Barghawata

Some historians believe that the term Barghawata is a phonetic deformation of the term Barbati, a nickname which Tarif carried. It is thought that he was born in the area of Barbate, near Cádiz in Spain.[http://www.tarifaweb.com/aljaranda/num30/art1.htm Tarif, el conquistador de Tarifa] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928002857/http://www.tarifaweb.com/aljaranda/num30/art1.htm |date=2007-09-28 }} by Enrique Gozalbes Cravioto - {{in lang|es}} However, Jérôme Carcopino and other historians think the name is much older and the tribe is the same as that which the Romans called Baquates, who up until the 7th century lived near Volubilis.see e.g. [http://www.mondeberbere.com/azayku/txt/genealogie.htm this article originally published in Hesperis] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070418145305/http://www.mondeberbere.com/azayku/txt/genealogie.htm |date=April 18, 2007 }} and for a contrary view the reference by Mohammed Talbi cited above

File:NE 800ad.jpg

Few details are known about Barghawata. Most of the historical sources are largely posterior to their rule and often present a contradictory and confused historical context. However, one tradition appears more interesting. It comes from Córdoba in Spain and its author is the Large Prior of Barghawata and the Barghawata ambassador to Córdoba Abu Salih Zammur, around the middle of the 10th century. This tradition is regarded as most detailed concerning Barghwata.Talbi (ref. cited above) believes, however, that it contains a certain amount of myth or propaganda It was reported by Al Bakri, Ibn Hazm and Ibn Khaldun, although their interpretations comprise some divergent points of view.

The Barghawatas, along with the Ghomara and the Miknasa, launched the Berber Revolt of 739 or 740. They were fired up by Sufri Kharijite preachers, a Muslim sect that embraced a doctrine representing total egalitarianism in opposition to the aristocracy of the Quraysh which had grown more pronounced under the Umayyad Caliphate. The rebels elected Maysara al-Matghari to lead their revolt, and successfully seized control of nearly all of what is now Morocco, inspiring further rebellions in the Maghreb and al-Andalus. At the Battle of Bagdoura, the rebels annihilated a particularly strong army dispatched by the Umayyad caliph from Syria. But the rebels army itself was eventually defeated in the outskirts Kairouan, Ifriqiya in 741. In the aftermath, the rebel alliance dissolved. Even before this denouement, the Barghawatas, as founders of the revolt, had grown resentful of the attempt by later adherents, notably the Zenata chieftains, in alliance with the increasingly authoritarian Sufri commissars, to take control of the leadership of the rebellion. As their primary objective – the liberation of their people from Umayyad rule – had already been achieved, and there was little prospect of it ever being re-imposed, the Barghwata saw little point in continued military campaigns. In 742 or 743, the Barghwata removed themselves from the rebel alliance, and retreated to the Tamesna region, on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, where they founded their new independent state and abandoned their Sufri Kharijitism.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The Barghawatas ruled in the Tamesna region for more than three centuries (744–1058). Under the successors of Salih ibn Tarif, Ilyas ibn Salih (792-842); Yunus (842-888) and Abu Ghufail (888–913) the tribal kingdom was consolidated, and missions sent to neighbouring tribes. After initially good relations with the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba there was a break at the end of the 10th century. Two Umayyad incursions, as well as attacks by the Fatimids were fought off by the Barghawata. From the 11th century there was an intensive guerrilla war with the Banu Ifran. Even though the Barghawata were subsequently much weakened,Al Bakri even states they were annihilated in 1029, although this is inconsistent with what he himself states elsewhere regarding their battles with the Almoravids they were still able to fend off Almoravid attacks—the spiritual leader of the Almoravids, Abdallah ibn Yasin, fell in battle against them on 7 July 1058. Only in 1149 were the Barghawata eliminated by the Almohads as a political and religious group.{{Cite encyclopedia|year=1986|isbn=9004081143|encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of Islam|publisher=Brill Publishers|url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/barghawata-SIM_1231|last=Le Tourneau|first=R.|orig-year=1960|publication-place=Leiden, Netherlands|edition=2nd|volume=I|page=1044|title=Barg̲h̲awāṭa|editor3-link=Clifford Edmund Bosworth|editor1-link=Peri Bearman|editor5-link=Wolfhart Heinrichs|editor1-last=Bearman|editor1-first=P.|editor2-last=Bianquis|editor2-first=Th.|editor3-last=Bosworth|editor3-first=C.E.|editor4-last=van Donzel|editor4-first=E.|editor5-last=Heinrichs|editor5-first=W.P.|doi=10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_1231|url-access=subscription}}

It is possible that the Barghawata had a Judeo-Berber background, though accounts of entire Berber tribes practicing Judaism appear later and are unreliable.{{Cite book |last=Bennison |first=Amira K. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctvhrczbp |title=The Almoravid and Almohad Empires |date=2016 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=978-0-7486-4681-4 |doi=10.3366/j.ctvhrczbp}}{{Rp|page=167}}

After the conversion to Islam at the beginning of the 8th century and the Maysara uprising (739-742), the Barghawata Berbers formed their own state on the Atlantic coast between Safi and Salé.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

The Barghawata kingdom practiced a distinctive form of Islam that blended elements from Sunni, Shi'a, and Kharijite traditions, combined with aspects of traditional Berber beliefs and customs. This syncretic religion included practices such as specific taboos, like abstaining from consuming eggs and chickens, and the belief in the baraka (blessing or spiritual power) of Ṣāliḥ ibn Ṭarīf and his family, whose saliva was regarded as sacred. {{cite journal |last=Lewicki |first=T. |year=1967 |title=Les Barghawata et l'Islam berbère |journal=Revue des Études Islamiques |volume=34 |pages=12–45}}

The Barghawata confederacy was made of 29 tribes. 12 of these tribes adopted the Barghawata religion while 17 adhered to Islam.{{Cite web |url=http://www.achaari.ma/Article.aspx?C=5790 |title=مركز أبي الحسن الأشعري للدراسات و البحوث العقدية |access-date=2014-11-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141126150220/http://www.achaari.ma/Article.aspx?C=5790 |archive-date=2014-11-26 |url-status=dead }}{{Unreliable source?|date=March 2024}}

Barghawata religion (syncretic with Islam) tribes

{{Div col|colwidth=18em}}

• Gerawa
• Zouagha
• Branès
• Banu Abi Nacer
• Menjasa
• Banu Abi Nuh
• Banu Waghmar
• Matghara
• Banu Borgh
• Banu Derr
• Matmata
• Banu Zaksent

{{Div col end}}

Khariji Muslim tribes

{{Div col|colwidth=18em}}

• Zenata-Jbal
• Banu Bellit
• Nemala
• Ounsent
• Banu Ifren
• Banu Naghit
• Banu Nuaman
• Banu Fallusa
• Banu Kuna
• Banu Sebker
• Assada
• Regana
• Azmin
• Manada
• Masina
• Resana
• Trara

{{Div col end}}

Some constituent tribes, such as Branès, Matmata, Ifren and Trara, were fractions of much larger tribal groups, and only the Tamesna-based fractions joined the Barghawata Confederacy.

• Tarif ibn Malik
• Ṣāliḥ ibn Tarīf (744-?), who declared himself prophet{{Citation |last=Louis Gates |first=Henry |title=Salih ibn Tarif |date=2011-01-01 |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001/acref-9780195382075-e-1792 |work=Dictionary of African Biography |access-date=2023-09-20 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195382075.001.0001/acref-9780195382075-e-1792 |isbn=978-0-19-538207-5}} in 744 and went away at the age of 47, promising to return.
• Ilyas ibn Salih (?792-842),Dates with question marks are calculated on the basis of a secondary source [http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:FMO9uy6RKTUJ:www.mcb-algerie.org/barghwata.htm+barghwata+842&hl=en]{{dead link|date=October 2016|bot=InternetArchiveBot|fix-attempted=yes}}. Other info is from Ibn Khaldun. who is said to have professed Islām publicly but Ṣāliḥ's religion secretly, and died in the 50th year of his reign.
• Yunus ibn Ilyas (?842-888), who made Ṣāliḥ's religion official and fought those who would not convert (killing 7770 people, according to Ibn Khaldun's sources, some at a place called Tamlukeft). Curiously enough, he is also said to have performed the Hajj. He died in the 44th year of his reign.
• Abu-Ghufayl Muhammad (?888-917), who may also have been called a prophet (according to a poem Ibn-Khaldun cites) and who had 44 wives and more sons. He died in the 29th year of his reign.
• Abu al-Ansar Abdullah (?917-961), buried at Ameslakht. He died in the 44th year of his reign.
• Abu Mansur Isa (?961-?), who was 22 when he became king.

• Kingdom of Nekor
• Maghrawa
• Banu Ifran

{{Reflist|30em}}

• Ulrich Haarmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Welt. C.H. Beck München, 2001.
• John Iskander, Devout Heretics: The Barghawata in Maghribi Historiography, in The Journal of North African Studies Volume 12, 2007, pages 37–53.
• Stephan und Nandy Ronart, Lexikon der Arabischen Welt. Artemis Verlag, 1972.
• Mohammed Talbi, Hérésie, acculturation et nationalisme des berbères Bargawata, in Premier congrès des cultures Méditerranéennes d'influence arabo-berbère, Alger 1973,217-233.

{{Berber}}

{{Muslim dynasties in Maghreb region}}

Category:744 establishments

Category:1058 disestablishments

Category:Berber dynasties

Category:Berber peoples and tribes

Category:740s in the Umayyad Caliphate

Category:Masmuda

Category:Medieval history of Morocco

Category:States and territories established in the 740s

Category:8th-century establishments in Africa

Category:Kharijites

Category:Tribal confederacies

Category:States and territories disestablished in 1058