Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan

Yaghmurasen Ibn Zyan (lived: 1206-1283,Berber: Yaɣmurasen ben Zayan, ⵢⴰⵖⵎⵓⵔⴰⵙⴻⵏ ⴱⴻⵏ ⵣⴰⵢⴰⵏ,Arabic: يغمراسن إبن زيان‎‎, long name:Yaghmurasan ben Ziyan ben Thabet ben Mohamed ben Zegraz ben Tiddugues ben Taaullah ben Ali ben Abd al-Qasem ben Abd al-Wad), was the founder of the Zayyanid dynasty. Under his reign the Zayyanid Kingdom of Tlemcen extended over present-day north-western Algeria. He was of the Zenata Berber tribe.^[1]

He was successful in his military campaigns against the Merinids and the Maqil Arab tribe.

Ibn Khaldun mentions anecdotes about him. Thus Yaghomracen heard genealogists who wanted to make him descended from Muhammad. He commented about this claim in his local Berber language and say something like this:

We got the goods of this world and the power of our swords and not by this descent. As for its use in the other world, it depends on God alone.^[2]

When the architects wanted to write his name on a minaret that he had built, he replied in a zeneti dialect "God knows" (Issen Rebbi).^[3]

Name

In his commentary on the hagiographic book of Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadili (Attashawof), Ahmed Toufiq explains that Yaghmur in Berber means "the virile/Stallion" whereas the prefix asen means "to them". Thereby giving "Yaghmurasen" a meaning close to "To prevail over them"^[4]

See also

• Zayyanid dynasty

References

1. The History of Ibn Khaldun, book 7
2. Khaldoun, Ibn (1856-01-01). Histoire es berbères, 3: et des dynasties musulmanes de l'afrique septentrionale (in French). Translated by William McGuckin de Slane. Imprimerie du Gouvernement.
3. Piquet, Victor (1937). Histoire des monuments musulmans du Maghreb (in French). Impr. R. Bauche.
4. Ibn al-Zayyat al-Tadili (1220). التشوف إلى رجال التصوف (in Arabic) (Ahmed Toufiq ed.). p. 286.