Azougui آزوكي Azuggi | |
|---|---|
Site of medieval town | |
 Archaeological site | |
  Azougui Location withinMauritania | |
| Coordinates:20°24′19″N13°6′40″W / 20.40528°N 13.11111°W /20.40528; -13.11111 | |
| Country |  Mauritania |
| Region | Adrar Region |
Azougui (orAzuggi,Arabic:آزوكي) was a town in north-westernMauritania, lying on theAdrar Plateau, north-west ofAtar. In the eleventh century it was the first capital of theAlmoravid dynasty,[1] who conquered a territory stretching from theGhana Empire toMorocco and theIberian Peninsula.
The chronicleral-Bakri (c. 1040–1094) claims a fortress "surrounded by 20,000 palms" was built here byYannu ibn Umar, a brother of the first Almoravid chieftains,Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni andAbu Bakr ibn Umar, and marked the frontier between the dominions of theLamtuna and theGudala.[2] Both of themBerberSanhaja desert tribes and one-time allies, the Lamtuna formed the core of the Almoravids after the Gudala broke away. It was near this location, at a place calledTabfarilla, that the early Almoravids suffered their first significant defeat, when the Gudala crushed an Almoravid Lamtuna army based in Azougui and killed their leaderYahya ibn Umar in 1056. Azougui and the nearby battlefield subsequently became a revered site for the Almoravids. Both al-Bakri andal-Zuhri, another chronicler writing in the 1150s, regarded Azougui as the capital of the Almoravids.[3]
Al-Idrisi identified Azuggi as an essential stop on thetrans-Saharan trade route betweenMorocco andGhana ("Whoever wants to go to the countries of Sila,Takrur and Ghana in the land of the Sudan cannot avoid this town").[4] He also notes that the "Guineans" (prob.Soninke) called it "Quqadam".
The site is even older, as seventh centuryrock carvings attest. Parts of thecitadel and thenecropolis ofal-Imam al-Hadrami survive.
This site was added to theUNESCOWorld Heritage Tentative List on June 14, 2001, in the Cultural category.
