Why do people say the Almoravid dynasty was a North African dynasty even though it was a West African?
In reality it was both, because the population spanned the Sahara , the question that should be asked is ,why people, both scholars and laymen, want to edit the Tropical West Africans out of it, leaving out the Kingdom of Takrur and the volunteer soldiers of the recently Islamic Wagadu aka Ghana as part of it's foundation, and according to this passage from the book African Dominion , the Takruri was the inspiration for this religious reformist movement .
Pls note where they started
Warjab b. Rābīs and Reform in the Sahel It has become conventional to attribute initial Islamic reform in the Sahel to the rise of the Almoravids, though their relationship to the middle Senegal valley (or Takrur) remains opaque. There arose the (likely) Pullo leader Wārjābī b. Rābīs (d. 432/1040–1), who challenged a non-Muslim, “idol (dakkūr)-worshiping” population.30 Wārjābī’s activities are usually viewed as subsidiary to those of the Almoravids, but closer examination reveals the latter’s close if not vital connection to the resources and politics of the Sahel, suggesting Wārjābī’s endeavors may have been more generative than derivative.]
[ Though Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm’s spiritual quest took him to Mecca and then al-Qayrawan, it is worth asking whether Wārjābī helped fire the imagination of Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm rather than the reverse, aiding the explanation of why the Almoravids began in southern Mauritania and northern Senegal. After all, by the time Yaḥyā b. Ibrāhīm gets under way “to proclaim the Truth (da’wat al-ḥaqq)” in 440/1048, Wārjābī b. Rābīs had been dead for eight years, having completed his own holy war.31 Instructively, two years following the capture of Awdaghust, the son of Wārjābī b. Rābīs, one Labbī, attempted an ill-fated rescue of ‘Abd Allāh b. Yāsīn’s brother Yaḥyā b. ‘Umar, under siege in the Lamtuna Mountains and eventually killed by the Banū Gudala in 448/1056–7.
Given Takrur’s earlier example and subsequent military support for the Almoravids, it is not at all clear who preceded whom. Takrur’s rise following Wārjābī b. Rābīs was meteoric, projecting power throughout the Senegal valley by the middle of the sixth/twelfth century. Al-Idrisī writes in 548/1154 that “the Takrūrī” (Takrur’s leader) possessed “slaves and soldiers, strength and firmness as well as widely-known justice.
His country is safe and calm.” Sila, the first town east from Awlil along the Senegal (at least in al-Idrisī’s scheme), “belonged to the domains of the Takrūrī,” and was “a meeting place for the Sūdān and a good market,” suggesting Sila’s redefinition under Takrur as a major entrepot. Barisa, the next town east of Sila, also paid “allegiance to the Takrūrī.” Awlil, Sila, Barisa, and Takrur composed the land of the “Maqzāra,” a term encompassing the Fulbe or Hal Pulaaren (speakers of Pulaar), Wolof, and perhaps Sereer.32 A reasonable inference is that Takrur controlled goods and communication from Awlil to the border with Ghana, creating a uniform trading zone.]
The fallacy is the racist thinking behind it. Some want to close their eyes and imagine a North Africa with no African, except the unfortunate slave, so native North Africans who are African got edited out also, so the Almoravid a movement was not an ethnic group it was a religious group that spanned the entire region, but is imagined as the opposite of what it was
