Chapter XI - Choosing your Battles (1156-1167)
With the death of Sultan Ali in 1156, his 11-year-old son and heir Abu-Bakr was to take the throne. With the boy nowhere near the age of maturity, it was to Emir Mubashir III of Mallorca to rule in Abu-Bakr’s stead as regent. A trusted vassal of the Hayyids, unlike his father, Mubashir would surely be able to maintain stability within the realm until the Sultan is of age to rule personally. There was, of course, the slight issue of the Aragonese war. Sultan Ali had been so close to victory before his death, surely there was absolutely no way that this conflict could end in anything but a victory for the Hayyids? With King Juan on the verge of conceding defeat, one last battle would be the final nail in the coffin of this war. Under the command of Captain Amellal, the Hayyid army descended from the Pyrenees to crush the Aragonese army besieging Zaragoza in a last-ditch attempt to turn the tide against the Hayyids.
But to the horror of regent Mubashir, the battle was lost. Despite outnumbering the enemy and engaging them from a superior position the Hayyids were driven back having lost a third of their army in the melee. Clearly the news of the death of Sultan Ali had affected the morale of the men. No matter, the Hayyid army would simply return once it had regrouped and reinforced. The long siege would sap the Aragonese of their strength, and news of the war’s progress was sure to lead to desertion. By June of 1157, Captain Amellal returned, this time more than outnumbering the Aragonese. Clearly now the war would come to its end.
But no. The Aragonese once more held off against the Hayyids, killing nearly 5,000 loyal soldiers in the process. This was an absolute disaster. The loss of their Sultan clearly weighed on the minds of the men. Even worse, Captain Amellal had been killed in the onslaught. This great victory stirred the hearts and minds of the Christians. A counter-offensive was on. The French and Castilians would soon be back as well, whilst the Hayyid army lay in tatters.
Discontent was brewing at court. Many called for regent Mubashir to be stripped of his position. A small few even whispered that the boy Abu-Bakr be deposed. One night a cloaked man slipped into the room of the boy-Sultan armed with a knife. It was only Abu-Bakr’s nightmares keeping him awake that alerted him to the man. The guards soon came rushing in to save the Sultan. No-one knew who the man was, or who had sent him, but the experience had scarred Abu-Bakr for life. The boy was now inseparable from his mother who constantly lectured the boy on keeping safe and ‘trusting in no-one but yourself’.
For regent Mubashir however, it was his own position on the line that caused him the most anguish. With the war effort collapsing, discontentment growing, and an assassination attempt on the Sultan; the regent hadn’t exactly endeared himself to either the court or the royal family. It was clear the regent couldn’t fight a battle on two fronts, and so Mubashir chose to fight the one at home. Peace was made with the Aragonese. A white peace may have been a humiliation for the Hayyids, but it bought Mubashir the stability he needed to control the situation at home.
Though factions at court continued to whisper of plots to depose both regent and Sultan, Mubashir proved able to deftly manoeuvre the realm into a position of stability. A close eye was kept on Abu-Bakr, guards would never let the Sultan out their sight and so it came to be that the boy began his personal rule in 1161. His childhood experiences and the tutelage of his mother had led him to embrace a cold, shadowy personality. Abu-Bakr would rule through intrigue and fear.
At the Sultan’s first official meeting of the great council, a number of matters were brought to the new ruler’s attention. In England, a Saxon rebellion had succeeded in deposing the House of Capet, installing Aelfstan II as the new ruler. In the process the Kingdom of León was also fully separated from the English crown, greatly weakening the Hayyid Sultanate’s immediate neighbours.
There was also the matter of the pretenders to the throne, Isma’il and Mundir. Uncle Mundir had already been locked away in the dungeons under Sultan Ali during his final days due to his scheming against the crown, whilst Prince Ism’ail, the Sultan’s brother, was still far too young to pose any tangible threat towards Abu-Bakr’s rule. Though the council was quick to downplay the threat posed by the pretenders, so long as both lived they could be used against Abu-Bakr. Despite being in prison, Prince Mundir allegedly had many connections around court, particularly to the powerful Emir of Toledo. He had to go.
A plot was hatched for an ‘escape attempt’ to take place within the dungeons, during which time Mundir would suffer a very unfortunate accident. A courtier named Raf, posing as one of Mundir’s supporters was planted inside the Prince’s cell, along with a key ‘stolen’ from the guards. On the night of May 6th, both men broke out of their cell but the guards just so happened to have overheard the two break out, slaughtering Mundir as he attempted to leave the castle.
Though few suspected foul play, Abu-Bakr was not one to trust lightly. Whispers around court suggested that Raf had played a role in the Prince's demise. Without hesitation, Abu-Bakr ordered the man’s imprisonment and by the next day Raf had disappeared from sight having ‘left the court to return to his family in Murcia’. Unbeknownst to many Raf had now become the Sultan’s plaything regularly enduring beatings and torture whenever the Sultan desired to relieve some stress. Ultimately, the pain proved too much for the man, though at least Abu-Bakr’s secret was safe.
Building upon his father’s work in botany and medicinal education, Sultan Abu-Bakr orders the creation of a grand university within the city of Córdoba. It was hoped that the site would attract many learned men from across the Islamic world, greatly benefiting the Hayyid realm through both prestige and technological research. Though it would take some time for the site to be completed, and a considerable sum of money.
Efforts to fund the new site put a considerable strain on the realm’s budget leading the Sultan to raise taxes within the crownlands. The peasantry of Córdoba proved particularly resistant to these measures. Very few of them would be able to gain access to the new university so they saw no reason why they should be paying for it.
In an effort to distract the peasantry from the increased tax burden, Abu-Bakr elected to start a holy war with the Kingdom of Galicia over the Emirate of Beja.
“These new taxes will go towards aiding the liberation of our brothers under the rule of the Kafir!” Belted the preachers the Sultan had sent across the provinces. That part of their money was being used in a righteous religious struggle proved convincing to at least part of the peasantry. Talk of open revolt had begun to die down since the announcement of war.
Once more the Spanish kingdoms joined their brethren in an attempt to protect their land. In response, Abu-Bakr launched a spearhead campaign to quickly defeat the Galician army in the field before reinforcements from their allies could arrive.
Though the small Galician army was quickly defeated, Castilian and Aragonese reinforcements were soon on the scene. Whilst the Castilians hit the Hayyid army at Coimbra the leadership of the Sultan proved enough to turn the tide of battle.
The Sultan was proving to be a strong leader of men in the field of battle. The hours spent on battlefield drills with the mounted retinues was turning Abu-Bakr into quite the cavalry leader.
With the aid of their Marrakshi allies, the final Aragonese army fell, marking the end of the war for Beja.
With the capture of Beja, the Sheikh of Almada swears fealty to Sultan Abu-Bakr. The Hayyids were now the truly undisputed rulers of all Al-Andalus, no other independent Moorish realms existed.
However, discontent was rising among the Christian rulers. The powerful and expanding Hayyid realm had become an object of considerable concern, threatening the borders of the Christian realm.
Led by the Grandmaster of the Knights Templar, Nicolas Dandolo, a number of Christian Kingdoms and Holy Orders had formed a coalition aimed at curtailing Hayyid expansion. Though this new alliance stated that its aim was to prevent expansion, the Sultan held a suspicion the bloc aimed to attack and divide his realm as soon as their strength allowed. In order to prevent this, the Sultan entered into diplomatic negotiations with his enemies.
Though initially hostile to any talks, the necessity of security for both realms ultimately prevailed. The result was the Treaty of the Pyrenees, a landmark in Hayyid diplomacy and negotiation. The treaty stipulated that the Hayyid Sultan agreed not to attack the Christian Kingdoms of Iberia: Galicia, León, Castile, and Aragon. The Kingdom of France would act as the guarantor of the independence of these realms. Furthermore, the Hayyid Sultan would recognise their territorial integrity based upon the current boundaries as defined by the
Sistema Central and
Sistema Ibérico mountain ranges. In return the Christian realms agreed not to attack the Hayyid realm, though stopped short of recognising its territorial integrity. Though at face value the new treaty gave considerable concessions to the Christian Kingdoms it crucially provided Abu-Bakr with the security he needed to pursue his ambitions elsewhere without having to look over his shoulder at the new coalition.
Modern textbook image depicting the boundaries following the Treaty of the Pyrenees
Despite this diplomatic victory, very bad news was about to reach the Sultan of two new major threats to the realm. The first was internal. A massive epidemic of consumption had begun to take hold in Andalusia. There was not a settlement or family left unaffected by the epidemic. The gates of the Sultan’s palace swung shut when reports suggested the airborne plague had reached Córdoba. The peasants would be on their own, but for how long would this last before the violence started?
A second threat had also appeared across the Pyrenees or rather re-appeared. The short-lived Saxon revival in England had been crushed and the Capets had regained control. King Gauthier of House Capet now ruled over both France and England, reuniting the Capetian Empire. But this time it was different. Seeing how the Capetian realm had been torn apart after the death of Archambaud, Gauthier was not about to let the same thing happen to him. The succession laws of England were rewritten, forcibly bonding it to its southern neighbour through Salic law. The Dual Monarchy of France and England was born and the balance of power in Europe would never be the same again...
Map of the known world circa 1167: