Cette thèse propose de mettre en relief les procédés utilisés par les Almohades pour imposer l’ordre politique, depuis la genèse du mouvement dans les années 520/1120 à la chute de la dynastie mu’minide en 668/1269. Après avoir présenté brièvement le précédent almoravide, afin de voir comment les Almohades empruntèrent une voie médiane oscillant entre continuité et rupture, les différents stades de la vie d’un calife, de son intronisation à son trépas, ont été analysés étant donné la personnalisation en vigueur du régime almohade. Ce parti pris permet ainsi de souligner un certain nombre de spécificités par rapport à d’autres pouvoirs de l’Occident musulman, tel que le choix, le cas échéant, de la langue berbère, dans certains discours officiels et publics ou, encore, d’utiliser le Coran attribué à ‘Uṯmān b. ‘Affān dans l’itinérance du Prince. Ce faisant, le caractère éminemment plastique de ce pouvoir a également été mis en exergue : en effet, en fonction de la conjoncture et des groupes qu’il voulut s’attacher ou des périls qu’il eut à affronter, celui-ci chercha continuellement à s’adapter. Au vu de la variété des moyens employés, il était important d’en établir une typologie, depuis la politique à grande échelle du don de nourriture, de vêtements et de numéraire, jusqu’à la mise en charpie du corps des rebelles. Le fil rouge de cette Histoire semble résider dans la propension du calife à établir une séparation nette entre lui et les gouvernés, et aussi progressivement avec le personnel au pouvoir, c’est-à-dire les Mu’minides et les cheikhs almohades. Cette politique passait par la construction de nouvelles cités auliques et par la mise en visibilité d’une forme de continuité entre camp royal nomade et palais sédentaire. Au final, l’objectif de cette thèse est de montrer que pour la première fois au Maghreb occidental et central, on sort partiellement à cette époque du paradigme du chef de guerre, qui n’était qu’un primus inter pares, pour s’enraciner davantage dans la tradition orientale du souverain hiératique le plus souvent inaccessible et invisible. Ce processus allait de pair avec la mise sur pied d’un État digne de ce nom, avec une mise à distance des vieux rituels de la société des Maṣmūda, à commencer par la participation aux banquets, ou encore avec l’invisibilité du calife lors de la prière du vendredi. Enfin, à travers l’évocation de l’agonie du souverain et du culte qui était rendu à Tinmel, les Almohades cherchèrent à surmonter ce redoutable écueil que constituait la mort du calife ; est ainsi mis en lumière le rapport entretenu à l’époque almohade avec le temps, étant bien entendu que le pouvoir cherchait à se pérenniser par tous les moyens. / This thesis illustrates a study that aim for accentuate the processes used to impose the Almohad order, from the genesis of this movement in the year 520/1120 until the end of the mu’minide dynasty in 668/1269. After studying the previous almoravid, which consisted in the way in how the Almohads followed a middle way fluctuating between continuity and fracture, it will explore the different stages of the evolution of a caliph life, from his sacrament to his death, as the system used to be shouldered by him. This perspective thereby will allow the highlighting of a certain number of specificities in comparison to other powers in the Muslim Occident, like the choice to use, if necessary, the Berber in the official speeches or to use the Koran ascribe to ‘Uṯmān b. ‘Affān into the Prince’s journey. These circumstances underlined the remarkably pliable nature of this power, which depending on the situation and the groups it wanted to entice or on the dangers it faced tried continually to adapt itself by displaying different symbols and meanings. Considering the variety of the means used, it seemed important to draw up their typology, ranging from a policy of big scale donation of food, clothes and money, to the violent annihilation of anybody who rebelled. Furthermore a demonstration of the common theme of the story lies in the Caliph’s propensity to establish a clean separation between himself and his subjects and also between himself and the authorities, that is to say from the Mu’minides and Cheikhs almohades. These policies envisaged the construction of new eternal cities and a sort of visible continuity between the royal nomad camp and the sedentary palace. Finally, the aim of this thesis is to show that for the first time in occidental and central Maghreb, the paradigm of a war chief who was only the first amongst his people had been partially abandoned to be substituted by the oriental tradition of the hieratic Sovereign as a more often inaccessible and invisible ruler. This process went together with the setting up of a State worthy of being called such, through lack of contact with the old rituals of the Maṣmūda, starting from the participation to the feasts through to the invisibility of the Caliph during the Friday prayer. As a matter of fact, mentioning the Sovereign’s agony and his worship in Tinmel, it will be clear how the Almohades were seeking to overcome that formidable pitfall that constituted the death of the Caliph; it will also portray their relation to their times, understanding that their main aim was to make that power perpetual.

This dissertation focuses on how the Marrakech-based Almohads and their independent Muslim rivals in eastern al-Andalus contested spiritual and temporal power. The rulers of Sharq al-Andalus opposed Almohad claims to a divinely granted authority rooted in a new messianic interpretation of the caliphate. Instead, they articulated a vision of legitimacy linked to earlier Sunni forms, and connected their rule more closely to the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad than any previous Andalusī dynasty had done. One minted coins that included the name of the Abbasid caliph, and another received official permission from the Abbasids to rule as governor of al-Andalus. This dissertation examines the written sources, coins and architecture produced in the courts of Andalusī and Almohad rulers to explore how they legitimated their authority. It argues that the conflict among these Muslim rivals in many ways superseded their battles against Christians. The Almohads saw anyone—Muslim, Christian or Jewish—who did not submit to their rule and their conception of Islam as infidels, and said that jihad against non-Almohad Muslims was more important than jihad against Christians. Nevertheless, later Arabic sources attempted to cast the conflict between the independent rulers of al-Andalus and the Almohads as part of a broader Christian-Muslim clash. The alliances Andalusī rulers made with Christian kings, and, in some cases, their Christian roots, made their religious allegiance to Islam suspect. This attitude has continued in modern scholarship as well. This dissertation instead argues that the independent rulers of al-Andalus and their Almohad counterparts were engaged in a broader debate, common to the wider Islamic world, about what constituted righteous Islamic authority. As the population of the territories ruled by Muslims became majority Muslim, new groups began to gain power, eroding the primacy of the Arab caliphate. Like their Persian and Turkic contemporaries to the east, the Berber and Andalusī rulers of the Islamic west struggled to negotiate between the caliphal ideal of Islamic unity and the increasingly decentralized political world they encountered. Analyzing the conflicts among these rivals illuminates the questions that animated the Islamic world as new spiritual and political forms were emerging.

This thesis seeks to examine the political and administrative organisations of al-Andalus during the period of the Almohads. It employs close analysis of the sources in order to explore how the Almohad government system worked and to identify the extent of the development and the efficiency of its structures during the period. Each chapter focuses on a specific part of this system. Chapter I examines the founding of the political organs established by the founder of the Almohad movement, Ibn Tūmart, and the reforms made by his successor, the founder of the empire, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin. Chapter II discusses the administrative political system of al-Andalus, especially the administrative divisions of the provinces, and the political structure of the government, represented by the governors and the kuṭṭāb. Chapter III examines the financial institutions and its structures, such as the ʿāmil, the mushrif, and the ṣāḥib al-aʿmāl, in addition to the Almohad sikka and its development. Chapter IV, the final chapter, studies the judicial system and highlights its religious functions.