The Almohads (Ar. al-muwaḥḥidūn, those who affirm the unity of God) were a reformist Berber sect from the Atlas region of southern Morocco who followed the teachings of the Mahdī Ibn Tūmart (d. 1130). They intensified the religious rigorism of the Almoravids and established an empire that extended at its height from al-Andalus to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica in the eastern Maghreb. The Almohad conquests were accompanied by massacres and widespread destruction documented in both Jewish and Islamic sources.

The sectarian Almohads did not recognize the traditional Pact of ʿUm…