Taifa of Mallorca

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The Taifa Kingdom of Mallorca , ( Arabic طائفة مايوركا, DMG ṭāʾifa māyūrkā ), also called the emirate of Mallorca , was an independent Muslim state in the Balearic Islands between 1018 and 1203 .

historical development

Location map of the Taifa of Mallorca

Until 1076 the Balearic Islands were part of the Dénia Taifa . However, Dénia was conquered by the Taifa of Saragossa in 1076 and so an emirate of its own was able to develop on the island archipelago .

The historical development of the Taifa Kingdom of Mallorca can then be divided into two sections. The first Taifa lasted 40 years, from 1076 to 1116. It experienced its decline due to a Christian crusade , which was then followed by the rule of the Almoravids . The second Taifa kingdom in Mallorca was constituted under the Almoravids in 1147 and lasted until 1203. It was the last bastion of the Almoravids against the advance of the Almohads .

First Taifa of Mallorca or first Taifa of the Balearic Islands

When the Caliphate of Cordoba was about to break up around 1010, Mallorca found itself in very anarchic conditions until the island fell into the hands of the Taifa of Dénia. The Taifa king of Dénia, al-Muwaffaq , dispatched his mighty fleet in 1014, which conquered the Balearic Islands and made them the strategic focal point of their naval operations. Mallorca and the rest of the Balearic Islands were therefore closely linked to the fate of Dénias until the Taifa of Dénia was incorporated into the Taifa of Zaragoza in 1076 by the defeat of Ali ibn Mujahid Iqbal al-Dawla against al-Musta'in I.

Between 1076 and 1086 Mallorca constituted itself as an independent Taifa kingdom and extended its jurisdiction to the entire Balearic Islands. This independence was to last for 40 years, which was characterized by a precarious economy combined with food shortages. The latter forced the residents to pirate. The first ruler of the independent Taifa of Mallorca was Ibn Aglab al-Murtada , who ruled until 1093. Ibn Aglab was initially just Wālī , but declared himself an emir in 1087 , thus establishing the first emirate on Mallorca. His successor Mubassir (1093 to 1114) had the city walls built by Madina Majurqa , today's Palma de Mallorca .

The constant piracy of the Taifa finally compelled the Christian neighbors of the western Mediterranean to send a punitive expedition to Mallorca in 1114. This had the character of a crusade , as it had been approved by the Pope and organized jointly by Catalans and Pisans . The Count of Barcelona Raimund Berengar III. commanded the company. The Christians landed on Mallorca and Ibiza and besieged Madina Majurqa for eight months. The city finally fell in 1116. It is said that 30,000 Christian prisoners were freed and a great treasure was looted, some of which is still kept in Pisa today.

The Taifa of Mallorca Abu-l-Rabbi Sulaiman ( El Burabé ) was captured during the conquest of the city. The Pisan-Catalan punitive expedition marked the end of piracy from the Balearic Islands and, at the same time, the end of the islands' independence. The Balearic Islands did not remain under Christian control for long, as Raimund Berengar III. had to retreat back to the continent because of the danger of the Almoravids burning there. The now ownerless archipelago then fell into the hands of the Almoravids without any significant resistance. Mallorca would then be the last Taifa in Al-Andalus that the Almoravids still had.

Second Taifa of Mallorca

In the middle of the 12th century, a new political-religious force arose with the Almohads in the Maghreb , which took a position against the Almoravids. The new movement weakened the Almoravid Empire to such an extent that around 1144 it split into smaller sub- empires ruled by local governors - the so-called second typhoon empires . With the conquest of Marrakech , the capital of the Almoravids, in 1147 by the Almohads, the end of the Almoravid state had come.

From 1126, Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ghaniya ruled Mallorca only as governor. In 1146, however, he declared his independence to the Almoravids as Muhammad I, but still recognized the authority of the Abbassid caliph . Muhammad was one of the sons of Ali ibn Yusuf (1106 to 1143). On this fact he based his legitimate claim to power. His small Taifa kingdom had Palma de Mallorca as its capital and included the entire Balearic Islands. Muhammad founded the Ghaniyid dynasty , which was to remain in power in Mallorca for a little over 50 years. Muhammad I died in 1155 and was followed by his son Ishaq .

After the fall of Marrakech in 1147, the Almohads slowly conquered all the Almoravid possessions in Al-Andalus and placed them under a new central authority, which interpreted Islam in a much more fundamentalist way than the previous Almoravids. In 1172 the Almohads Ibn Mardanīsch snatched the Taifa of Murcia , so that now only the Taifa of Mallorca was the last Almoravid bastion that was not yet subject to the Almohad Empire . With the conquest of Murcia, the Balearic Islands received countless refugees from Al-Andalus who tried to escape the Islamic rigor of the Almohads. Since the Banu Ghaniya descended from the Almoravid ruler Ali ibn Yusuf, they made what they considered to be a legitimate dynasty hereditary and also gave it the ambitious claim to restore the Almoravid hegemony in Al-Andalus and the entire Maghreb.

The Ghaniyids also tried to establish trade relations with the Italian cities of Genoa and Pisa. They succeeded, but in return they had to grant the two cities trade concessions in the Balearic Islands. They concluded non-aggression pacts with both cities in 1177, 1181, 1185 and 1188, respectively. Strengthened in this way, they were even able to attack Toulon in the south of France in 1178 , whereby the Vice Count of Marseilles , Hugo Gaufrido , was taken prisoner.

Ishaq (1155 to 1183) was a despotic ruler. For this reason, his admiral Lope ibn Maymun , who was his mainstay in the military, switched to the Almohads. As a result of this process, Ishaq's position deteriorated so much that he was forced to negotiate with the Almohad caliph Abu Yaqub Yusuf I. Why he was then killed in a Christian uprising in 1183 cannot be found out. He was followed by his son Muhammad II , who continued negotiations with the Almohads.

In 1184 Muhammad II was overthrown by his two brothers Ali and Yahya because they were partisans of a direct confrontation with the Almohads. In the same year the news of the Battle of Santarem arrived, in which the Almohads had been routed by a Christian army and their Emir Abu Yaqub Yusuf I had lost his life. This apparent power vacuum among the Almohads prompted Ali to go on the offensive now and attack the Almohads at their most vulnerable point in Ifrīqiya . He landed near what is now Tunis, a place where the Almohad Empire was not yet consolidated. The Almohad counter-strategy to this attack consisted on the one hand of slowing the advance of the Almoravids as much as possible on the periphery, on the other hand they hoped to be able to instigate revolts in the Balearic Islands against the Almoravids.

Muhammad II used one of these revolts to regain power on the islands, recognizing Yusuf II al-Mustansir , the son of Abu Yaqub Yusuf I, as caliph. When Yusuf II was serious about wanting to extend his rule to the Balearic Islands, Muhammad II withdrew from his agreements and with the help of the Aragonese King Alfonso II opposed the Almohads. In 1187, Muhammad II was overthrown again, this time by his brother Tasfin . Tasfin only ruled for a very short time - much shorter than Muhammad II. Ali, who was fighting against the Almohads in Africa, sent an army to Mallorca to overthrow Tasfin and install his other brother Abd Allah (1187 to 1203) in his place .

Yusuf II then sent a huge army to Ifriqiya, which the Almoravids, led by Ali and reinforced by Bedouin troops, offered resistance. But they were blown up and pushed back as far as Libya . Ali died in 1188 and his brother Yahya took over the fight against the Almohads from Libya.

Between 1187 and 1203 the archipelago gradually passed into the hands of the Almohads, until in 1203 the last resistance was finally broken and the Balearic Islands were incorporated into the Almohad Empire. The last Emir Abd Allah fell in the same year on a final campaign against the Almohad caliph Muhammad an-Nasir . His brother Yahya, who was still fighting the Almohads in North Africa, gradually lost his support among the local tribes and ended up being a simple bandit.

After the defeat in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa , the central Almohad power was so weakened that in Mallorca the Wālī Abū Yahyà Muhammad ibn 'Alī ibn Abī' Imrān al-Tinmalālī was able to rule effectively independently until finally James I of the Balearic Islands Conquered in 1229.

Emirs in Mallorca

Mujahid dynasty (Banu Mujahid) in Dénia

Aghlabid dynasty (Banu Aglab)

Ghaniyid dynasty (Banu Ghaniya)