Abd al Mumin forced the submission of the amirs and reestablished the caliphate of Cordoba, giving the Almohad sultan supreme religious as well as political authority within his domains. The Almohads took control of Morocco in 1146, captured Algiers around 1151, and by 1160 had completed the conquest of the central Maghrib and advanced to Tripolitania. Nonetheless, pockets of Almoravid resistance continued to hold out in the Kabylie region for at least fifty years. After Abd al Mumin's death in 1163, his son Abu Yaqub Yusuf (ruled 1163-1184) and grandson Yaqub al Mansur (ruled 1184-1199) presided over the zenith of Almohad power. For the first time, the Maghrib was united under a local regime, and although the empire was troubled by conflict on its fringes, handcrafts and agriculture flourished at its center and an efficient bureaucracy filled the tax coffers. In 1229 the Almohad court renounced the teachings of Muhammad ibn Tumart, opting instead for greater tolerence and a return to the Maliki school of law. As evidence of this change, the Almohads hosted two of the greatest thinkers of Anadalus: Abu Bakr ibn Tufayl and Ibn Rushid (Averroes).The Almohads shared the crusading instincts of their Christian adversaries, but the continuing wars in Spain over-taxed their resources. In the Maghrib, the Almohad position was compromised by factional strife and was challenged by a renewal of tribal warfare. The Bani Merin (Zenata Berbers) took advantage of declining Almohad power to establish a tribal state in Morocco, initiating nearly sixty years of warfare there that concluded with their capture of Marrakech, the last Almohad stronghold, in 1271. Despite repeated efforts to subjugate the central Maghrib, however, the Merinids were never able to restore the frontiers of the Almohad Empire.From its capital at Tunis, the Hafsid Dynasty made good its claim to be the legitimate successor of the Almohads in Ifriqiya, while, in the centra...
