Excerpt: The Most Unlikely Palm: How Medieval Andalus Survived and Thrived - Ibrahim Alquti, Falconbird Press, AD 2012
THE DALIBURIDS AFTER THE NORMANDO WARS
Mu'izz ad-Din, His Successors, the Igiderids and Native Skepticism
The wake of Guillermo del Toro's rampage through al-Andalus brought with it a reckoning with just how much damage he did.
Truthfully, collapse had been averted narrowly on more than one occasion. Coimbra had barely held even as the towns to its north fell; Tulaytulah was saved only by chance of Guillermo catching ill. And while Saif ad-Din had delivered Barshiluna into the Andalusian realm, he had lost Viguera to the King of Navarre. Madinat as-Salih lay in ruins and Maridah in much the same state, and despondent villagers and burgers laboured to rebuild, even as Saif ad-Din directed gold into the north to try and repair the damage.
The death of Guillermo brought to the throne the younger and less-respected Balduino, who was not nearly the military leader his father was, and with him a reprieve from major raids. But beyond the damage, Guillermo left behind an angry populace who saw the cruel and detached but militarily competent Saif ad-Din as lacking in credibility - and the Caliphs he spoke for as barely capable of protecting the people.
At this point, the Umayyad Caliphs were all but an irrelevancy. Abdullah II had passed in 1103, after a reign of nearly fifty years - most of them spent in idle study. He had been succeeded by his aging son Hisham III, who passed in 1109 to give way to his own son, Abd ar-Rahman V. In turn he passed in 1112 to his brother, Al-Najib, who passed it along to his son Muhammad III - styled
al-Mustakfi - in 1128. Muhammad, who came to the throne as as young man, made sporadic public appearances but lived most of his life in the Alcazar, ostensibly deep in religious study and enlightenment but largely living a fairly decadent life of luxury and little duty, with the brusque and direct Saif ad-Din cutting past him for most day-to-day running of Andalusian life.
Shu'ubiyya and native rebellion were far from unknown in al-Andalus, even after the rebellion of Ibn Qays had won more rights for indigenous Andalusis. In cities throughout the Caliphate, native Muslims thrived as key players in the economy. But they nevertheless fell short of holding power at the highest levels, a privilege reserved for the
Saqaliba and the Arabo-Andalusian Umayyads they represented. Particularly unhappy with matters were Berbers and Arabo-Berbers, who continued to be treated as dumb muscle and little more. The
Saqaliba had been obliged throughout the Rule of the Slaves to tamp down sporadic local rebellions, albeit fewer than during the Direct Umayyads' reigns. For the most part, the natives allowed the
Saqaliba to run things provided they could protect their homes and businesses.
The depredations of the Normandos proved to be a wake-up call for many in al-Andalus, particularly among the Andalusis and Arabized Berbers. The ensuing decades would see two major rebellions against their reign, the first coming sooner than later.
Vitally, some native Andalusis had risen to positions of power locally, while some Berbers had even come to adopt local ways. The most important of these was Hizam ibn Abu'l-Qasim, the governer of Beja - an Idrisid by descent through Hammud and thus unique among self-styled Andalusis in being a
chorfa.[1] However, his importance - and especially that of his son, Hasan, at that point merely a newborn baby - would not come into play for some years, and the earliest major stirrings against the Rule of the Slaves came from the lower classes.
In 1145, a rebellion broke out in Batalyaws as rabble-rousers drove the
Saqaliba-appointed governor out of the city. The rebels, mostly peasants and merchants under the firebrand preacher Sa'd ibn Mahbub, claimed the right to govern themselves and resolved to cast the
Saqaliba and the Umayyads from power. Rebels radiated out from Batalyaws to rabble-rouse in towns and villages, seeking to recruit men to their cause.
However, Ibn Mahbub was a man of low ancestry - his parents were common artisans - and he was seen in other regions as a local problem rather than a leader to be followed. He earned sympathy but little support outside of Batalyaws. This followed the pattern of many Andalusi revolts, despite being somewhat more important and impactful: It flagged for lack of leadership.
Whatever issues many common Andalusis may have had with the Umayyads and the
Saqaliba, the presence of the Caliphate remained a rallying point for all the communities in al-Andalus and those in the Maghreb aligned with Córdoba. Far from being a mere governor, the Caliph was seen as having a mandate handed down from God himself by way of the Prophet. The Umayyads descended from the Caliphs of Damascus drawn from the line of the Banu Umayya, and in particular from Uthman, one of the
Sahabah.[2] No bloodline in al-Andalus save a rightful
sharif or
sayyid - that is, someone descended directly from the blood of the Prophet - could match that of the Umayyads in terms of having any right to the title of Caliph.
The process of bringing down Ibn Mahbub, however, was slowed by political convulsions at the Alcazar following the war against Guillermo. Never popular with the court due to his cruel and deliberate personality, Saif ad-Din had kept the nobility in line largely due to his reputation as a general, but his failure to stop Guillermo from demolishing Madinat as-Salih destroyed his credibility as a leader. Sometime in 1144, a plot to remove him was hatched.
An assassin attempted to stab Saif ad-Din in his bedroom, but apparently missed or was spotted somehow; in either case, Saif ad-Din killed the assassin and moved to try to ferret out the conspirators. However, the conspiracy ran deeper than he suspected, with several groups at court conspiring against him. He was forced to flee to Isbili after finding most of the court hostile, but after a short time there he was betrayed by the lord of that city and thrown into the gaol, where he died sick and hungry in the early months of 1145.
With Ibn Mahbub's rebellion just beginning to erupt, the
Saqaliba bickered amongst themselves as they sought to choose a new leader - the leading candidates being Saif ad-Din's second brother, Aamir ibn Dalibur, and his nephew Bakr, son of Saif ad-Din's third brother. The remnants of the
Saqaliba from Rus', meanwhile, lobbied for their own candidate.
Responding to Ibn Mahbub was left to local lords, who had invested in their own
Saqaliba armies but lacked the critical mass of the Caliphal army for the most part, and to hired Berbers. The response from Córdoba was disorganized and cluttered as the court struggled to decide on a successor.
Finally, however, a compromise was reached. The various factions took their dispute to Caliph Muhammad III and asked him to choose a
hajib.
Muhammad, having been detached from matters of state for most of his life, struggled to make the choice. Contemporary histories convey that the decision was ultimately decided by a suggestion from a fellow named Muhja, who is said to have been one of Muhammad's male lovers (like Hisham II, Muhammad is said to have had both male and female harems). Muhja is said to have recommended Aamir, reasoning that he was an older man and likely to have the wisdom needed to right the wrongs left by Saif ad-Din. Guided by his lover's suggestion, Muhammad named Aamir to the office of
hajib and suggested that he teach the promising young Bakr the ways of leadership, to foster him as his own heir.
While Saif ad-Din had been a surly and arbitrary ruler who angered his court and failed to stop Guillermo, he had nevertheless managed to bring most of the core nobility of al-Andalus back under his sway before the final years of his reign. Most importantly, he prevented Guillermo from making any permanent conquests, or from shattering al-Andalus entirely. This left Aamir - who took on the name of Mu'izz ad-Din, or "Fortifier of the Faith" - a fair foundation upon which to rebuild the cities razed by Guillermo, tamp down the rebellion of Ibn Mahbub, rein in his northern lords and reclaim the cities lost to the Normandos.
Fortuitously, Mu'izz ad-Din was a more steady and reliable man than his older brother, and he came to the throne well into his fifties - not destined for a long reign, but with experience and wisdom behind him as well as a more temperate mindset. He set to work pouring African gold into the north of al-Andalus to rebuild Madinat as-Salih and Maridah. To this day, the Qasaba of Mu'izz ad-Din stands in Medinaceli as a standout work of Middle Moorish architecture. A buying drive was launched for new
Saqaliba, taking advantace of the busy Mediterranean slave trade to bolster the Caliphal army. Bakr was tasked with leading the armies sent to rein in Ibn Mahbub, though the task would take several years, largely due to Ibn Mahbub's ability to hide his rebels in the countryside and elude capture.
In 1147, Mu'izz ad-Din took steps to reassert confidence in the
Saqaliba by launching a major raid northward against the Normandos. The raid, by way of Coimbra, saw a force of
Saqaliba, Andalusi crossbowmen and Berber cavalry overcome Normando resistance and sack several villages. The main objective, however, was Aveiro; Mu'izz ad-Din laid siege to the city and was able to retake it the next year, pushing the border northward from Coimbra again and rolling back one of the more notable of Guillermo's actions after 31 years of Normando rule. A Norman church still stands in the city as a testament to this period, though it has since been repurposed by the local Mozarabic community.
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In the Maghreb, meanwhile, significant changes had been unfolding over the past several years.
Nearly 90 years prior, major drought in Egypt had provoked a significant outflow of people. The migration of the Banu Hilal down the Nile[3] had already caused havoc as Nubia struggled to rein them in. Ifriqiya and the Maghreb had received less significant outflows, though a number of scattered Arabs had trickled west in dribs and drabs, many of them coming from the nomadic Banu Sulaym or the more settled Kanzids from Aswan. The Kanzids in particular brought with them the fruits of their control over the area's mines, many arriving with gold to trade in the cities of Tripolitania. These Arabs had largely settled in cities, with Tripoli, Gabes and Sfax being their main centres; those in the latter two cities had largely submitted to the al-Mutahirin.
The influx of new ideas and new wealth, however, gradually changed the dynamics of life in these areas. Tripoli in particular had held out against the al-Mutahirin as the residents there - nominal Zirid subjects until the fall of Ifriqiya to the al-Mutahirin - hired migrating Bedouins to defend them. A stubborn resistance began to build up - a curious alliance of Berbers, Bedouin mercenaries and Arabo-Egyptian settlers.
The conquests of the al-Mutahirin had driven many Zenata Berbers eastward out of their traditional lands, fleeing the extremists and finding a modicum of peace outside their borders, in lands once nominally under Zirid and Fatimid suzerainty. The collapse of the Zirids - together with the waning of Fatimid authority west of Cyrenaica - left the land between the two powers effectively controlled by local lords. It is within this power vacuum that a Zenata dynasty emerged under Buluggin ibn Igider, a particularly powerful landlord who had wedded the daughter of the Kanzids. The Igiderids consisted mainly of Arabized Berbers and Arab allies, and they held out for some time against the al-Mutahirin, albeit paying tribute now and then.
By the 1140s, however, the rule of the al-Mutahirin was beginning to wear thin on the inhabitants of Ifriqiya. The al-Mutahirin, constantly at war with Zenatas to their west, the Igiderids to their east and nomadic Tuaregs marauding in the Sahara to their south, were obligated to battle a large rebellion in Ifriqiya in 1144. These rebels, many of them Arabized Berbers, appealed for aid to Buluggin's grandson, al-Mansur. With the al-Mutahirin in a rougher position than they'd been in some time, al-Mansur took the opportunity to launch an invasion of Ifriqiya.
The assault proved successful, with the Igiderids' collection of Berber horsemen and allied Bedouins dealing the al-Mutahirin a heavy defeat at the Battle of Gabes in 1145. While local Kutamas left behind by the Fatimids grumbled, it mattered little; the Igiderids successfully drove the al-Mutahirin out of Mahdia and Tunis, pushing them back about as far as Constantine.[4] The Bedouins, mostly of the Banu Sulaym, were given territory inland to continue to roam as they wished - namely to raid the core al-Mutahirin territory in al-Jazira. Al-Mansur, meanwhile, settled in Mahdia along with a ruling class of Arabized Berbers, bringing an influx of new wealth and a restoration of Maliki jurisprudence to a region where religious minorities had suffered hideous persecutions under the radical al-Mutahirin philosophy.
With the al-Mutahirin continuing to suffer raids out of Ifriqiya and with their army and leadership badly dented, the remaining Zenata in the Maghreb - long engaged in a back-and-forth war with the al-Mutahirin - saw blood in the water. The call went north to Córdoba as the Zenata clans sought to put the al-Mutahirin out of their misery once and for all.
[1] A sharif - a blood descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. "Chorfa" is the term used in Maghrebi Arabic, to which Andalusian Arabic is related.
[2] The Prophet's companions. Technically, the descendants of Idris have a better blood claim, but the Umayyads are an institution.
[3] North Africa dodges a bullet: If you believe Ibn Khaldun, the Banu Hilal were fairly destructive OTL in terms of the economy. Their arrival coincided with a big shift in the Maghreb from agriculture back to nomadism and is associated with a steep drop in the quality of available land. The lack of Banu Hilal will have major demographic and lifestyle ramifications in Ifriqiya and the Maghreb. Urbanism and agriculture will get to continue uninterrupted.
[4] The Igiderids get ahold of Tunisia and a chunk of northwest Libya as well as a thin slice of coastal Algeria.
SUMMARY:
1144: A major rebellion in Ifriqiya sees the al-Mutahirin in danger of losing control over Mahdia and Tunis.
1145: Saif ad-Din, hajib of al-Andalus, is overthrown and dies in prison. As the rebellion of Ibn Mahbub rages out of Batalyaws, the divided Saqaliba turn to the near-useless Caliph Muhammad III to mediate their succession disputes. Muhammad chooses Saif ad-Din's brother, Mu'izz ad-Din.
1145: The Igiderids drive the al-Mutahirin out of Ifriqiya and assume control over the area.
1148: Al-Andalus regains control of Aveiro after 31 years of Normando rule.
