Las genealogías de cAbd al-Mu'min, primer califa almohade

Abstract

The Almohad caliphs claimed that agnatically they belonged to the Arab tribe of Quraysh. Qays ^cAylān does not include the tribe of Qurayš, with which the Mu'minids claimed to be linked cognatically. According to the classical doctrine of the caliphate, to be found for example in Ibn Hazm, the caliphs should belong to Quraysh through their paternal lineage. In this article, the advantages of a Qaysi genealogy (with a long tradition among the Berber populations of North Africa) for the Mu'minid caliphs are analyzed. Among those advantages there are the links that such genealogy established with the Arab tribes of Sulaym and Hilāl, crucial elements in the Mu'minid army, and with the pre-Islamic Arab Prophet Khālid b. Sinīn al-^cAbsī (descendants of whom appear in connection with the episode of the Berber rebellion of the Kāhina).