Abū Zakariyā claimed Ifrīqiyā because it was already his country. This is typical of the chronicles’ tendency toward historical foreshortening. In reality, the first Ḥafṣid ruler was an Almohad and articulated the legitimacy of his rule in Almohad terms. Abū Zakariyā fashioned himself as the inheritor of the charisma and spiritual leadership of Ibn Tūmart, and of the military skills and piety of ‘Abd al-Mu’min. His supporters also made use of the fact that his grandfather, Abū Ḥafṣ, had been an early follower of the mahdī and a great Almohad general. While he was viewed as rooted in the region, his political legitimacy still drew on roots in the far west.
As for the Almohad sheikhs of Ifrīqiyā, with the political situation in the west spiraling out of Almohad control, they had two choices: go back to Marrakech in loyalty to the caliph or stay in Ifrīqiyā. Many stayed. Once they were no longer there on a temporary assignment, they had to reassess their situation and commit themselves to being in Ifrīqiyā. Abū Zakariyā permitted their role to shift: they now gained renewed influence at the court, precisely at a time when Tunis was flourishing as a capital; Abū Zakariyā sponsored the building of a prayer hall (muṣallā) outside the city’s walls and organized spacious markets around the Great Mosque of Tunis.
Abū Zakariyā’s sense of continuity with the Almohads was palpable both inside and outside the court. Following Almohad custom, he redesigned Tunis’s Kasbah, the fortified tower and walled quarters where the ruling family and high government officials lived. In Ramadan 1233, he inaugurated a new minaret for the Kasbah’s mosque, which had been and remained known as the Almohad Mosque. In the treaties with northern Mediterraneans, his subjects are described as “Almohads.”18 Even his methods of cultivating loyalty and punishing offenders were Almohad, including favoring the Ku‘ūb and Mirdās at the expense of the Dawāwida who had supported Ibn Ghāniya. Unsurprisingly, the Dawāwida resisted the new order, and just as unsurprisingly, Abū Zakariyā sent an army against them, defeated them, and made them relocate from Tunis to the Zāb and the area south of Qasanṭīna. In 1238, he marched against the defiant Hawwāra, defeated them, and forced the survivors into servile labor, just as the Almohads had done.
Having consolidated his power in Ifrīqiyā and nipped in the bud a conspiracy of Almohad sheikhs, Abū Zakariyā now focused on expanding his realm. But here he had a momentous decision to make. Would his emulation of the Almohads extend to actually taking over their realm? Would he assume their mission of protecting the Muslims of al-Andalus? Abū Zakariyā chose a course of restraint, but sovereigns in the Maghrib nonetheless looked to him as an Almohad successor. In 1242, he invaded Tilimsān (Tlemcen), but decided not to march against the Almohads in the western Maghrib. Yet the kings of Iberia who led “the Christian reconquest” feared Abū Zakariyā’s growing power: in 1231, James I of Aragon raced to Majorca, which had been under his control since 1229, because of rumors of a Ḥafṣid expedition against the island. Likewise, the emirs of al-Andalus looked to Abū Zakariyā for protection, just as they had looked to the Almohads: in 1238, the emir of Valencia, Zayyān b. Mardanīsh, hoping to defeat James’s siege of the city, appealed to Abū Zakariyā, whom he recognized as overlord. Abū Zakariyā sent a small flotilla, but it was unable to help. In October 1238, Valencia capitulated. Though his aid was inadequate and ultimately futile, the sources are unanimous in emphasizing Abū Zakariyā’s intention of coming to the rescue of Muslims.19
When Abū Zakariyā died in 1249, he left a great reputation behind him. Some of the chronicles depict him with mere boiler plate praise of the sovereign, as having listened to the complaints of the poor and having been loved by the masses. But others detected the thin line he walked between Almohad succession and outright independence. They described him as surrounding himself with a Council of Almohads that supported Ḥafṣid claims to authentic Almohad lineage. They also praised his wise reliance on freed Christian captives (‘ulūj) and Andalusi immigrants, who, together with Christian mercenaries, helped the Ḥafṣids to keep in check the power of the Almohad sheikhs.20 Almohad though he might have acted, he was also willing to carve an independent course of rule.
Fending Off Urban Elites, Bedouins, and Crusaders
Abū Zakariyā’s son and heir, Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad, benefited from the support of his father’s confidants, a fact not to be taken for granted given that the bonds of patronage at court were rarely passed on by legacy. The chroniclers note that when Abū ‘Abd Allāh arrived in Tunis, he immediately enjoyed the double allegiance of the Almohad sheikhs and the common people (‘āmma).21 But things were not so simple. In 1250, he survived a coup attempt fomented by Almohad leaders who resented the rising power of the freed slaves and the Andalusis. In 1253, his own brother, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm, continuing the family tradition of internecine quarrels, escaped Tunis, where he had been closely watched, and took refuge among the Dawāwida. Their sheikhs pledged allegiance to him, recognized him as emir, and helped him form an army to unseat his brother. When they were defeated, Abū Isḥāq fled to al-Andalus, where he found refuge at the court of Muḥammad b. Yūsuf of Granada.
In 1253, a mere four years after assuming rule, Abū ‘Abd Allāh took on the caliphal title Commander of the Faithful (amīr al-mu’minīn) and assumed the caliphal-sounding regnal name al-Mustanṣir. This move must be seen in the context of his attempts to quell the Almohad sheikhs, now in the form of the Banū Nu‘mān. A powerful Almohad family, the Banū Nu‘mān had supported al-Mustanṣir’s father, and he came to see their influence as governors of Qasanṭīna as a serious threat to his rule. he eliminated three of the most prominent members of their clan from the political scene by killing them.
Threats to al-Mustanṣir’s rule came not only from the Almohad sheikhs but from the urban elites, and further members of his own family. Taking advantage of the political instability in eastern Ifrīqiyā, urban elites in the western town of Milyāna made bids to break away from Tunis. In 1261, al-Mustanṣir’s brother Abū Ḥafṣ took Milyāna and placed it in the hands of the Awlād Mandīl before heading back to Tunis. East of Milyāna, the Mediterranean port city of Jazā’ir Banī Mazghanna (Algiers) also proclaimed independence from Tunis and prompted a similar reaction. In both cases, the Ḥafṣids asserted their military domination at great cost.
In addition to urban elites who jockeyed for influence, the Ḥafṣids faced a constellation of armed Bedouin groups, each with its own agenda and strategies. A few years before the events of Milyāna, al-Mustanṣir had seen firsthand how challenging Bedouins could be. When the coalition led by the self-proclaimed messiah Abū Ḥimāra threatened to overtake the whole southern Zāb, al-Mustanṣir led an army from Tunis, had Abū Ḥimāra killed, and arrested the leaders of the Mirdās and Dabbāb who had offered him logistical support. But even then, he could not rest on his laurels, facing the ever-troublesome Dawāwida in the region south of Qasanṭīna, aided by members of his own family. With al-Mustanṣir’s cousin Abū al-Qāsim on their side, the Dawāwida sought to sponsor their own Ḥafṣid ruler. But when the time came to fight, Abū al-Qāsim cowered, fleeing to al-Andalus and leaving the Dawāwida and their sheikh Shibl b. Mūsa to face the Tunisan army alone. The battle went in favor of al-Mustanṣir, who forced the enemy to retreat to the south of al-Masīla. Unsatisfied, al-Mustanṣir was back on the offensive two years later, in 1268, with the help of the Ku‘ūb, Dabbāb, and Sadwīkish. The Banū ‘Asākir branch of the Dawāwida accepted defeat and pledged allegiance to him, but the Banū Mas‘ūd refused to capitulate and fled to the south of Biskra, well into the Sahara, where their livelihood would be endangered. After some discussion, they reversed their decision and asked to negotiate terms with al-Mustanṣir, who responded by arresting their leaders and decapitating them, and then leading a surprise attack against their remaining supporters.
Seriously challenged inland and still having trouble imposing his will in the region, al-Mustanṣir now faced yet another enemy: Louis IX. In 1270, after the failure of his Crusade in the Levant, Louis led a Crusade against Tunis. After four months, the tight naval siege he maintained
