Seville

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

Family

Normally a close kinsman of the caliph; Seville's governor was in effect the caliph's deputy for al-Andalus.

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. Al-Mansur himself ruled al-Andalus from Seville in 1195-1198 and left for Marrakesh, already ill, in April 1198 (es.wikipedia, al-Mansur); who was left in charge is not pinned.

Overlord

Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir

What it holds

• Seville: the caliphs' palaces, the Great Mosque and its new minaret (finished 1198), the dockyard and fleet
• Aznalfarache (Hisn al-Faraj) across the river, al-Mansur's fortress-residence; Alcala de Guadaira (Qalat Jabir), the castle on the road east
• Carmona, Ecija, Lebrija, Utrera, Moron, Marchena, Osuna and Estepa in the campina
• Constantina, Cazalla and Guadalcanal in the Sierra Norte, on the roads north to Badajoz and Merida
• Jerez (Sharish), Arcos, Cadiz, Sanlucar and the bay, the old district of Sidonia (dependence not pinned)

How things stand that morning

Firmly held and at peace.

Wealth

Olive oil of the Aljarafe, shipped all over the Mediterranean; grain of the campina; figs; cotton and textiles; the river port, with sea-going ships coming up the Guadalquivir; a Genoese colony from the twelfth century and Pisan merchants (a Pisan consul arrived on 6 June 1167); salt and fish of the marshes and the bay; horses.

Military

The muster point of the Almohad army in al-Andalus; the fleet's base on the river; walls rebuilt after the flood of 1168-1169.

Threats

• A Castilian raid down the Guadalquivir if the truce breaks (as in 1194)
• Floods of the Guadalquivir
• The cost of feeding the army and fleet when the caliph comes

Garrisons and commands

The city's own garrison and the caliph's household troops when he comes over; the fleet and its crews in the river; castles at Aznalfarache, Alcala de Guadaira, Carmona and Jerez. Not a frontier province.

Qadi and families

The qadi of Seville on 1 January 1200 is not pinned. Andalusi families of note in Almohad Seville: the Banu Zuhr, physicians to the caliphs; the Banu Khaldun, forebears of the historian Ibn Khaldun, who stay in Seville until the 1240s; the old landowning houses of the Aljarafe. Ibn Arabi, the mystic, lived in Seville in the 1190s and leaves al-Andalus for good about 1200.

Places of note

• Aznalfarache (Hisn al-Faraj): Fortress-residence built by al-Mansur above the river
• Castle of Alcala de Guadaira (Qalat Jabir): Great castle guarding the eastern approach to Seville

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The city and its works are well attested; the governor and the exact bounds of the province in 1200 are not.

On the map: Almohad provinces were governorships over cities and their districts, not bounded territories; the borders between provinces here are drawn by nearest seed and are not attested.

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.