Moorish Kings of Seville

1. Zaida (Maria Isabel) Princess of Denia: Born about 1071, of Denia, Alicante, Spain; Died 1103, Spain; Married 1096, of Denia, Alicante, Spain; Alfonso VI, "the Valiant" King of Castile, Leon and Galacia: Born before June 1040, of Burgos, Spain; Died 29 June 1109, Toledo, Spain. (See Kings of Leon)

2. Muhammad III (Abu l'Kasim) Al-Mu'tamid, King of Seville: Born 1040, of Seville, Spain; Died 1095, Aghmat, Morocco. Muhammad was King of Seville from 1068-9 until 1091. He was the conqueror of the distant Murcia in 1078. Not only a talented warrior he was also a gifted poet:

Salute, oh Abu Bakr, my dwellings in Silves, And ask them do they still keep our tender pact of love? Give the Castle of the Verandahs the greetings Of youth who constantly longs for that castle, The dwellings of fierce lions and of beauteous maidens: What lion caves there were, what charming Boudoirs! Many a night I spent, enjoying their shadows, With maidens round-hipped, yet slim of waist: Their white and brown beauty pierced my heart Like white blood-spilling swords and points of brown lances! And those nights playfully spent on the river dam With a girl whose armband was like the curve of the crescent! She would pour out wine for me in her bewitching glances, And in the cup at times, at times in her kisses: The tunes of her lute thrilled me, as if I heard in those chords the clash of Sword blades. Then she let her robe fall, her splended form seeming To be a bud unfolding from a cluster of blossoms.

This is enough to show the predominantly hedonistic tone of the Abbadid court at Seville. It was grand and extravagant like its rulers. Many anecdotes confirm this. A favorite wife of al'Mu'tamid was a Christian girl from the north. He found her weeping one day for the winter snows which she would never see again in Seville. To comfort her he assembled an army of gardeners who planted by night a forest of almond trees in blossom outside her apartments in the palace. In the morning he led her to the window: "See my love, there is your snow!" said the King.

3. Muhammad II, Abu Al-Mu'tadid, King of Seville: Born 1014, of Seville, Spain; Died 1086, of Seville, Spain; Married A Princess of Denia and the Balearic Isles: Born 1019, of Balearic Isles, Spain. Under Mu'tadid's rule the tafia of Seville expanded to such a degree that it became pre-eminent among the tafia states. Al-Mu'tadid engaged in a rapid and vigorous expansionary policy. In 1044 Mertola was conquered, in 1051 Huelva and in 1053 its neighbor Niebla. Algeciras followed in 1055. The absorbsion of the Algarve was completed with the aquisition of Santa Maria de Algarve in 1057 and Silves in 1063. In 1067 Carmona was swallowed. The great prize of Cordoba fell to al-Mu'tadid in 1069. Between the conquest of Silves and Carmona, Mu'tadid had invited the rulers of Ronda, Arcos, Moron and Jerez to Seville on a peaceful diplomatic visit. While they and their companions were taking a bath before attending the reception in their honor, al-Mu'tadid had every aperature of the bath house stopped up, so they suffocated inside it. He hung their heads on the wall of his citidel as trophies. Himself an acomplished poet, he celebrated this triumph in verse:

Now I conquered you, O Ronda, So you are my kingdom's necklace . . . I shall make an end of my foes, If my time does not end early, Through me their error will perish, So Right Guidance shall grow stronger! How many rivals did I kill, Steadily, one after another: Of their heads I made a garland Adorning the edge of the side wall!

Al-Mu'tadid further celebrated all of his triumphs in vainglorious verse:

What is called happiness has now been established: I sat down to recieve it in the parlour of Honour. If Thou, O God, wishest to grant a favour to mankind, Make ME the guiding lord of Arabs and non-Arabs!

His pretensions and those of other taifa rulers were mocked by some. Another poet of the time wrote , "among the things which distress me in the land of al-Andalus are names like Mu'tadid and Mu'tamid: names of royalty out of place, like a cat which speaks in a puffed up way like a lion." ("Names of royalty" because they were honorific titles or "throne nemes" of two ninth century caliphs of Bagdad.) Grotesque the Abbadids may have appeared to some, but the fact was that by the 1070s Seville was incomparably the most powerful of the tafia kingdoms.

Both al-Mu'tadid and his son al-Mu'tamid were extremely gifted poets, and as the most imposing of the taifa rulers they were in a position to act as patrons of poets on an ample scale. Here follows a love poem composed by al-Mu'tadid:

A gazelle's are her eyes, sun-like in her splendour, Like a sandhill her hips, like a bough her stature: With tears I told her plaintively of my love for her, And told her how much my pain made me suffer. My Heart met hers, knowing that love is contagious, And that one deeply in love can transmit his desire: She graciously then offered me her cheek-- Oft a clear spring will gush forth from a rock-- I told her, "let me now kiss your white teeth, For I prefer white blossoms to red roses: Lean your body on mine" -- and then she bent Toward me, granting my wish, again, again, Embracing, kissing, in mutual fire of desire, Singly and Doubly, like sparks flying from a flint. Oh Hour, how short thou wast in passing, But your sweet memory will linger on forever! Another poem illustrates his philosophy of life: By my life! Wine does make me talk much, And I like to do what my companions like: I divide my time between hard work and leisure, Mornings for affairs of state, evenings fro pleasure, At night I indulge in amusements and frolics, At noon I rule with a proud mien in my court; Amidst my trysts I do not neglect my striving For glory and fame: these I always plan to attain.

Lest one believe that he was naught but a poet let the following story illustrate his keen sence of observation. Toward the end of his reign, in the mid 1060's, a minister submitted to him a routine report which happened to mentioned that word had come in that a Berber tribe in southern Morocco had recently founded a new city at Marrakesh. The minister made light of it as a matter of little interest. The King replied "If God grants you a long life you will see the coming of those people here!" He then gave orders to have the governor of Algeciras to fortify Gibralter against invasion. He was correct--the people from Marrakesh did invase southern Spain and "the cats who spoke like lions" met the real lions in the world. This brought the world of the tafia kingdoms to a screaching halt. The King and his son were both captured and taken, as prisoners, to Aghmat, near Marrakesh.

In 1095, shortly before his death al-Mu'tadid composed several moving elegies lamenting his fate--two of which follow:

You enfold my legs like a streaked serpent, Grasping them like a lion's sharp fangs: Desist!--even if those fetters kindle a fire Which sets my arms and every joint aflame-- For fear of him who once could send men by his boons Or by his sword, either to Paradise or to Hell! I was the ally of bounty and the lord of generosity, A friend of the people's souls and of their spirits; My right hand was always ready to bestow boons, And to snatch lifes of foes in fierce affray; My left hand would grasp the rein of fiery steeds, And hold them firm among the clashing spears! Today I am a captive in the throes of poverty, Exposed to ills and fevers, with my wings broken.

Her Father and Grandfather--

• I. Mujahid, Al 'Amiri, King of Denia and the Balearic Isles: Born 989, of Denia, Alicante, Spain. Mujahid, a former slave who became a career soldier in the service of Almanzor, set up a kingdom in Denia (to the South of Valencia) in about 1012. A slave rising to the level of a King was not so uncommon as it may seem in the Taifa kingdoms of Moorish Spain. His authority embraced the Balearic Islands and his rule seems to have been based on sea power: in 1015-1016, for example, he launched a daring though ultimately unsucessful raid on Sardinia. Denia was a corsair state which preyed on the shipping of the western Mediterranean. Mujahid brought the Balearic Islands under his control, and from these bases set out in 1015 with a fleet of 125 ships transporting 1000 horses to attempt to conquer Sardinia. (It has been suggested that his family was of Sardinian stock.) His armies were initally successful and overran much of the island. The conquest aroused panic among the mercantile cities of western Italy who saw their commerce threatened. In the following year the combined forces of Genoa and Pisa managed to dislodge Mujahid's troops from Sardinia, though he maintained his hold over the Balearics. Surprisingly, this sea roving pirate was also a patron of religious scholarship. Mujahid assembled at Denia a team of scholars and learned men who devoted themselves to the study of Qira'at, literally "readings", the elucidation of textual variants in the Koran. He reigned over Denia for thirty years and he passed this kingdom in 1044 at his death, on to his son Ali who reigned for another thirty years.
  • A. Yusuf: Born 959, of Denia, Alicante, Spain.

Muhammad's Father--

4. Muhammad I (Kadi Abu l'Kasim) ibn Ismail, ibn Abbad, King of Seville: Born 984, of Seville, Spain. In Seville in the 1020s we find a triumvirate in power. As happened in Cordoba, late in the previous century one of the three managed to rid himself of the other two. This man, Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Abbad--whence the family was known as the Abbadids--was the descendant of an ancient Arab family. He was by far the biggest landowner in the region, rumored to own a third of the city's surrounding agricultural hinterland and thus effectively to control its food supply and its commodity trade. He was also the Qadi (Kadi), or principal judge of the city. He was, in short, a ripe example of a local boss.

5. Ismail Ben Qarais, Imam of Seville: Born 954, of Seville, Spain. An Imam is a high priest.

6. Qarais Ben Abbad: Born 924, of Seville, Spain.

7. Abbad Ben Amr: Born 894, of Seville, Spain.

8. Amr of Seville: Born before 870, of Seville, Spain.