Muslim Spain Reconsidered by Richard Hitchcock

Author:Richard Hitchcock
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

CHAPTER 4

The eleventh century – a time of change

The period of the independent kingdoms had begun before 1031, as early as 1009 according to Monès, in that a number of cities had already taken steps to determine their own destiny.1 Notable amongst these was Seville, an effectively independent state since 1023 and a bulwark against the designs of those in Cordoba who wished to wrest power away from it. There had always been tension between the Syrian Umayyads who governed Cordoba and the Yemenis in Seville. Power was originally in the hands of Abū al-Qāsim b. ‘Abbād, the qādī (d. 1042), and hence the Abbādid family dynasty, whose son and grandson were to make such an impact on Islam in al-Andalus. He appears to have been responsible for the stratagem of procuring the services of a doppelganger of the dead Caliph Hishām II (or rather of how he is presumed to have looked had he been alive) purportedly located in a dungeon in the small fortress town of Calatrava midway between Cordoba and Toledo. His purpose, if there is credence to the story, was to provide a figurehead acceptable to all Andalusis. He ordered that Hishām’s name be mentioned in the khutba (the Friday address or sermon) in all mosques, whilst he relegated his own position to that of hājib. In so doing, he was conferring legitimacy upon his own position. He brought slaves of uncertain origin into the city with the express purpose initially of using them to repel attacks from Berbers, but this policy later enabled him to be aggressive towards his neighbours. When his son, known as al-Mu‘tadid (he who invokes the protection (of God)) (r. 1042–69), succeeded his father the qādī, a period of unprecedented power and prestige was inaugurated for Seville. In the south-west of the Iberian Peninsula at that time, there were two major Hispano-Muslim states vying for supremacy. The Abbādids of Seville was one, the Aftāsids of Badajoz, the other. The latter had been established in 1022 by Ibn Aftās (r. 1022–45), a courtier from Cordoba with ancestors among the original Berber settlers of the eighth century long since acculturated to Islam, who had taken the name and the mantle of al-Mansūr and whose territory extended into present-day Portugal. He enlisted support from Berbers who had settled in the area and were distinct from those imported from North Africa in the previous century by al-Mansūr. After thirty years of conflict, the upper hand was finally gained by the Abbādids in 1051 in the person of al-Mu‘tadid, who invaded the territory of Badajoz, laying waste to the crops and causing a famine among the rural population.

As occurs with Russian dolls, the smaller Taifa states taken over by Badajoz were absorbed by Seville when Badajoz itself was annexed in 1051, such that by the death of al-Mu‘tadid in 1069, the latter state exercised control over vast swathes of the southern part of al-Andalus. The smaller cities that were subsumed in the maw of Seville included,

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