Tunis

Who holds it

Name

Not pinned: the sayyid Abu Zayd ibn Abi Hafs (posted in 596 AH, likelier) or the shaykh Abu Sa'id Uthman ibn Abi Hafs (governor in 595); see Almohad governor of Tunis

Title

Almohad governor of Ifriqiya

Since

596 AH (Abu Zayd), month not given

Born

Not pinned

Family

Not known

Confidence

low

Ibn Khaldun vol. 2, pp. 106, 224, 292.

Lord in 1200

The Almohad governor at Tunis (Abu Zayd or Abu Sa'id, not pinned)

How things stand that morning

Almohad and not under siege as far as the sources show on the morning of 1 January 1200; the rebel of Mahdia's siege falls in 596 AH and may begin before or after that date.

Charter

None known. The Pisan treaty of 1186 with the caliph Ya'qub al-Mansur names Tunis among the few ports where Pisan ships may trade.

Council

The governor with the Almohad shaykhs, talaba and huffaz of his household; the chief judge (qadi) of Tunis, name not known; the Maliki scholars of the Zaytuna. Leading families not pinned.

Communities

Maliki Muslim townsmen; the Almohad ruling class; Jews, made to wear a distinctive dress by al-Mansur's decree of 595 AH (Zarkashi); Pisan and Genoese merchants in their lodgings (funduqs); Christian captives.

Fairs and markets

Daily markets round the Zaytuna; no fairs recorded.

Militia

The Almohad garrison and the governor's galleys, which beat off the rebel by land and sea in 596; the townsmen's part is not recorded.

Walls and castle

City walls, the Almohad qasba on the western height, the Zaytuna mosque, the lake port and the channel of La Goulette.

Trade and crafts

Grain and oil from the Medjerda and Cap Bon, wool, hides and wax sold to the Pisans and Genoese; cloth, leather and pottery; the port of the lake.

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. 596 AH (season not pinned)The rebel of Mahdia besieges Tunis from La Goulette and is beaten off by land and sea.Depends on: The rebel choosing to attack Tunis. Stopped by: The rebel turning on Gabes first.
2. Late summer to 7 Rabi II 600 (15 December 1203)Yahya ibn Ghaniya, leaving Mahdia to his kinsman Ali ibn al-Ghazi, camps on the Jabal al-Ahmar above Tunis, puts his brother at La Goulette, fills the ditches and brings up siege engines; after four months he storms the city and captures the governor (Ibn Khaldun, p. 107).Depends on: Yahya's conquests of 1201-1203. Stopped by: An Almohad army arriving first.

Places of note

• La Goulette (Halq al-Wadi): Channel to the lake port.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The Almohad hold is certain; the governor's name and the timing of the siege are not.

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.