Abu Bakr ibn Umar

Abu Bakr ibn Umar al-Lamtuni was the Sanhaja war-leader of the Almoravid movement, standing beside Abdallah ibn Yasin as the commander to the founder's spiritual authority. When the movement divided he took the southern, desert wing, the veiled Lamtuna and Masufa of the Sahara, while his kinsman Yusuf ibn Tashfin carried the conquest north into Morocco and al-Andalus. In the saga literature of the western Sahara he is preserved as an ancestral culture-hero of the Bidan, and later tradition set his grave in the desert country of the Adrar and Tagant, marking him as a founding forefather of the Saharan tribes. He died in 1087, struck by a poisoned arrow while campaigning in the lands of the Sudan.

Domains

• jihad warfare
• ancestral lineage

Powers

• commands the veiled warriors of the desert

Epithets

• أمير الصحراء — Commander of the desertH. T. Norris, Saharan Myth and Saga (1972). (secondary)

Relations

• ally: Abdallah ibn YasinMilitary commander beside the spiritual founder in the Almoravid alliance.Ronald A. Messier, The Almoravids and the Meanings of Jihad (2010), ch. 2. (secondary)

Sources

• Lamtuna Sanhaja amir and co-founder of the Almoravids who led the southern desert wing and is remembered as an ancestral hero of the western Sahara; died 1087 of a poisoned arrow in the Sudan.: Ronald A. Messier, The Almoravids and the Meanings of Jihad (2010). (secondary); H. T. Norris, Saharan Myth and Saga (1972). (secondary)