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Marabuts

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a name given to the descendants of the Moravides (q.v.; (See MOHAMMEDANS) ), or Amoravides, a certain Arabic tribe which, in 1075, founded a dynasty in the north-western parts of Africa, and held Morocco and Spain for a considerable period. The Almohades having put an end to their temporal dominion, their descendants exercise to this day a kind of spiritual superiority over the Moslem negroes in Barbary, the coast of Guinea, etc. At present the Marabuts form a kind of priestly order, officiating at mosques and chapels, explaining the Koran, providing the faithful with amulets, prophesying, and working miracles. They are looked up to with great awe and reverence by the common people, who also allow them a certain vague license over their goods and chattels, their wives not excluded. The Great Marabut ranks next to the king, and the dignity of a Marabut is generally hereditary. One of the most eminent Marabuts of our day is the celebrated Mohammedan warrior Abd-el-Kader, who was born in 1807, and in 1832 opened the contest against the French to expel the latter from African territory, which resulted so unsuccessfully to the Mohammedan cause.