Aftasid dynasty

The Aftasids (from the Arabic Banu-l'Aftas or Banu al-Aftas) were a Berber[1] Miknasa dynasty in Badajoz (1022–1094) in Al Andalus (Moorish Iberia).

History

When the Caliphate of Cordoba broke up into the Taifa kingdoms, the Berber mercenary Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Maslamah ibn al-Aftas (1022–1045) took control of Badajoz, by death of Sabur al-Khatib (a Slavic serf, previously serving at the court of Caliph al-Hakam II, that had proclaimed himself Lord of Badajoz in 1009, and that Ibn al-Aftas served). Ibn al-Aftas added to his name the Laqab al-Mansur Billah, Victorious by Grace of God, and ruled over an extensive part of the Al Garb Al Andalus, from the Douro river to the south of Tagus river, establishing the taifa of Badajoz. Ibn al-Aftas died in 1045.

Under Ibn al-Aftas' successors, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abdallah al-Muzzaffar (1045–1065) and his two sons 'Umar ibn Muhammad al-Mutawakkil (1065-1094 in Évora) and Yahya ibn Muhammad al-Mansur (1065-1072 in Badajoz), the Taifa of Badajoz not only controlled large expanses of western Spain and Portugal, but was also a major centre of Islamic culture, which was fostered by the Aftasid rulers. In 1055 however Badajoz came under the suzerainty of the Kingdom of León-Castile and was forced to pay tribute, losing significant parts of its territory, south of the Mondego river (south of Coimbra). The Abbadids of Seville conquered parts of their territory. In 1094 the kingdom was annexed by the Almoravids and Badajoz was taken at the end of 1095 by the Almoravid general Abu Bakr, with the connivance of the inhabitants who were fed up of the fiscal exactions of their emir, Umar ibn Muhammad al-Mutawakkil.

Al-Mutawakkil and two of his sons Al-Fadl and S'ad, were taken prisoner and sent to Seville, but were executed before their arrival, which was eulogized in a poem by Ibn 'Abdun.[2] Another son of Al-Mutawakkil, Al-Mansur, escaped and fortified himself for some time in the castle of Montanchez, in the modern province of Caceres, and finally together with his followers, migrated into the dominions of Alfonso VI, where he abandoned Islam for Christianity.

Aftasid rulers

Notes

  1. ↑ The Iberian Peninsula and Sicily, Ambroxio Huici Miranda, The Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. 2A, ed. P. M. Holt, Peter Malcolm Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, Bernard Lewis, (Cambridge University Press, 1970), 421.
  2. ↑ James T. Monroe, Hispano-Arabic Poetry: A Student Anthology, (Gorgia Press, 2004), 37.
  3. ↑ C.E. Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties, (Columbia University Press, 1996), 18.

References

See also

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