Peregrination and Ceremonial in the Almohad Mosque of Tinmal

Abstract

The Tinmal mosque was built by the first Almohad caliph, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, around 1148 next to the tomb of the mahdī Ibn Tūmart, the founder of the Almohad creed (d. 1130). The official pilgrimages (ziyāra) to Tinmal became important ideological actions of the Almohad caliphs. The religious significance and the unique architectural features of the Tinmal mosque (like the minaret’s location) but also common features with other Almohad mosques (like the orientation of the qibla) can be best explained as related with the Almohad doctrine or ʿaqīda, based on a return to the Prophet’s model and to the origins of Islam. It is in this sense that the mosque and the tomb were used to legitimatize the Almohad caliphate as a new Hijaz. Two holy copies of the Qurʾan, one renowned as an ʿUthmān’s muṣḥaf and another one of Ibn Tūmart, were relics preserved somewhere inside the mosque of Tinmal.