Zaynab of Qayrawan

Circa 1036-circa 1090

Political strategist

Source

Rise to Power. A daughter of a wealthy merchant residing in Qayrawan, a trading city in the Sus region of Tunisia, Zaynab married a Masmuda ruler of Aghmat when she was around sixteen years old. She later left him for Laqqut ibn Yusuf al-Maghrawi, a chief of the desert Zanata, who took over Aghmat. After the Almoravids overran the Zanatas in Aghmat, they executed Laqqut. Zaynab became a significant political figure when she married Abu Bakr, who introduced her to the intrigues of creating a Muslim empire. Abu Bakr divorced her when he was required to return to the desert for a lengthy military campaign, and she married Abu Bakr’s cousin and eventual successor, Ibn Tashfin. Zaynab encouraged her new husband to buy West African slaves to increase his military manpower and avoid dependence on the Sanhaja Berbers. She convinced him to introduce drums and flags to his troops as a source of esprit de corps among his troops and to recruit his top com Manders from among Abu Bakr’s forces. Most important, she gave him the political strategy that probably saved his life when Abu Bakr came back from the desert to depose his dangerous and disloyal kinsman. Successful in the encounter, Ibn Tashfin became the head of the entire northern division of the Almoravids and carved out his own empire in Morocco and Spain. All this state-building activity increased demand for West African gold, which was needed in North Africa for minting coins and buying luxury goods.

Source

I. Hrbek and J. Devisse, “The Almoravids,” in Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century, edited by M. El Fasi and Hrbek, volume 3 of General History of Africa (London: Heinemann / Berkeley: University of California Press / Paris: UNESCO, 1988), pp. 348-350.