al-Murtada Umar al-Muwahhidi
The Almohad caliph al-Murtada, who fled Marrakesh for Azemmour when Abu Dabus entered in 665, was seized by his own governor and killed at Kutama in the last ten days of Rabi' II.
Reign · Almohad Caliphate · no. 12 in the chain · 1248–1266 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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The battle of Ayn Jalut and the defeat of the Tatars
Ayn Jalut was a spring in the military district of Filastin between Baysan and Nablus, known chiefly as the site of the famous battle of Friday 25 Ramadan 658, 3 September 1260, in which a Mongol army was defeated by the Mamluks, according to the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Arab and especially Egyptian chroniclers see a decisive victory that saved Syria and Egypt from the Mongols, while sources sympathetic to the Mongols present an inconclusive clash. The article says the Mongol general Kitbuga was captured and put to death, that Hulegu was kept from avenging the defeat by the struggle inside the Mongol empire, and that Ayn Jalut was the high water mark of the Mongol advance.
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Battle of Homs in 659 AH
In Muharram 659 the Tatar remnants of Ayn Jalut and the Jazira raided Aleppo then bore down on Hims, where Husam al-Din the Jawkandar, al-Mansur of Hamah and al-Ashraf of Hims met them with 1,400 against 6,000; a single sincere charge put the sword among them until most were destroyed and their leader Bundar fled in the worst state — only one Muslim fell.
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Battle of Isly (1250)
Draft card for the Battle of Isly in 1250, of the Marinid wars in Morocco; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Oujda
Draft card for the Battle of Oujda in 1248, the Marinid-Zayyanid clash on the frontier; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Salé
Draft card for the Raid on Salé in 1260, Alfonso X's crusader attack on the town on Eid al-Fitr and its people's massacre; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Baybars takes the sultanate, 658 AH
Al-Zahir Baybars was acclaimed sultan of Egypt and Syria after Ayn Jalut in 658/1260, opening the Bahri Mamluk era.
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The fall of Seville by treaty
Seville was besieged in 645 and surrendered to the Castilian on Monday 5 Sha'ban 646 after about seventeen months of investment. Ibn al-Dabbagh, shaykh of al-Andalus in grammar and the readings, died there within weeks — destroyed, the source says, by the church bell where the adhan had gone silent.
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First Battle of Homs
Draft card for the First Battle of Homs in 1260, the Mamluk victory over the Mongols after Ain Jalut; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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The great battle of Granada, 663
The great Andalus struggle of 663: the Castilian king 'al-Funsh' (Alfonso) met Abu Abdallah Ibn al-Ahmar repeatedly — the Nasrid army routed them, the king was taken then slipped free; when he besieged Granada itself Ibn al-Ahmar came out and broke him, taking ten thousand prisoners while over forty thousand of the Franks fell; a great heap of heads was piled and the adhan sounded over it, and several towns were retaken.
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Ibn al-Abbar finishes al-Takmila li-Kitab al-Sila at Tunis, ~650/1252
At Tunis Ibn al-Abbar finished the Kitab al-Takmila li-Kitab al-Sila, the continuation of Ibn Bashkuwal's Sila that his master Abu al-Rabi' ibn Salim had urged him to complete — it became one of the great biographical dictionaries of Andalusian notables. He authored some fifteen works in about forty-five volumes, among them the Mu'jam fi ashab al-Sadafi, al-Hulla al-siyara, Tuhfat al-kadim, I'tab al-kuttab and Durar al-simt.
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The killing of Ibn al-Abbar at Tunis, 20 Muharram 658/6 January 1260
When Abu Zakariyya' died, his successor al-Mustansir kept Ibn al-Abbar close to him, but his attitude so irritated the sovereign and his courtiers that he was ordered to be tortured; his writings were confiscated and a satire against the amir was found among them, enraging him further — he ordered Ibn al-Abbar killed by lance-thrusts on the morning of 20 Muharram 658 (6 January 1260), and the next day his corpse was burnt together with his books, poems and diplomas. Ibn al-Imad records that the lord of Tunis had him killed unjustly on 20 Muharram at the age of sixty-three.
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Ibn al-Nafis becomes Chief Physician of Egypt and personal physician of Baybars, c. 658/1260
Headship of medicine in Egypt came to rest with him: he was given the post of Chief Physician of Egypt and became the personal physician of sultan Baybars. He also lectured on Shafi'i law at the Masruriyya madrasa, where the grammarian Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati was his disciple in logic — all within Baybars's reign (658–676/1260–1277); al-Suwaydan has him move to Qalawun's hospital as Baybars's private physician.
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Marinid–Zayyanid Wars
Draft card for Marinid–Zayyanid Wars; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Mecca's bay'a to the Hafsid al-Mustansir
After the Tatars took Baghdad and erased the caliphate's rite, Mecca's sharifs Abu Numayy and Idris resolved on the bay'a to the Hafsid al-Mustansir of Ifriqiya, the Sufi jurist Ibn Sab'in dwelling by the sanctuary dictating the bay'a letter in his own hand — and Mecca preached the Hafsid name in the pilgrimage season.
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The Tatars take Aleppo, 658
Hulagu crossed the Euphrates in Muharram 658 and demanded hostages-garrisons of Aleppo's warden Buran Shah, who refused. From 2 Safar the Tatars dug a man-deep ditch, raised a five-cubit wall, set twenty mangonels and sapped the curtain; on 9 Safar they stormed — some fifty thousand had sheltered in the city and the killing ran five days until the sword was lifted; the citadel then capitulated by aman under the elder Turanshah.
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Damascus submits to the Tatars, 658
When Aleppo's fall reached Damascus on a Saturday, al-Nasir fled; Hulagu's aman was proclaimed and Hama's keys sent after him — while the citadel resisted until twenty mangonels cracked the Tarama tower, then yielded for aman and Kitbugha was installed. Baalbek and Nablus fell, al-Nasir was taken under aman into Hulagu's service, and the khan recrossed the Euphrates leaving a detachment — while Damascus's Christians raised the cross through the markets.
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The Mongols take Raqqa
Hulagu's armies swept through the Jazira and took Raqqa in 658/1260 after Baghdad fell.
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Mudéjar Revolt of 1264–1266
Draft card for the Mudéjar revolt of 1264–1266, the rising of Castile's Muslims stirred by Granada and the Marinids; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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The collapse of Muslim Sicily after Abu Zakariya's death
When word of Sultan Abu Zakariya's death in 647 AH reached Sicily — whose Muslims of Palermo had a compact to share town and suburbs with the island's lord — the Christians fell upon them; they fled to strongholds, were besieged until they surrendered, ferried across the strait and settled on the facing coast, and then the lord of Sicily passed to Malta and expelled its Muslims too.
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The killing of al-Muzaffar Qutuz and Baybars's accession, 658 AH
Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari had been promised Aleppo by al-Muzaffar Qutuz, who then went back on it, and each harboured ill will for the other; Qutuz was killed near Qatiya on 16 Dhu al-Qa'da 658, and Baybars took the sultanate as al-Malik al-Zahir.
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The murder of al-Muzaffar Qutuz and the sultanate of Baybars
Al-Muzaffar turned home nursing ill for Baybars; forewarned, Baybars and amirs killed him on the road, 16 Dhu'l-Qa'da 658. Baybars took the sultanate as al-Malik al-Qahir, lifted the wrongs al-Muzaffar had laid on Egypt — then vizier Ibn al-Zubayr warned no bearer of that laqab had thrived: al-Qahir ibn al-Mu'tadid deposed and blinded, Mosul's lord's son poisoned — so he took al-Malik al-Zahir.
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Siege of Aleppo
Draft card for the Siege of Aleppo in 1260, the city's fall to Hulegu in the Mongol invasion of Syria; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Faro
Draft card for the Siege of Faro in 1249, Afonso III's capture of the last Muslim stronghold of the Gharb; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Jerez
Draft card for the Siege of Jerez in 1261, Alfonso X's capture of the Andalusian town; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Mayyāfāriqīn
Draft card for the Siege of Mayyafariqin in 1259–60, al-Kamil the Ayyubid's heroic defense against Hulagu; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Seville
Draft card for the Siege of Seville in 1248, the western Islamic capital's fall to Ferdinand III; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Zayyanid Capture of Sijilmasa (1264)
Draft card for Zayyanid Capture of Sijilmasa (1264); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Zayyanid–Iberian conflicts
Draft card for Zayyanid–Iberian conflicts; its sources are not yet checked on the page.