Qatada ibn Idris and the sharifs of Wadi Yanbu

Who rules

Name

Qatada ibn Idris ibn Muta'in al-Hasani (Abu Aziz)

Title

Sharif and chief of the Dhawu Muta'in, master of Wadi Yanbu

Since

not pinned: he won Wadi Yanbu, then Wadi al-Safra, before 1200 (undated)

Born

about 527 AH (1132-1133) by the report that he died at about 90; other reports put his birth about 1150

Family

Hasanid sharif of the Dhawu Muta'in, a clan of the Banu Hasan who lived as people of the countryside (badiya) on the Alqamiyya channel of Wadi Yanbu (Ibn Khaldun). Wives: a sharifa of the line of al-Husayn, mother of Aziz, Hanzala, Rajih, Idris and Ali the younger; and a woman of the Anaza tribe, mother of Ali the elder and al-Hasan. Hanzala is grown and will lead the attack on Mecca; the others' ages are not known. A brother, unnamed, later commands troops for him.

Confidence

medium

Wikipedia (English and Arabic) from Ibn Fahd, Ibn Khaldun and al-Qalqashandi.

Overlord

None in practice. He will seek recognition from the Ayyubids and the caliph only after he takes Mecca.

What the realm holds

• Wadi Yanbu with its palm villages and springs (Yanbu al-Nakhl), his home on the Alqamiyya channel
• the fortress of Yanbu (attested when his men held out there in 612/1215-1216; when it was built is not known)
• Wadi al-Safra, taken from the Banu Yahya, on the pilgrim road between Mecca and Medina
• probably the anchorage of Yanbu on the coast (not pinned)

How it was acquired

By war against the other sharifian clans of the valley, before 1200 (undated).

Allies and rivals

Allied to the Banu Ahmad and Banu Ibrahim and married into the Anaza; enemy of the Banu Harab, Banu Isa, Banu Ali and the Banu Yahya; rival of the Hawashim of Mecca, whose city he covets, and of the Husaynid emir of Medina. The Juhayna and other Bedouin of the coast are his neighbours and, at times, his soldiers.

The realm that morning

Master of Wadi Yanbu and Wadi al-Safra on 1 January 1200, not yet of Mecca. No fighting is dated to that winter.

Wealth

Dates and springs of Wadi Yanbu and al-Safra; tolls and protection money on the Mecca-Medina road and the coastal pilgrim route; the anchorage of Yanbu for Egyptian grain.

Military

Sharifian kinsmen and allied clans, slaves, and Bedouin; the fortress at Yanbu, where his men will hold out after a defeat in 612 (1215-1216).

Threats

• the Hawashim of Mecca and their friends
• the emir of Medina
• the defeated sharifian clans
• the Ayyubids if they choose to back Mukthir

Family and household

His sons (Hanzala the eldest active one), his unnamed brother, his Anaza in-laws. His later vizier Sulayman al-Zanjani belongs to the Meccan years.

Great families

The sharifian clans of Wadi Yanbu and al-Safra: his own Dhawu Muta'in, the allied Banu Ahmad and Banu Ibrahim, the defeated Banu Harab, Banu Isa, Banu Ali, and the Banu Yahya driven from al-Safra.

Religion

Zaydi in rite like the other Hasanid sharifs (later he reads the khutba for the Abbasid caliph and the Ayyubid sultan).

Coinage and khutba

None of his own in 1200.

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. 597-599 AH (earliest 11 October 1200; most likely 1201-1203)Hanzala ibn Qatada takes Mecca; Mukthir flees to Nakhla. Qatada becomes emir of Mecca, with the notables' consent, and is recognised by the Ayyubid al-Kamil.Depends on: Mukthir's weakness, the notables' consent, Ayyubid and Abbasid indifference. Stopped by: Ayyubid or Abbasid support for Mukthir; a Medinese or Bedouin attack on Yanbu.

Places of note

• Yanbu anchorage: The coastal anchorage of the valley (its control in 1200 not pinned).

Where the sources disagree

• The brief speaks of 'Yanbu and Nab''. The sources read place Qatada on the Alqamiyya channel of Wadi Yanbu; no place called Nab' is named in them, and we treat 'Nab'' as a form of the same valley (Yanbu means 'spring') until a source shows otherwise.
• His birth is put about 1132 or about 1150 by different reports of his age at death (617-618 AH).

Evidence: His rise in Wadi Yanbu and al-Safra is recorded by Ibn Fahd, Ibn Khaldun and al-Qalqashandi without dates; his holdings in 1200 are inferred from the order of events.

On the map: Coordinates of the Yanbu palm valley are approximate; the outline follows the valleys, not a frontier.

Primary sources for this realm

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 Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online
• The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Jubayr (Abu'l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad) (1185, from a diary kept 1183 to 1185). The best eyewitness of the Mediterranean world fifteen years before 1200, by a secretary of the Almohad governor of Granada: the Almohad port of Ceuta and its Genoese ships, Alexandria and Cairo under Saladin with their customs houses, the pilgrim traffic from the Maghreb, Mecca under its emir and Medina, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, Damascus and Mosul, the Frankish ports of Acre and Tyre with Muslims living under Frankish rule, and Sicily under William II with its Muslim subjects and Arabic-speaking court. Read online