The Battle of Tabfarilla was a military conflict between the

Lamtuna The Lamtuna () are a nomadic Berber tribe belonging to the Iẓnagen / Sanhaja (Zenaga) confederation, who traditionally inhabited areas from Sous to Adrar Plateau. During the Almoravid period, many Lamtunas emigrated northwards. Currently, the L ...

and the

Godala The Godala or Gudāla is a Berber tribe in Western Africa that lived along the Atlantic coast in present-day Mauritania and participated in the Saharan salt trade and the salt mines of Ijiil. The Godala may be linked to or the same as the ancient ...

. Both of them

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

Berber Berber or Berbers may refer to: Ethnic group * Berbers, an ethnic group native to Northern Africa * Berber languages, a family of Afro-Asiatic languages Places * Berber, Sudan, a town on the Nile People with the surname * Ady Berber (1913–196 ...

Sanhaja The Sanhaja (, or زناگة ''Znāga''; , pl. Iẓnagen, and also Aẓnaj, pl. Iẓnajen) were once one of the largest Berbers, Berber tribal confederations, along with the Zenata, Zanata and Masmuda confederations. Many tribes in Algeria, Libya ...

tribes of the

Sahara Desert The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

and one time allies, the Lamtuna formed the core of the

Almoravids The Almoravid dynasty () was a Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus, starting in the 1050s and lasting until its fall to the Almo ...

after the Godala broke away. The

Almoravid The Almoravid dynasty () was a Berber Muslim dynasty centered in the territory of present-day Morocco. It established an empire that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus, starting in the 1050s and lasting until its fall to the Almo ...

Emir Emir (; ' (), also Romanization of Arabic, transliterated as amir, is a word of Arabic language, Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocratic, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person po ...

Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Umar ibn Talagagin ibn Turgut ibn Wartasin, commonly suffixed al-Lamtuni al-Sanhaji, (d. near Azuggi, 1056; Arabic : يحيى إبن عمر) was a chieftain of the Lamtuna, a tribe in the Sanhaja confederation. Yahya ibn ...

was sent against the Godala. The battle took place in the

Sahara The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

between 21 March and 19 April of 448 AH/1056 AD at a spot called ''Tabfarilla'' near

Azougui Azougui (or Azuggi, , ) was a town in north-western Mauritania, lying on the Adrar Plateau, north-west of Atar. In the eleventh century it was the first capital of the Almoravid dynasty, who conquered a territory stretching from the Ghana Empir ...

in present-day central

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

. The battle continued until

night Night, or nighttime, is the period of darkness when the Sun is below the horizon. Sunlight illuminates one side of the Earth, leaving the other in darkness. The opposite of nighttime is daytime. Earth's rotation causes the appearance of ...

. The Almoravids, although reinforced by the

Takrur Takrur, Tekrur or Tekrour ( 500 – c. 1456) was a state based in the Senegal River in modern day Senegal which was at its height in the 11th and 12th centuries, roughly parallel to the Ghana Empire. It lasted in some form into the 18th ...

s, were defeated and Yahya ibn Umar was killed in the battlefield.The Muraabitoon Of Andalusia And Africa
Retrieved 25 February 2020. The geographer

Abu Abdullah al-Bakri Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī (), or simply al-Bakrī (c. 1040–1094) was an Arab Andalusian historian and a geographer of the Muslim West. Life Al-Bakri was born in Huelva, the ...

relates in his '' Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' a legend indicating that the battlefield of Tabfarilla was haunted by the calls of ghostly

muezzin The muezzin (; ), also spelled mu'azzin, is the person who proclaims the call to the daily prayer ( ṣalāt) five times a day ( Fajr prayer, Zuhr prayer, Asr prayer, Maghrib prayer and Isha prayer) at a mosque from the minaret. The muezzin ...

frightening looters and passersby as

fall approached.

Notes

{{Reflist Adrar region Tabfarilla Tabfarilla Tabfarilla