Imamate of Nafusa
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Under the leadership of Imam Abu al-Khattab al-Ma'afari, the Nafusa descended from the mountains and proceeded to conquer all of the crumbling Fihrid emirate of Ifriqiya - capturing Tripoli in 757 and Kairouan in 758.[1] But the Abbasid Arab governor of Egypt invaded Ifriqya, defeated the Nafusa in a battle at Tawergha in 761 (his third attempt - his first two armies had been repulsed) and put an end to their putative new state. However, the Nafusa mountains themselves remained unconquered. Throughout the 9th century, while the Aghlabids ruled in Ifriqiya, the Ibadi maintained an independent puritan republic in the Nafusa mountains. The Imamate of Nafusa was in close alliance with the other Ibadi remnant, the Rustamid dynasty in Tiaret, both constant thorns on either side of the Aghlabids, in communication with each other across the back highlands of North Africa.
In 879, the Tulunids of Egypt invaded Aghlabid Ifriqya and captured Tripoli. But the Nafusa challenged and destroyed the Egyptian army in 880. Again the Nafusa victory was short-lived. In 896–97, the Aghlabid emir Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya recovered Tripolitana and defeated the Nafusa in a great battle at Manu (south of Gabès). In the aftermath, citing them as heretics, Ibrahim II executed all the Nafusa prisoners and put an end to their independent imamate (Tahert fell shortly after, in 911). Despite the destruction of their states, Ibadi Islam remained a strong (if clandestine) faith among the Berbers of the Nafusa mountains for centuries after, down to the modern day.[2][3]
References
- ↑ C.A. Julien, (1931) Histoire de l'Afrique du Nord, de la conquete Arabe à 1830, vol. 2, 1961 edition, Paris: Payot. pp.31-32
- ↑ Julien (1931: p.39)
- ↑ Love, Jr, Paul M., ed. (2018), "Ibadi Communities in the Maghrib", Ibadi Muslims of North Africa: Manuscripts, Mobilization, and the Making of a Written Tradition, Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 21–35, ISBN 978-1-108-47250-0, retrieved 2023-04-18
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