`Abd al-Mu'min

   His full name is Ibn `Ali Ibn `Alawi Ibn Ya`laa al-Kumi, and he was the first ruler of the Almohad Empire (1133-1161), which he built up from the politicoreligious community founded in the Atlas Mountains by his teacher, the religious reformer Ibn Tumart. `Abd al-Mu'min was born in a village in the vicinity of Tlemcen (western Algeria), the country of the Kumya member tribe of the Berber Zanata confederation. While still a youth, he left his home to study in the Arab East (al-Mashriq) at the renowned seats of religious learning, and he joined Ibn Tumart when he heard him preaching around Bougie. He remained his master's most devoted disciple who shared in all his wanderings westward and together with him rallied under the Almohad flag of the Masmuda tribes of the Atlas, calling them to the holy war against the Almoravid Empire. He was closest to Ibn Tumart, and it was he whom the Mahdi Ibn Tumart shortly before his death instituted as his successor (1130). Having brought under his sway, in a struggle of about 20 years, the whole of Morocco and western Algeria, Abd al-Mu'min carried the holy war into Spain and eastern Algeria and Tunisia, where the Zirid and Hammadid emirs at al Mahdiya and Bougie defended their shrinking realms with little hope for survival against the pressure of Arab Bedouin tribes and the Normans of Sicily. As Amir al-Mu'minin (Commander of the Faithful), the secular and spiritual head of the state, he elaborated for the requirements of an empire the system of public administration, devised by Ibn Tumart and founded on a combination of tribal institutions, a sort of religious hierarchy and military structure, with governors of the provinces and larger towns selected from among his own or Abu Hasf 'Umar's clans. Everywhere a network of missionaries spread and kept alive the tenets of the Almohad faith and the principles of the theocratic movement that rested on it. He left one of the most powerful, large, and solidly institutionalized empires in the history of the Maghrib. He died in 1161 and was buried in Jbal Tinmal beside the tomb of Ibn Tumart.