Moonlight in a Jar: An Al-Andalus Timeline
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ACT VI Part IV: On the Cusp of the Crossing
Planet of Hats
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Excerpt: Al-Andalus in the Precrossing Period - Gharsiya Jalaleddine, Academia Metropress, AD 1996
Husayn ibn Al-Hakam came to power at a time of instability and crisis, unready to govern on his own and beholden to a long-disempowered Caliph seeing him as an opportunity. He ended his reign renowned as the Hajib who led Al-Andalus to a new world.
At the time of Husayn's ascent to power, Al-Andalus and the western Islamic world were under a persistent state of siege, some fronts more serious than the others. In the north, regular summer raids by the Knights of Saint James resulted in clashes between Christian and Muslim troops in the central mountains. In the Mediterranean Sea, regular conflicts with Genoa and Venice had left the Igiderids of Ifriqiya hemmed in and struggling to assert control over their own coast. And in the south, the weakened Rezkids - who had already lost control of Tahert to a cadet dynasty some years prior - were under sustained attack by the so-called Blue Army[1], a confederation of Veiled Sanhaja led by the ultra-rigorist Al-Nasir ibn Munatas, who claimed to be the Mahdi.
The Blue Army itself was a consequence of thirty years of trade shifting from the overland route to the Mali Empire to the sea route, bypassing the need to hire Berber caravans. That shift enriched Tekrur, the Kaledats and ports in Al-Andalus and the Maghreb, but it put several more inland areas in a steady decline, most precipitously Sijilmasa, and disrupted the caravan-running lifestyles of those Sanhaja traders who relied on the overland routes. The population of Sijilmasa appears to have declined following the opening of the sea route as Berbers migrated to the coasts, while nomads watched their wealth dry up and their children leave in search of opportunities.
Into this void stepped Ibn Munatas, a rigorist and follower of the Zahiri madhhab who had been exiled from Sijilmasa for declaring takfir upon just about everyone and constantly trying to bait the religious authorities into doctrinal arguments. He retreated into the desert and holed up in a cave, screaming semi-coherently about how he was the Mahdi. His ravings attracted a following of out-of-work friends and disaffected Sanhaja left behind by the sea trade.
When Ibn Munatas returned to Sijilmasa in 1325, two years after his exile, it was at the head of an army of well-armed and desperate Sanhaja clad in the traditional indigo tagelmust. He seized the town and proclaimed his seat there before marching to the north, beginning a campaign of destruction and revenge against the rump Rezkids, whom he viewed as decadent and uncaring. The Rezkid Malik of the time, Mu'nis II, was an old man hobbled by gout, controlled by a regency council of bickering sons and black ghilmans, and he was unable to exercise effective control beyond the walls of Fes, leaving the running of the kingdom largely in the hands of his son Ridha.
The decision to intervene on the side of the Rezkids came not from Husayn, but from Caliph Al-Mustanjid, who had been in receipt of letters from Ridha and the Zenata chieftain Abu-Bakr ibn Asmar, strongest of the Rezkids' local lords (holding court in the wealthy city of Sale) and a chorfa through the descendants of Idris.[2] However, the intervention was half-hearted on Córdoba's part: Al-Mustanjid refused to send Al-Gazal or Farhad personally to the Maghreb for fear of assassins at home. Husayn instead chose a loyalist, Sulayman ibn Barmud al-Quti[3], to lead part of the regular army to try and reinforce Fes.
While Ibn Barmud was loyal to Husayn, he was far from a great general, and his time in the Maghreb was of dubious success. In 1329, the Blue Army laid siege to Fes, and in 1331, Ridha was killed defending Meknes. Fes fell later that year, and the Rezkid court fled as Ibn Munatas declared himself the rightful king of the Maghreb and denounced the Umayyad Caliph as a kafir.
By 1333, however, raids from the north abated for a time following Al-Gazal's dealing a heavy defeat to the Church Knights and a host of French and Iberians at the Battle of Wadi ar-Ramail.[4] At Al-Mustanjid's urging, Al-Gazal and the Saqlab commander 'Amr joined up with the only remaining legitimate authority Al-Mustanjid saw: Ibn Asmar. The troops remained for a time and helped Ibn Asmar's host of Zenatas and black ghilmans to defeat the Blue Army at the Battle of Al Kansera in 1334.
The breaking of Ibn Munatas's army made things simpler. Al-Gazal and 'Amr returned to Al-Andalus quickly as Ibn Asmar mustered a host of allied Rezkid landholders and coastal powerbrokers with money enough to hire their own mercenaries. These forces pressed out from the coast over the next several years, waging a grinding back-and-forth war to roll back the Blue Army.
Al-Asmar was quickly recognized as the only one strong enough to claim the title of King in Maghrib, beginning the reign of the Asmarid Dynasty. That transition marked not only a new ruling family, but the rise of Sale as the effective centre of power, the ascendancy of the coastal, urban merchant class as the most powerful players in the region, and the maritime trade as central to Maghrib's prosperity.
Al-Mustanjid's control over Husayn was a point of conflict among court factions opposed to the idea of an Umayyad restoration, held in check mainly by the power of Al-Gazal over the regular army and the diligent protection of Husayn by the Black Guard. However, the Caliph was not a young man, and he began to feel his years around the time of the Battle of Wadi ar-Ramail, beginning to spend more time in rest and reflection as he began to experience the early stages of what historians believe to be dementia.
Into this political void stepped the most powerful family in southern Andalusia: The Banu Angelino. The then-current patriarch of the family, Abu Abd al-Lah Muhammad ibn Sanshu ibn al-Jadd al-Anjylyni, was a key influencer both in Isbili and at court, and he and other allies had been putting pressure on Husayn to spend more time at the summer palace in Isbili.
In 1334, with Al-Mustanjid partially incapacitated and unable to influence him like he used to, Husayn made his move, bringing his court to the Great Mosque built by his grandfather. At that point, Isbili had already overtaken Córdoba in population and had become the primary centre of trade in the region. Husayn did not take Al-Mustanjid with him, communicating with the Caliph via courier and assigning a wazir to keep an eye on him. While Husayn would travel frequently back to the old capital, 1334 is traditionally marked as the year in which the capital moved to Isbili.
In truth, the move of Husayn to Isbili was in part a power play on Ibn al-Jadd's part: The Banu Angelino had been embroiled in a long-running feud with a rival Isbilian merchant family, the smaller but well-heeled Banu Yandir,[5] who had invested in the trade in sugar and citrus and amassed enormous wealth. Disputes between the two families had degenerated into occasional street brawls and even accusations of privateering. With the Hajib in town and explicitly on his side, Ibn al-Jadd gained an enormous boost in status and prestige. Husayn, not all that decisive to begin with, moved at Ibn al-Jadd's urging to issue a few rulings favourable to the Banu Angelino, much to the consternation of the Banu Yandir.
Dwelling in Isbili placed Husayn at the heart of the continental mercantile trade community: Isbili had evolved into one of the main landing points for trade goods coming in from the Kaledats and the Maghurins as well as from Sudan. This environment suited Husayn well: While he had been diligent and martial when he was younger, his indecision and initial discomfort with being Hajib had led him to pursue rest and relaxation to try and put himself at ease, and he had grown steadily more decadent since his appointment. While not indifferent to his work - were it not for the Crossing, he may have been considered an inconsequential but ultimately harmless caretaker Hajib notable mainly for moving the capital - he was known to have an interest in luxury goods. He maintained both a female harem and a male harem.
News from the Kaledats of various discoveries in the Sudan continually flowed back to Husayn through the reports of the regional trade governor - but so did reports of mistreatment of workers. In a decree of 1336, signed by both Husayn and the dementia-stricken Al-Mustanjid, Husayn ordered three sugar barons in the Kaledats imprisoned and divested of their wealth for the crime of forcing Muslims to work under conditions akin to slavery. The decision appears to have been aimed mainly at enemies of the Banu Angelino operating plantations with barbaric labour conditions, but it coincided with more rigorous attention given to the Kaledats by the religious authorities. Husayn began applying greater pressure to ensure that sugar producers paid their workers fairly, mainly to put the squeeze on sugar barons with less money than those aligned with his own allies.
It is no surprise that the first colonies in the Mufajias date from this period. Unable to procure paid workers easily, these first few Mufajia sugar barons turned to another source of labour: They purchased Zanj slaves from the Godalas of Awlil and the Serer of Tekrur, putting these pagan men to work as labour gangs. The practice of work-gang slavery had long been verboten in the Islamic world - the memory of the Zanj Rebellion having permeated far and wide - but economic incentive, lax oversight and a lack of a native workforce in the Mufajias drove unscrupulous cash-crop farmers to begin to dabble in the practice again, hoping to operate far enough from the centres of power to evade notice.
Exploration of the world continued in this period, spurred on both by the search for luxury goods and for the long-hypothesized back route to the Nile. By 1336, a cartographer by the name of Al-Zamardi reached Khalij Hadi[6] and erected a large plinth there, into which his companion, a Sufi by the name of Ibn 'Amr, carved the takbir. Wherever Andalusi explorers found people, traders soon followed, and in some areas, crops. For instance, even within 40 years of contact with Tekrur, the introduction of new crops and Roman-derived farming techniques led to higher-yielding Asian rice obtained from Andalusi merchants beginning to supplant African rice, while trade with Andalusi merchantmen resulted in the population of Tekrur itself booming, farms springing up along the river and new towns being founded, including Madinat al-Labu on the cape from whence it is named. Over the course of just a few decades, Tekrur became the largest settlement in the Mali Empire. In some areas, this trade also brought disease and violence - the Andalusis tended to respond to perceived hostile pagans with force, and many of the cultures they contacted did not have the same relative immunity to major diseases enjoyed by Andalusis and Berbers.
Both of these trends would come to a head imminently: Both the transfer of crops and ideas around the world and the transfer of diseases and violence would shape the world through the voyage of a man named Abu'l-Hasan Ahmad ibn Hazm ibn Gharsiya ibn al-Tayyib al-Isbili - though he is better known by the name he would gain later: Al-Mustakshif.[7]
[1] Not an army of Aerosmith fans - just an army of Tuaregs in traditional indigo tagelmusts.
[2] The Sharifs of Morocco are alive and well.
[3] Son of Bermudo the Goth.
[4] Guadarrama.
[5] Yandir is an Arabization of the old Gothic name "Leander." This is another example of a Muladi family proudly embracing an Arabo-Gothic genealogy.
[6] Walvis Bay.
[7] The Discoverer. Next time, we cover the events of the Crossing. Stay tuned for the Americas.
18
THE DECADE BEFORE THE CROSSING
Al-Andalus on the Cusp of a World-Changing Discovery
THE DECADE BEFORE THE CROSSING
Al-Andalus on the Cusp of a World-Changing Discovery
Husayn ibn Al-Hakam came to power at a time of instability and crisis, unready to govern on his own and beholden to a long-disempowered Caliph seeing him as an opportunity. He ended his reign renowned as the Hajib who led Al-Andalus to a new world.
At the time of Husayn's ascent to power, Al-Andalus and the western Islamic world were under a persistent state of siege, some fronts more serious than the others. In the north, regular summer raids by the Knights of Saint James resulted in clashes between Christian and Muslim troops in the central mountains. In the Mediterranean Sea, regular conflicts with Genoa and Venice had left the Igiderids of Ifriqiya hemmed in and struggling to assert control over their own coast. And in the south, the weakened Rezkids - who had already lost control of Tahert to a cadet dynasty some years prior - were under sustained attack by the so-called Blue Army[1], a confederation of Veiled Sanhaja led by the ultra-rigorist Al-Nasir ibn Munatas, who claimed to be the Mahdi.
The Blue Army itself was a consequence of thirty years of trade shifting from the overland route to the Mali Empire to the sea route, bypassing the need to hire Berber caravans. That shift enriched Tekrur, the Kaledats and ports in Al-Andalus and the Maghreb, but it put several more inland areas in a steady decline, most precipitously Sijilmasa, and disrupted the caravan-running lifestyles of those Sanhaja traders who relied on the overland routes. The population of Sijilmasa appears to have declined following the opening of the sea route as Berbers migrated to the coasts, while nomads watched their wealth dry up and their children leave in search of opportunities.
Into this void stepped Ibn Munatas, a rigorist and follower of the Zahiri madhhab who had been exiled from Sijilmasa for declaring takfir upon just about everyone and constantly trying to bait the religious authorities into doctrinal arguments. He retreated into the desert and holed up in a cave, screaming semi-coherently about how he was the Mahdi. His ravings attracted a following of out-of-work friends and disaffected Sanhaja left behind by the sea trade.
When Ibn Munatas returned to Sijilmasa in 1325, two years after his exile, it was at the head of an army of well-armed and desperate Sanhaja clad in the traditional indigo tagelmust. He seized the town and proclaimed his seat there before marching to the north, beginning a campaign of destruction and revenge against the rump Rezkids, whom he viewed as decadent and uncaring. The Rezkid Malik of the time, Mu'nis II, was an old man hobbled by gout, controlled by a regency council of bickering sons and black ghilmans, and he was unable to exercise effective control beyond the walls of Fes, leaving the running of the kingdom largely in the hands of his son Ridha.
The decision to intervene on the side of the Rezkids came not from Husayn, but from Caliph Al-Mustanjid, who had been in receipt of letters from Ridha and the Zenata chieftain Abu-Bakr ibn Asmar, strongest of the Rezkids' local lords (holding court in the wealthy city of Sale) and a chorfa through the descendants of Idris.[2] However, the intervention was half-hearted on Córdoba's part: Al-Mustanjid refused to send Al-Gazal or Farhad personally to the Maghreb for fear of assassins at home. Husayn instead chose a loyalist, Sulayman ibn Barmud al-Quti[3], to lead part of the regular army to try and reinforce Fes.
While Ibn Barmud was loyal to Husayn, he was far from a great general, and his time in the Maghreb was of dubious success. In 1329, the Blue Army laid siege to Fes, and in 1331, Ridha was killed defending Meknes. Fes fell later that year, and the Rezkid court fled as Ibn Munatas declared himself the rightful king of the Maghreb and denounced the Umayyad Caliph as a kafir.
By 1333, however, raids from the north abated for a time following Al-Gazal's dealing a heavy defeat to the Church Knights and a host of French and Iberians at the Battle of Wadi ar-Ramail.[4] At Al-Mustanjid's urging, Al-Gazal and the Saqlab commander 'Amr joined up with the only remaining legitimate authority Al-Mustanjid saw: Ibn Asmar. The troops remained for a time and helped Ibn Asmar's host of Zenatas and black ghilmans to defeat the Blue Army at the Battle of Al Kansera in 1334.
The breaking of Ibn Munatas's army made things simpler. Al-Gazal and 'Amr returned to Al-Andalus quickly as Ibn Asmar mustered a host of allied Rezkid landholders and coastal powerbrokers with money enough to hire their own mercenaries. These forces pressed out from the coast over the next several years, waging a grinding back-and-forth war to roll back the Blue Army.
Al-Asmar was quickly recognized as the only one strong enough to claim the title of King in Maghrib, beginning the reign of the Asmarid Dynasty. That transition marked not only a new ruling family, but the rise of Sale as the effective centre of power, the ascendancy of the coastal, urban merchant class as the most powerful players in the region, and the maritime trade as central to Maghrib's prosperity.
~
Al-Mustanjid's control over Husayn was a point of conflict among court factions opposed to the idea of an Umayyad restoration, held in check mainly by the power of Al-Gazal over the regular army and the diligent protection of Husayn by the Black Guard. However, the Caliph was not a young man, and he began to feel his years around the time of the Battle of Wadi ar-Ramail, beginning to spend more time in rest and reflection as he began to experience the early stages of what historians believe to be dementia.
Into this political void stepped the most powerful family in southern Andalusia: The Banu Angelino. The then-current patriarch of the family, Abu Abd al-Lah Muhammad ibn Sanshu ibn al-Jadd al-Anjylyni, was a key influencer both in Isbili and at court, and he and other allies had been putting pressure on Husayn to spend more time at the summer palace in Isbili.
In 1334, with Al-Mustanjid partially incapacitated and unable to influence him like he used to, Husayn made his move, bringing his court to the Great Mosque built by his grandfather. At that point, Isbili had already overtaken Córdoba in population and had become the primary centre of trade in the region. Husayn did not take Al-Mustanjid with him, communicating with the Caliph via courier and assigning a wazir to keep an eye on him. While Husayn would travel frequently back to the old capital, 1334 is traditionally marked as the year in which the capital moved to Isbili.
In truth, the move of Husayn to Isbili was in part a power play on Ibn al-Jadd's part: The Banu Angelino had been embroiled in a long-running feud with a rival Isbilian merchant family, the smaller but well-heeled Banu Yandir,[5] who had invested in the trade in sugar and citrus and amassed enormous wealth. Disputes between the two families had degenerated into occasional street brawls and even accusations of privateering. With the Hajib in town and explicitly on his side, Ibn al-Jadd gained an enormous boost in status and prestige. Husayn, not all that decisive to begin with, moved at Ibn al-Jadd's urging to issue a few rulings favourable to the Banu Angelino, much to the consternation of the Banu Yandir.
Dwelling in Isbili placed Husayn at the heart of the continental mercantile trade community: Isbili had evolved into one of the main landing points for trade goods coming in from the Kaledats and the Maghurins as well as from Sudan. This environment suited Husayn well: While he had been diligent and martial when he was younger, his indecision and initial discomfort with being Hajib had led him to pursue rest and relaxation to try and put himself at ease, and he had grown steadily more decadent since his appointment. While not indifferent to his work - were it not for the Crossing, he may have been considered an inconsequential but ultimately harmless caretaker Hajib notable mainly for moving the capital - he was known to have an interest in luxury goods. He maintained both a female harem and a male harem.
News from the Kaledats of various discoveries in the Sudan continually flowed back to Husayn through the reports of the regional trade governor - but so did reports of mistreatment of workers. In a decree of 1336, signed by both Husayn and the dementia-stricken Al-Mustanjid, Husayn ordered three sugar barons in the Kaledats imprisoned and divested of their wealth for the crime of forcing Muslims to work under conditions akin to slavery. The decision appears to have been aimed mainly at enemies of the Banu Angelino operating plantations with barbaric labour conditions, but it coincided with more rigorous attention given to the Kaledats by the religious authorities. Husayn began applying greater pressure to ensure that sugar producers paid their workers fairly, mainly to put the squeeze on sugar barons with less money than those aligned with his own allies.
It is no surprise that the first colonies in the Mufajias date from this period. Unable to procure paid workers easily, these first few Mufajia sugar barons turned to another source of labour: They purchased Zanj slaves from the Godalas of Awlil and the Serer of Tekrur, putting these pagan men to work as labour gangs. The practice of work-gang slavery had long been verboten in the Islamic world - the memory of the Zanj Rebellion having permeated far and wide - but economic incentive, lax oversight and a lack of a native workforce in the Mufajias drove unscrupulous cash-crop farmers to begin to dabble in the practice again, hoping to operate far enough from the centres of power to evade notice.
Exploration of the world continued in this period, spurred on both by the search for luxury goods and for the long-hypothesized back route to the Nile. By 1336, a cartographer by the name of Al-Zamardi reached Khalij Hadi[6] and erected a large plinth there, into which his companion, a Sufi by the name of Ibn 'Amr, carved the takbir. Wherever Andalusi explorers found people, traders soon followed, and in some areas, crops. For instance, even within 40 years of contact with Tekrur, the introduction of new crops and Roman-derived farming techniques led to higher-yielding Asian rice obtained from Andalusi merchants beginning to supplant African rice, while trade with Andalusi merchantmen resulted in the population of Tekrur itself booming, farms springing up along the river and new towns being founded, including Madinat al-Labu on the cape from whence it is named. Over the course of just a few decades, Tekrur became the largest settlement in the Mali Empire. In some areas, this trade also brought disease and violence - the Andalusis tended to respond to perceived hostile pagans with force, and many of the cultures they contacted did not have the same relative immunity to major diseases enjoyed by Andalusis and Berbers.
Both of these trends would come to a head imminently: Both the transfer of crops and ideas around the world and the transfer of diseases and violence would shape the world through the voyage of a man named Abu'l-Hasan Ahmad ibn Hazm ibn Gharsiya ibn al-Tayyib al-Isbili - though he is better known by the name he would gain later: Al-Mustakshif.[7]
[1] Not an army of Aerosmith fans - just an army of Tuaregs in traditional indigo tagelmusts.
[2] The Sharifs of Morocco are alive and well.
[3] Son of Bermudo the Goth.
[4] Guadarrama.
[5] Yandir is an Arabization of the old Gothic name "Leander." This is another example of a Muladi family proudly embracing an Arabo-Gothic genealogy.
[6] Walvis Bay.
[7] The Discoverer. Next time, we cover the events of the Crossing. Stay tuned for the Americas.
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Planet of Hats
Donor
I'm going off a list of names from medieval Al-Andalus which lists bynames and meanings.
That said, it looks like they may have mistranslated this one, and I might be more accurate to name him Al-Muktashif or Al-Muqtashif.
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All of your posts assume that the Algarves are discovered after the Excan Tlahtoloyan and Tawantin suyu (in its full forme, not the city-state of Qusqu) come into existence.
Planet of Hats
Donor
I assume you mean "before." If the Crossing occured tomorrow, the Incan polity would currently be in its city-state form and the Aztecs would just have founded their city in Lake Texcoco. The ascendant powers would probably be the Tepanecs in Mesoamerica and Chimor in the Andes.
Al-Mustakshif would be the correct translation.
Al-Gafur or Al-Ghafur is the forgiver and is one of god's names in islam.
Got to feel sorry for the turegs. They something thats so underrated travelling across the Sahara now there lifestyle been destroyed. Maybe ship them to the new world for a new chance.
Well large numbers of them are moving to find new employment and the coastal regions are the up and coming place so I imagine more than a few of them will take to the seas.
I’d like to imagine every single sailor on the Andalusian boat has a cat for good luck.
Planet of Hats
Donor
Some of the Veiled Sanhaja will probably move to the cities. Of course, they tend to be much more religiously conservative than the urban class.
Can dogs plz get some love war dogs sheep dogs any dogs, at this point where just shit posting about how cats are great. A cat wont protect someone.
Planet of Hats
Donor
Dogs are not unliked ITTL! They're essential for the shepherds and goatherds of this world. Cats are loved as pets and companions, but dogs do more important work.
The Aidi is actually a pretty common dog in this period. They're especially used in the Maghreb to keep an eye on livestock and have come north alongside the breeds previously mentioned. You'll often see Pyrenean sheepdogs controlling the herd's movement while Aidis or Great Pyreneans blend in and ensure nothing happens to the sheep or the goats.
The ghost of Sa'd al-Din will return to the realm of the living just long enough to go "I WANT FIFTY OF THEM."
I find it odd that I have been in the state of having read half of the timeline for months now, even though I read part of it each day.
As someone else mentioned, these weren't large armies: Pizarro's initial victories in Peru took place with only 180 soldiers. Of course, one could get into questions as to how many elite Andalusi units of the 14th century 180 Spanish troops of the 16th century were worth, and the Inca had already had their first hit of plagues, but these are details: Andalusis may be somewhat cleaner than Christian Spain, but the major native American civilizations will get hit hard by disease, and if they don't go all Conquistador at first, after a little bit they'll be expanding into a power vacuum in some places. Don't forget after one (admittedly) bloody Spanish crossing of their land, the SE US Indian societies saw a sharp decline in population and organizational levels, while the Amazonian Terra Preta societies may have collapsed from disease without Conquistador one. The plagues were just that bad.
I guess what I'm saying is that I am generally skeptical of the AH trope "Native Americans do better if anyone else but Iberians/Europeans show up". Things may indeed work out better in the long run, but I can't see initial contact as being anything but messy.