most lucrative of
08:11trades
08:13With a considerably strengthened armory of weapons and camels taken from sigil massa
08:18The Amoravids now had what they needed to carry the jihad beyond the Sahara
08:27But they couldn't have done any of this without another important resource the key to life itself
08:38Water sustains everything in this harsh climate and the Berbers had the know-how to find and to move it
08:46under the desert
08:49These are Katara the part of an ancient Berber
08:56Irrigation system and you see these mounds stretching out across this landscape
09:02What do you see on the surface?
09:05Belies a very complex network of tunnels that sit underneath the ground?
09:11Funneling the water across this landscape because water was such a rare resource
09:20These access shafts are all that you see of the gently sloping tunnel system that taps into the underground water
09:27table
09:27These systems could take water for miles in this very arid dry hot landscape
09:35And to take it where it was needed
09:38And it just says how the Berber understood this landscape how they worked with it
09:44How they used the small resources that they had to their advantage
09:53With a powerful army money and the rallying call of Islam
09:58Ibn Yasin now had the potential to create a Berber nation
10:05The al-Muravid's jihad had an unstoppable momentum
10:09But now they want to take their brand of Islam to every Berber and that meant crossing the Atlas Mountains
10:22The high Atlas Mountains rise to over 13 and a half thousand feet
10:27They form a natural divide between the desert and the more fertile and populous lands on the other side
10:38But these were dangerous times and this was a perilous area to be traveling through
10:47A thousand years ago these valleys would have carried one of the main trade routes through the mountains
10:54And that made it attractive to thieves
10:59Ibn Yasin and his men were in bandit country
11:04This is called the Road of a Thousand Kasbahs
11:09And Kasbahs are these fortified houses that were once owned and used by Berber merchants
11:17These buildings would have often been used to house things like gold and silks that came across the desert
11:24And 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 al-Muravid army traversed this hostile environment with 400 horsemen 800 cameleers and 2000 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 mountains
12:13They were entering completely new territory
12:20They were desert warriors and these mountains and everything beyond was a completely different environment to them
12:31But they had a clear goal
12:33To the northwest of the mountains lived the tribes of Berbers that the al-Muravids considered to be heretics
12:42In 1058 the first people to feel the force of Ibn Yasin's army were the rulers of Aghmat
12:49A small city nestling in a lush valley on the north side of the mountains
12:58Aghmat 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 Aghmat at the time
13:11For one simple reason
13:14No one knew where ancient Aghmat was
13:17It was thought to be a lost city
13:19But actually it was right here beneath our feet
13:26The dig has revealed only a small portion of the city so far
13:29But this hammam or bathhouse is one of the most substantial and important finds
13:35These remains illustrate the scale of the settlement here and show just how expertly they understood how to use water
13:42As a foundation of civic society
13:45Abdullah Fili has been slowly unearthing the remains of the buildings here since the dig first started
14:00As a foundation of the use of water in public buildings such as the hammam, the mosque, the palace, etc.
14:07We also have the use of water in the irrigation
14:10We have the use of water in two components
14:15The first component is the public buildings and the private buildings, the houses, etc.
14:22And then after the three days, the three other days, it's for the irrigation of the fields
14:26Remarkably this entire building which dates from the time of the al-Muravids more than a thousand years ago was
14:34excavated almost intact
14:35And, effectively, we find that it's one of the oldest hammams in Morocco
14:45After that, it represents one of the oldest hammams of the musulman occident
14:53And, effectively, it allows us to have an architectural work that is extremely important
15:00It's enormous
15:02Like a hammam
15:04It is, for the moment, 500 m2
15:08Which is exceptional for a hammam
15:10Because it requires an ingenuity
15:13In terms of heating techniques
15:16In terms of heating techniques
15:19In terms of heating techniques
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
15:29But also the water engineering
15:32This is real innovation
15:34It's so exciting
15:37There was hot and cold running water
15:39The temperature of the three rooms increased
15:42The nearer they were to the huge fires
15:44That heated the water as it came into the hammam
15:48This was civilized living
15:52That's why the water issue is really central
15:55For the work of such a building
15:59It's also important
16:00Because it allows the purification of people
16:05People come here to purify
16:07For example, once a week
16:09Once a week
16:10Once a week
16:10Once a week
16:11To rest
16:13Because the hammam
16:14With the heat system
16:17It allows the body to rest
16:19And also, sometimes, the spirit
16:20Of the country
16:29These were people who came from the desert
16:32For whom water was a precious resource
16:35This is more than a bathhouse
16:38This is a temple to water
16:41And what a place
16:51The Almoravids were beginning to appreciate city life
16:54But there was a problem
16:55For desert nomads
16:57This 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
17:17The Almoravids looked for a new home
17:20A new base from where they could expand
17:22And take on even more territory
17:24And infidels
17:30The Almoravids 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
17:47And named their city
17:48After the Berber words
17:50The land of God
17:56It was called Marrakesh
18:03The founding of Marrakesh in 1070
18:06Represents 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
18:23Were offered security in return for their taxes
18:26And that paid for the further expansion
18:29Of the Almoravids territory
18:31The movement seemed unstoppable
18:34Even when Ibn Yasin died
18:36While 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 Tashvim
18:53And he made a greater contribution to the dynasty
18:56Than 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 Almoravid movement
19:09And led it out of the desert
19:11Ibn Tashvim
19:12Would 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
19:29Yes
19:29It was made at this time
19:31This street?
19:31And especially the walls, we will see
19:33The walls were made at this time
19:36Former Minister of Education
19:37Professor Mohamed Khanidri
19:39Knows Ibn Tashvim's city well
19:41What sort of man was Ibn Tashvim?
19:44What was he like?
19:46Yes, Ibn Tashvim was a very high man
19:51Very courageous
19:52And a beautiful handsome
19:54Beautiful, handsome
19:55Handsome, yes, handsome
19:56And he was especially very curious
20:00And very strong man
20:02Very strong man
20:03And has a big personality
20:05And how did he change Marrakesh?
20:07He said that here we'll have a palace
20:09Here we'll have a commerce
20:11Here we'll have an administration
20:13And he made a very good plan
20:15And he began to make construction of that
20:17To realise it
20:18Really? Yes, yes
20:19So he built these streets?
20:20Yes, the street was made at this time
20:22Just like as you see it now
20:23With the commerce
20:24And with the cellars
20:27The cellar of everything
20:29Vegetables and also spices
20:31And with colours, smells
20:33And many smells, many colours
20:35It was like that since a long time
20:39Since the 11th century
20:41So wandering round here
20:42You still get a flavour of the days of Ibn Tashvim
20:45Yes, of course, yeah
20:48The walls that Ibn Tashvim commissioned
20:51Have been rebuilt many times
20:54But one of his original gates
20:56The Bab du Kala
20:57Still stands
20:58It's huge
21:00But it's remarkably simple
21:02Yes
21:03The architecture of Al-Murabi
21:05Is very simple
21:07The Al-Murabi came from the Sahara
21:11And they were Muslims
21:12And they have the philosophy of Islam
21:14Which is that you have harmony
21:16You have beauty
21:18But simplicity
21:20I love that, the idea of harmony
21:22Of beauty, of simplicity
21:24All of those things together in this gate
21:26And every time you pass through here
21:28You're going to remember that
21:30And for those people
21:31That felt part of this community
21:34They were tied together
21:35By that simple, beautiful philosophy
21:39And I think it's a philosophy of life
21:42But it's something which begins here
21:44That's right
21:46The Al-Murabi had created a worthy capital
21:49Now they set about establishing an empire
21:54Their army took the jihad north
21:57Taking city after city
21:59Expanding their influence east as far as Algiers
22:03Well beyond what we now call Morocco
22:07Back in Marrakesh
22:09The Al-Murabi reflected on their extraordinary achievements
22:14It had taken 26 years
22:16From their first incursion out of the desert
22:18With the taking of Sijilmasa
22:19To the point where they controlled the whole of North West Africa
22:26Their next move extended the Al-Murabi's jihad
22:30Beyond anyone's expectations
22:32North into Europe
22:41A parallel Islamic world that existed in Spain and Portugal
22:46Since the early 8th century
22:51It was called Al-Andalus
22:54And it had flourished under the Caliph of Cordoba
22:57Into a rich civilisation of lavish palaces and elegant gardens
23:04Now in the 11th century
23:06It had broken up into weaker city-states
23:08These were being attacked by Christian armies from the north of Spain
23:12And the Muslim rulers appealed to the Almoravids for help
23:25Yusuf Ibn Tashfin
23:26Helped repel the Christians
23:28But he was disgusted at the decadence of the Muslim princes
23:31He'd agreed to help
23:34Ibn Tashfin had enough of these party princes and their moaning
23:38He also disliked their lack of dedication to Islam
23:41But he decided he had an obligation to save the souls of their Muslim subjects
23:47And in 1090 he returned in force
23:50And opposed their rulers one by one
23:53The Almoravids now ruled over a vast kingdom
23:57That 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
24:12And 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
24:45But they all ended up here
24:47Here in the central square in Marrakesh
24:54By the beginning of the 12th century
24:56The square here had become the news hub of the Empire
25:01But in 1106 the news running around this square was of terrible importance
25:07Yusuf Ibn Tashfin had died
25:12Ibn Tashfin was more than 80 years old when he died
25:15He had seen his Berber kingdom grow from the founding days of Marrakesh
25:20To the farthest reaches of his empire
25:28But now the warrior king was dead
25:31And the mantle of ruler of the Almoravids dynasty passed to Ibn Tashfin's 23 year old son
25:38And a very different era began
25:45One of power and privilege
25:50Ali was the first Almoravid leader not to have known the desert or its hardships
25:55He knew the royal palace and its luxuries
25:58At the time of his father's death
26:00The royal treasury housed 13,000 boxes of silver
26:05And 5,400 boxes of minted gold
26:08He was loaded
26:13The new leader worked hard to make Marrakesh even more splendid
26:18And he ordered a new palace to be built
26:23It was part of a beautification plan for the city
26:26Which 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
26:57The Kupat, Barihuddin
27:03It's not only a rare example of Almoravid architecture
27:07But it gives us some sense of what this city looked like at the high point of the dynasty
27:16This is the Kupat
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
27:48And the armory of proportions
27:50It is absolutely gorgeous
27:53So this was a place where people before prayer would come
27:56And 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
28:09It must have been a place with fantastic architecture
28:14And also very, very wealthy people
28:17Who were obviously living the high life
28:20It's a very rich civilization
28:23Because 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
28:44It 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
28:55Ali wanted nothing but the best
28:59What was Ali bin Youssef like?
29:02He's different from his father
29:04He was a liberal man
29:06I think that the reign of Ali bin Youssef is very important
29:10Because with him we have the development of architecture
29:15Architecture of cultural humanities, poets
29:22And it's not the same character of his father
29:36This is a massive architectural statement in the palace grounds
29:41Which shows just how far the Almoravids had come
29:43Since their days as desert warriors bent on holy war
29:51But while Ali beautified the Almoravid capital
29:54The kingdom was starting to slip from his grasp
30:05Under Ali the link to the desert tradition was broken
30:08And to some the Almoravids seemed to be going soft
30:16High in the mountains behind the city
30:19A force even more powerful than the Almoravids was stirring
30:25The fires of descent were being stoked by rival Berbers
30:30Hold 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
30:44And 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
30:57For their domination of this whole region
31:01They were called the Almohads
31:03Meaning 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
31:24He claimed to have been divinely chosen to restore the true faith as he understood it
31:32This is Tin Mail
31:34The village where Ibn Tumat started his revolution
31:39From here he preached against the arrogance and corruption of the Almoravids
31:47Professor Mohammed Rabatatatdin has studied the power struggle that developed between the Almoravids and their fiercest critic
31:55The Moroccan society at this time was a Muslim society
32:02And Ibn Tumat
32:04The role of Ibn Tumat
32:07The role of Ibn Tumat was not to do Islamization
32:09Or to do Islamization
32:14Or to do Islamization
32:15No
32:17In the world...
32:18In the world
32:19Nothing
32:19It was a politicization of religion
32:23To give or give legitimacy to her 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.
33:03So Ibn Tumat wants to increase his political influence and then go down the mountain to attack Marrakech.
33:21Ibn Tumat undermined support for the al-Muravids by questioning their interpretation of Islam and therefore their claim to legitimate
33:31rule.
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 al-Muravids came out of
33:45the mountains to face the al-Muravids and lay siege to their cities.
33:50It would be a long campaign.
33:57In Marrakech, the city walls were reinforced and rebuilt by the al-Muravids in direct response to the al-Muravid
34:04threat.
34:07A 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 al-Muravids to finally enter the city of Marrakech.
34:41And in 1147, the dynasty of the al-Muravids was finally over.
34:53Once inside the city walls, the al-Muravids wanted to stamp their authority on the city.
34:59And they started by replacing the most significant of the al-Muravids' buildings.
35:06This is the Qatubiyah Mosque, named after the al-Qatubiyan, or the booksellers who used to ply their trade here.
35:13It's also Marrakech's most important building.
35:21Legend has it that the predecessor to this mosque was torn down by the al-Muravids
35:27because it wasn't correctly aligned with 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 Marrakech.
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 Agnu, or the Gate of Guinea.
36:04It was built by one of Ibn Tumat's successors, Sultan Yakub el-Mansur, in 1185.
36:15It's a beautiful gate, this one, so ornate.
36:20This is an al-Mohad gate.
36:22And it's so different.
36:24Earlier, I just did a quick sketch of the al-Muravid gate.
36:30And the al-Muravid gate is just one of those perfect, very, very simple gates.
36:38But this one, so different from the al-Muravids, and that modesty.
36:44It's so much more sumptuous, layers upon layers of decoration,
36:49that have been built up with this beautiful green stone.
36:54This is an empire, a kingdom,
36:59and he's very, very pleased to announce it to everyone who enters the city.
37:07Almost everything the al-Mohads built
37:10seemed more substantial, more impressive,
37:12than that built by their predecessors.
37:15And that included the Berber kingdom.
37:19Just like the rulers before them,
37:21the al-Mohad used Marrakesh as an imperial base
37:24for an expansion even more ambitious than their predecessors.
37:32The al-Mohads took over almost all the territory
37:35previously run by the al-Muravids.
37:37And they also seized the neighbouring lands of Ifrica,
37:40which stretched into what is now Libya.
37:43In Spain, they took Angliothea
37:45and made Seville their second capital after Marrakesh.
37:52Under the al-Mohads, the kingdom was to become
37:55an even stronger force in the Mediterranean
37:58than the al-Muravids had been.
38:03And their wealth and ideas went hand in hand.
38:07Here in the Bank of Maghreb is evidence to show
38:11how both dynasties used their currency
38:13to spread the word of Islam.
38:17This is a gold dina.
38:19Yeah, it's from Sijil Masa, al-Muravid dynasty.
38:22I see. That's beautiful.
38:24With an Arabic inscription right in the centre.
38:30What does it say on there?
38:37It shall not be acceptable that anyone takes a faith
38:41other than Islam.
38:44That's in the centre of the coin.
38:46So, they're actually helping to evangelise.
38:50Those coins will circulate it off a lot of the Mediterranean Sea.
38:57We have it in Spain, in Portugal, in London, in Germany,
39:01and Holland, and China.
39:04Really?
39:05Yeah.
39:06This was the dollar of its day?
39:08Yeah, yeah, yeah.
39:09It's about trade, but it's also taking,
39:12wherever it goes, religion.
39:15Yeah.
39:15Because a lot of the Christian kingdom used these coins at this time.
39:22It's a beautiful thing, absolutely beautiful.
39:26The al-Muravids dina was widely valued.
39:29The al-Muravids wanted to build on its success,
39:33but they also wanted to do things differently.
39:35They introduced innovations, including a new coin with a square design,
39:40that proclaimed the ambition of their jihad.
39:44So, this one is the first round jirham,
39:51minted by al-Muravid.
39:53It's round, but with a square in the middle.
39:57But after this one, so here...
40:01Voilà, OK.
40:03Now, that's square.
40:04Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's square.
40:05So, they created these circular coins first,
40:09with the square inscription in the centre,
40:13and then they reduced them down just to these squares.
40:16Technically, in the mint of coins,
40:20it's easy to do something with the coins which is square.
40:25So, these squares were much more efficient to be minted,
40:29because there was much less wasted from a square sheet of silver.
40:33That's correct.
40:34And it's amazing that that's just a tiny, thin wafer of silver,
40:39and yet it represents so much.
40:41These four sides were seen as being symbolic
40:46of the four sides of the kingdom.
40:50Yeah.
40:50Of the different directions.
40:51Different directions, yeah.
40:52Looking eastward.
40:53Yeah.
40:53Eastward towards India, towards China.
40:57Looking north, up towards Europe, looking south towards the desert
41:04and west towards new opportunities.
41:07But this is about an empire expanding.
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 Agdao Gardens in the grounds of the Royal Palace in Marrakesh.
41:46almost 1,000 acres of orange, lemon, fig, apricot and pomegranate trees linked by olive line 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.
42:44You 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,
43:10who can doubt that they succeeded?
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.
46:03And this plate here...
46:04Written by Ibn Tumat, he describes in detail his interpretation of the finer points of the Qur'an.
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.
46:31It's a great scientific movement, and a great scientific movement,
46:37especially in the appearance of the famous people of Marmouqa,
46:40in different sciences, whether in the field of thinking,
46:44or the history, or the science, or the science, or the philosophy,
46:50and also the religious sciences, and other other sciences.
46:53But one of the scholars who worked here, perhaps surprisingly, was Moses Maimonides,
46:58still regarded as the most important Jewish philosopher for the past 2,000 years.
47:04And this beautifully bookworm-ridden volume was written by another of the intellectual titans
47:10that were based here, the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rashid, known in Europe as Abaroaz.
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.
48:18There are a way to know that it will be propaganda.
48:23what is essentially doing there
48:24a large knowledge, orimoto's given.
48:48and try to establish it in his studies.
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 and they knew how to celebrate it.
49:11These are exquisite books, absolutely 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,
49:40Fez had 372 mills, 9,082 shops, 47 soap factories,
49:47and 188 pottery workshops.
49:50This wasn't so much as a market town, as a centre of industry.
49:58And in one corner of the Medina is an ancient industry
50:02as old as the city itself.
50:13Binding and protecting the priceless books and their precious contents
50:17were some of the finest leather in the world.
50:20And 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.
50:38It'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.
50:51This is a herb that you're using to dye it.
50:55This 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 for 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 anywhere in the world.
51:36This was the high point of the Berber Kingdom,
51:39but controlling such a massive realm brought 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 to 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,
52:11developed 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, something 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,
52:49if 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 if this would have been the grandest mosque in the world.
53:12As this isn't just a ruin, it's an unfulfilled dream.
53:18The reason why there's no top on the minaret,
53:21or roof on the prayer hall here,
53:23is that in 1199,
53:24only four years after work started,
53:27Yaqub 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 Al-Mohad dynasty.
53:52Squabbles over his succession allowed rival Berber tribes to vie for power.
53:57And the weakness at the centre had repercussions further afield.
54:03In Andrew Thea, a fundamentalist Christian crusade gained the upper hand
54:08against the equally fundamentalist jihad.
54:11The Amohads were humiliated by the Christians in a decisive battle in Spain,
54:16from which their army never really recovered.
54:19And the grip on Ifrica was lost,
54:21as Arab tribes rebelled against the Amohad rulers.
54:30Professor El-Faiz has studied the factors that led to the decline of the Amohad's Berber kingdom.
54:36There are external factors.
54:40Al-Mohad army facing the Christian army in Spain.
54:45Yes.
54:46They don't succeed.
54:47They lost also the control of the Mediterranean Sea.
54:50So, on every front, things are collapsing in.
54:54Yes.
54:54Economic factors are very important in the explanation of the decline.
55:00They don't control the trade.
55:04There is no money, no budget to control population.
55:09Internally, they lose their tax revenue as local people begin to turn against them.
55:14Yes.
55:14Different ethnic groups then begin to fracture and fight against the regime.
55:20And gradually, the empire begins to disintegrate.
55:23It is that kind of that wheel, that problem of one of those factors breaking down means that the whole
55:30empire then begins to fail.
55:32All these factors contribute in time to the collapse of this dynasty.
55:39In 1269, Amohad rule ended when a rival Berber dynasty seized power in Marrakesh.
55:47The collapse of the Amohad empire didn't happen overnight.
55:51It happened over decades.
55:52But nothing that followed could come even close to what they had achieved.
55:59None of the Berber dynasties that succeeded the Amohads was powerful enough to rule North Africa.
56:06Attempts to return to the glory days of the Amohads failed.
56:15In the 16th century, the Kingdom of Morocco was revived.
56:25But this vast palace was built by a different dynasty, claiming the right to rule as true interpreters of Islam.
56:33And these people saw themselves as Arabic, not Berber.
56:41The importance of Islam altered the identity of the Kingdom.
56:47The same religious zeal that had brought the African Berbers an Islamic empire,
56:54had ensured that it would be an Arab dynasty claiming direct descent to the Prophet Muhammad
56:59that would rule the Kingdom that the Berber had created.
57:07An Arab dynasty is still in power today.
57:22After five centuries of Arab rule, many now think of Morocco as an Arab state with an Arab history.
57:32This is a kingdom with roots that are distinctly African.
57:39A group of indigenous nomads from the desert had achieved what no one else has ever done.
57:44They united a disparate group of Berber peoples under the banner of Islam.
57:51And created an African empire that stretched into Europe.
57:57The Berber story deserves its place among the continent's great histories.
58:27The Berber Returns'
58:28The Berber