2009/01/01 by Stanley N. Katz · 2 citations
Social Sciences · #Conflict of Laws and Jurisdiction #Evolving Legal Systems and Governance #Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies
paper · doi:10.1093/acref/9780195134056.001.0001
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
MAGHRIB AND AL-ANDALUS (MUSLIM SPAIN). By the year A.H. 211641-642 C.E., Muslim armies were conquering North Africa, and in 92/711 they reached the Iberian Peninsula.In what is now Tunisia, a garrison town, Qayrawan, was founded, which became a focus for Arabization (adoption of the Arabic language) and Islamization (conversion and, more generally, acculturation to Islam) under the Aghlabids (r.184-296/800-909).The conquerors settled in the Iberian Peninsula-called al-Andalus-starting an early process of linguistic change that received a further impulse when a member of the Umayyads, dethroned in the East, managed to establish his independent rule in al-Andalus in 138/756.In 170/786-787, Idris 1, a descendant of the Prophet, who was also escaping the political turmoil of the central Muslim lands, found refuge in Morocco, where his descendants, the Idrisids, became local rulers and assimilated themselves to the Berber milieu.The process of Arabization and Islamization in Morocco became noticeable mainly from the fifth!eleventh century onward, with the arrival of the Arab tribes of the Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal.Kharijism.In North Africa, the Berbers maintained their language(s) and a strong sense of their own cultural identity, including customary law, with sorne attempts at building independent polities within the new relgious framework.Kharijism, in its Ibadi varant, provided sorne Berber groups with a poltical and religious doctrine well adapted to their aspirations.Under the Rustamids (r.162-296/776-908) in Tahert and among those Khariji communities that survived Fatimid rule in Algeria, Tripoltania, and Tunisia-where Ibadi communities still exist-Ibadi law developed, sometimes reaching results at variance with Sunnism.Ibadi theology was close to Mu 'tazilism.Isma'ilism and the Fatimid Caliphate.In 296/909, a Shi' i (Isma' ili) caliphate was establshed in North Africa under the Fatimids.The Fatimid caliph was held to be the direct delegate of God and to possess supernatural knowledge, Under his rule, there were no legal scholars like those found in a Sunni context, that is, independent (at least in theory) from poltical power and charged with the interpretation of the law.The Fatimid imam created his