Editing Abu Bakr ibn Umar (section)

==Return to the Desert==

Many among the desert clans back in the Sahara regarded the northern campaigns as expensive and pointless.  The Guddala tribe, who had earlier broken away from the Almoravid coalition, began urging other desert tribes to follow suit.  After the fall of Fez, feeling Morocco was now secure, Abu Bakr decided it was time to return to the Sahara to quell the dissension in the desert homelands. He placed [[Yusuf ibn Tashfin]] in charge of Morocco in his absence. As was common among the Sanhaja tribes before extended military campaigns, Abu Bakr divorced [[Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyat|Zaynab]] before he left, advising her to marry [[Yusuf ibn Tashfin|Yusuf]] if she needed protection.

Having quelled the discontent back in the Sahara, Abu Bakr returned north to Morocco in 1072. But Yusuf ibn Tashfin had enjoyed his taste of power, and was reluctant to give it up. Pushed by his new wife, Zaynab, Yusuf met Abu Bakr in the plain of Burnoose (between Marrakesh and Aghmat) and with a large outlay of gold, cattle and other gifts persuaded him to leave the northern dominions to him.{{sfn|Burkhalter|1992|p=113}} As a courtesy to his former leader, [[Yusuf ibn Tashfin|Yusuf]] kept Abu-Bakr's name on the Almoravid coinage until his death.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

Abu Bakr returned to the Sahara desert to command the southern wing of the Almoravids, raiding the pagan Sudan and perhaps attacking the [[Ghana Empire]], although opinion among historians is divided over whether the Almoravids ever established dominion over their Sub-Saharan neighbors.{{sfn|Burkhalter|1992}}{{sfn|Conrad|Fisher|1982}} If Ghana was in fact conquered, it was likely done by a son of Abu Bakr, Yahya, in 1076.{{sfn|Burkhalter|1992|p=111}}