to the right, and then he ordered the men on the left to be bound. He said to their relatives, “These are wretches destined for the Fire; let every tribe put its own wretches to death.” So they killed them, and it was a most astonishing affair. He then declared, “By this deed your religion has been set straight and your authority strengthened.”

The members of the Council of Ten were: ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, al-Hazrajī, ʿUmar ibn Yaḥyā al-Hintātī, ʿAbd Allāh al-Bashīr, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Zawāwī—called “the Bird of Paradise,” ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Bakr, ʿUmar ibn Arnāq, Wāsnār Abū Muḥammad, Ibrāhīm ibn Jāmiʿ, and one other (1).

At the beginning of 524 AH he equipped twenty thousand fighters under al-Bashīr, and—after matters too lengthy to recount—ʿAbd al-Muʾmin joined them. The two armies clashed, slaughter raged among the Unifiers, and al-Bashīr was killed. The battle lasted until nightfall, at which point ʿAbd al-Muʾmin led them in ṣalāt al-khawf (the Prayer of Fear). With the survivors he withdrew to an orchard known as al-Buḥayra, but thirteen thousand of them were cut down there.

Ibn Tumart was ill; he therefore urged allegiance to ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, formally invested him, gave him the title Amīr al-Muʾminīn (Commander of the Faithful), and said, “He is the one who shall open up the lands. Support him with your lives and your wealth.” Ibn Tumart died at the end of 524 AH.

Al-Yasaʿ ibn Ḥazm said: “Ibn Tumart branded the Almoravids mujassimūn (anthropomorphists), whereas the people of the Maghrib professed only that Allah—exalted is He—is above whatever is unbefitting and possesses whatever is befitting, while refraining from probing matters beyond the reach of human intellect.

“He went on to say that Ibn Tumart declared them unbelievers because they were ignorant of the notions of ‘substance’ and ‘accident,’ claiming that whoever failed to learn these could not distinguish the created from the Creator, and that whoever failed to emigrate…"