who rose to prominence after 440 AH. ʿAlī b. Abī Funūn, the qāḍī of Marrakesh, relates that a man named Jawhar—one of the Murābiṭūn—came in from the Sahara to the lands of the Maghrib intending to make the pilgrimage. (The Sahara is a vast wilderness south of Fes and Tlemcen, contiguous with the land of the Sudan. The Lamṭūna claim descent from Ḥimyar, having settled in these deserts before Islam. Islam first became widespread among them around 400 AH; thereafter the rest of the tribe embraced the faith, and someone travelled to them and recited to them a number of rulings of the Sacred Law, whereupon their Islam became sound.)

The aforementioned jurist then performed the pilgrimage; he was a devout and upright man. On the way he passed by a jurist who taught the Mālikī school—very likely Abū ʿImrān al-Fāsī (1) in Qayrawān—sat with him, completed the pilgrimage, and on his return said to him, “O faqīh, in the Sahara we have no knowledge save the two testimonies of faith, and even the prayer is practiced only by some of us.”

The jurist replied, “Take with you someone who can teach them their religion.”

Jawhar said, “Certainly—and I shall be responsible for honouring him.” He then turned to his nephew and said, “O ʿUmar, go with this man.” ʿUmar refused, so he said to ʿAbd Allah b. Yāsīn, “Go with him,” and dispatched him.

ʿAbd Allah b. Yāsīn was a scholar of strong resolve. The two of them made their way to Lamṭūna. Out of deference, Jawhar took hold of the halter of Ibn Yāsīn’s camel. The tribal elders came forward to greet him, saying, “Who is this?”

He answered, “The bearer of the Sunnah.” They honoured him; Abū Bakr b. ʿUmar was among them. Ibn Yāsīn then laid out the fundamentals of Islam and explained them, whereupon they said, “Prayer and zakāt are acceptable, but that the killer be killed, the thief’s hand be cut off, and the fornicator be flogged—we cannot commit to that. So depart.”

Jawhar took hold of the reins of his mount and the two of them left.

In those deserts adjoining the Sudan there are tribes who trace their lineage to Ḥimyar. They say that their forefathers left Yemen in the time of the Ṣiddīq (Abū Bakr), came to Egypt, then marched westward with Mūsā b. Nuṣayr, and at length came to love the Sahara. These tribes are Lamṭūna, Jadāla, Lamṭa, Inīsar, and Masūfa.

He continues: they next reached Jadāla—the tribe of Jawhar—and there they found a receptive response