Gharb

Who holds it

Name

Not pinned for 1 January 1200

Title

Governor (wali or sahib), normally a sayyid of the caliph's family with an Almohad shaykh at his side

Since

not pinned

Confidence

low

No governor of this province is securely attested for 1199-1200 in the sources reached (es/en/pt.wikipedia, Alvira Cabrer 1996). Huici Miranda's Historia politica del imperio almohade and Ibn Idhari's Bayan are where the name would be found. Silves is the chief city of the Algarve; whether Beja, Mertola and the frontier fortress of Alcacer do Sal had their own commanders under Silves, under Seville or directly under the caliph is not pinned.

Overlord

Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir

What it holds

• Silves (Shilb), chief city of the Algarve, with its castle and walls over the river Arade
• The Algarve coast: Lagos, Alvor (retaken 1191), Albufeira and Paderne, Loule, Faro, Tavira, Castro Marim
• Mertola (Martula), river port on the Guadiana
• Beja (Baja), Serpa, Moura, Aljustrel: the plain facing Evora
• Alcacer do Sal (Qasr Abi Danis), the fortress on the Sado, garrisoned by the caliph since 1191

How things stand that morning

Held, but the northern edge (Alcacer, Beja, Moura) is a frontier against Evora and the Portuguese Tagus line. Portugal has no pinned truce with the caliph in 1200.

Wealth

Figs and dried fruit, almonds, timber from the Monchique hills, fishing and salt (Alcacer and the coast), grain of the Beja plain, river trade down the Guadiana from Mertola.

Military

Frontier garrisons; the coast exposed to crusader fleets calling at Lisbon.

Threats

• Crusader fleets helping Portugal (Silves 1189 and 1197; Alcacer do Sal falls to one on 18 October 1217)
• Raids by the Knights of Evora
• Portuguese recovery of the Setubal peninsula (Sesimbra about 1200)

Garrisons and commands

Garrisons in Silves and Alcacer do Sal (the latter a frontier command facing Palmela and Lisbon); castles at Beja, Serpa, Moura, Mertola, Tavira, Paderne and Alvor. Evora, held by Portugal and its knights, sits as an island to the north of Beja.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. About 1200, month not pinnedPortugal retakes Sesimbra, north of Alcacer, with crusader help (charter 15 August 1201).Depends on: A crusader fleet at Lisbon; no Almohad garrison at Sesimbra. Stopped by: An Almohad garrison or fleet on the Setubal peninsula.

Places of note

• Paderne: Castle retaken by al-Mansur in 1191
• Alvor: Castle taken by crusaders in 1189 and retaken in 1191
• Loule: Walled town of the Algarve

Where the sources disagree

• Palmela: the OMNIA Church research (Order of Santiago) has Palmela recovered by Portugal in 1205; pt.wikipedia (Castelo de Palmela) reports a minority view of recovery before 1194 and prefers 1205. Palmela, Almada and Sesimbra are anchored here as contested ground, held by neither side with certainty on 1 January 1200.

Evidence: The 1189-1191 campaigns are well attested; the Almohad command structure in the Gharb in 1200 is not.

On the map: Bounds drawn by nearest seed; the northern edge toward Evora is a raiding belt, not a line.

Primary sources for Almohads

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• History of the Two Dynasties, the Almohad and the Hafsid, al-Zarkashi (Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Lu'lu'i al-Zarkashi) (about 1490 to 1495, at Tunis). A short Hafsid-era chronicle whose Almohad opening gives, in a few lines a reign, the succession of al-Mansur and al-Nasir, the Banu Ghaniya's seizure of Ifriqiya and its recovery, and the sending of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs to Tunis, which the Hafsids counted as the start of their house. Read online
• The Complete History: the passages on the Maghreb and al-Andalus, Ibn al-Athir (about 1220 to 1231, at Mosul). The year entries for 595 to 597 of the Hijra (late 1198 to 1201) record the death of Yaqub al-Mansur, the accession of al-Nasir and the opening of Yahya ibn Ghaniya's war in Ifriqiya; the following years follow Yahya and the Ghuzz captain Qaraqush through Tripoli, Gabès and Mahdia to al-Nasir's reconquest in 1206, with the best eastern account of Qaraqush's career. Read online
• The Garden of Pages: a History of the Kings of the Maghreb and of the City of Fez, Ibn Abi Zar al-Fasi (completed in 1326 at Fez, for the Marinid sultan Abu Said Uthman). The Almohad chapters give a brisk dated narrative of al-Mansur's death and burial, al-Nasir's accession and the Banu Ghaniya troubles, with the kind of detail (coinage, public works at Fez and Rabat, prices, plagues) that a Fez compiler cared about, and the annals of Fez supply the city's governors and markets. Read online
• The Wondrous Account of the History of al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Idhari al-Marrakushi (about 1312, at Marrakesh). The Almohad section is the fullest year-by-year narrative of the caliphate around 1200: the last campaigns and the death of Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur in January 1199, the accession of his son Muhammad al-Nasir, the renewed war of the Banu Ghaniya in Ifriqiya under Yahya ibn Ishaq and his ally Qaraqush, the Almohad losses of Mahdia and Tunis a few years later, and al-Nasir's reconquest of Ifriqiya in 1205 to 1206 followed by the appointment of Abd al-Wahid ibn Abi Hafs as governor. Read online
• Historical Monuments of Portugal: Writers (Annals of King Afonso, Chronicon Conimbricense, Chronica Gothorum and others) (12th to 15th centuries). The Portuguese annals in one volume. Read online
• Latin Chronicle of the Kings of Castile, Anonymous, probably Juan of Osma, chancellor of Castile (about 1223 to 1239). The chancellor's chronicle of Alfonso VIII's reign, detailed from the 1190s. Read online
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• Memoirs of the Mahdi Ibn Tumart and the Beginnings of the Almohad State, Abu Bakr ibn Ali al-Sanhaji, called al-Baydhaq (about 1150 to 1165). Nothing for the year itself: al-Baydhaq's memoir ends in Abd al-Mu'min's early reign.

17 more in the sources library for The Maghreb and the Sahara.