The preachers, whenever they invoked blessings for him after Ibn Tumart, would say, “His counterpart in the noble lineage.” (1)

Birth: 487 AH. (2)

He was fair-skinned and handsome, large of build (3), his complexion tinged with redness, with black hair and of moderate height. His voice was powerful, his speech eloquent and weighty; no one who looked at him failed to love him instantly. In later life he became a dignified shaykh: his hair turned white, his beard grew thick, and his teeth remained strikingly white. He had a large head, a long torso when seated, broad, sinewy palms, ashhal eyes, and a mole on his right cheek.

It is related that, while he was still a boy asleep, his father heard a loud buzzing; a dusky cloud of bees had swooped down over the house and settled entirely upon the child, yet he did not wake. His mother screamed, but his father calmed her, saying, “No harm—though I am amazed at what this portends.” The bees then flew away and the boy sat up unharmed. His father went to a soothsayer and recounted what had happened. The man said, “It seems your son is destined for great affairs; the people of the Maghrib will rally to his obedience.” (4)

Muhammad ibn Tumart (5) had travelled—around the year 500 AH—to the East, where he sat with scholars, lived ascetically, and devoted himself to censuring the ruling authorities in Alexandria and elsewhere; for this he was repeatedly banished and maltreated. On his return journey to Ifriqiya, he and his companion—