Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni

Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Umar ibn Talagagin ibn Turgut ibn Wartasin, commonly suffixed al-Lamtuni al-Sanhaji, (d. near Azuggi, 1056) was a chieftain of the Lamtuna, a tribe in the Sanhaja confederation. Yahya ibn Umar was the first emir of the Almoravids in the mid-11th century, a movement he constructed in collaboration with the religious leader Abdallah ibn Yasin. Yahya led the Almoravid armies in their first campaigns, including captures of Sijilmassa and Awdaghost in 1054/55, but was himself killed in battle against a dissident Berber faction in the Adrar. Yahya was succeeded as Almoravid emir by his brother, Abu Bakr ibn Umar.

In the 11th century, the Sanhaja were divided into several tribes - the Lamtuna, the Massufa, the Banu Warith and the Gudala (or Judala). After their conversion to Islam during the 9th, the Sanhaja desert tribes were united and, with the zeal of neophyte converts, launched a series of campaigns against the "Sudanese" (pagan black peoples of sub-Saharan Africa). The Sanhaja union carved out a vast Saharan desert empire. After the Sanhaja union collapsed, most of their old dominions - particularly the citadels, caravan stops and oases on the lucrative trans-Saharan trade routes - were lost to the Ghana Empire to the south, and to the Zenata Maghrawa rulers of Sijilmassa to the north.

The chronicles trace Yahya's lineage back to the Lamtuna chieftain Turgut ibn Wartasin (by full patronymic record, Yahya ibn Umar ibn Ibrahim (alias Talagagin) ibn Turgut ibn Wartasin al-Lamtuni Like many of the leading Lamtuna chieftains, Yahya ibn Umar longed to recreate the old Sanhaja union and recover their lost dominions.

...
Wikipedia