The powerful Ku‘ūb promptly joined the rebels and, with their support, Ibn Abī ‘Umāra was declared caliph in the regions south of Tunis. In December 1282, Qābis (Gabēs) fell to the rebels, and in fear, a Ḥafṣid army led by a son of Abū Isḥāq disbanded before battle. Leaders from al-Qayrawān, Safāqis (Sfax), and their surrounding areas joined the new caliph against the ruler of Tunis. In January 1283, more Tunisan soldiers, led by the Almohad sheikh Mūsā b. Yāsīn, sent to fight the rebels deserted and joined the other side.
Isolated and defeated, the Ḥafṣid ruler Abū Isḥāq fled Tunis in the dead of winter with a few of his supporters. Repeatedly robbed and harassed en route, he finally reached Bijāya where his son Abū Fāris was governor. But he would not find the support he sought even there. Sensing an opportunity in his father’s arrival, Abū Fāris obtained his father’s abdication and was declared caliph in Bijāya in March 1283. Ifrīqiyā now had two caliphs: Abū Fāris in Bijāya and Ibn Abī ‘Umāra in Tunis.
A war between the two Ḥafṣid caliphs was inevitable. It took place in June 1283 in the plains of Marmājanna and lasted an entire day. Abū Fāris was killed, his three brothers and his nephew captured. Ibn Abī ‘Umāra ordered their heads severed. The only Ḥafṣid who survived the battle was Abū Fāris’s uncle Abū Ḥafṣ ‘Umar, who fled the scene in the company of a small group of loyalists.28
The news of the defeat created great commotion in the now defeated Bijāya. The two Ḥafṣid emirs in town, the old Abū Isḥāq and Abū Zakariyā, fled in the direction of Tilimsān. Abū Isḥāq did not get very far before being captured in the land of the Banū Ghubrīn by the partisans of a Bijāyan who led a pro–Ibn Abī ‘Umāra party. They imprisoned him until an emissary of Ibn Abī ‘Umāra arrived from Tunis, then killed him and sent his head to Tunis, where it was paraded. Abū Zakariyā was far luckier, arriving in Tilimsān, where he received a warm welcome from the ‘Abd al-Wādid ruler who had married his sister not long before.
Meanwhile in Tunis, Ibn Abī ‘Umāra attempted a purge of the old Ḥafṣid guard. He appointed the Almohad sheikhs Mūsā b. Yasīn and Abū al-Qasim b. al-Shaykh to the two highest positions and had the chief of the treasury, Abū Bakr b. Khaldūn, arrested, confiscated his possessions, tortured him, and had him strangled to death. In a bid for support from the urban elite, Ibn Abī ‘Umāra canceled an unpopular tax and behaved outwardly like a pious man, visiting the shrines of saints and ordering the building of a mosque at the place wine was sold.
But Ibn Abī ‘Umāra’s purge went too far. On the advice of the Almohad Abd al-Ḥaq b. Tafrākīn al-Tinmāllī, he jailed many Bedouin chiefs, thus angering the very groups who had brought him to power. His attitude toward the region’s notables was no better: he killed many of them, including his highest officials, on the tiniest of suspicions. Having alienated the Bedouin chiefs, the urban notables, and the Almohads, Ibn Abī ‘Umāra found himself without much support. His demise was even more precipitous than his rise.
And soon enough, in 1284, the chief of the Ku’ūb went to meet Abū Ḥafṣ ‘Umar, the sole survivor of the battle of Marmājanna, swore an oath of loyalty to him and led a rebellion to bring down Ibn Abī ‘Umāra. The two armies met south of Tunis; Ibn Abī ‘Umāra’s soldiers disbanded while he escaped and went into hiding somewhere in Tunis. In July 1284, Abū Ḥafṣ ‘Umar received the oath in Tunis, taking the caliphal title borne by his brother, al-Mustanṣir bi-Allāh. One week later, Ibn Abī ‘Umāra was found hidden at the house of an Andalusi shopkeeper; he confessed his fraud in the presence of witnesses and was decapitated.
These events were apparently memorable to later historians, who narrated them in lavish detail. But for us, Ibn Abī ‘Umāra’s usurpation of the Ḥafṣid name demonstrates two important aspects of the political situation after the death of (the first) al-Mustanṣir: the importance of access to an army; and the importance of membership in the Ḥafṣid dynasty. Without fulfilling those two requirements, it was impossible to survive as the ruler of Tunis. In their struggles against each other, all the urban-based elites—Tunisans, Andalusis, and Almohads—had found themselves incapable of overpowering the others without external military help, whether African or European. The gradual demilitarization of the Almohad sheikhs and the elimination of the Andalusi militia only strengthened the hand of Bedouins.
The Emir of Bijāya and His Backers
The end of the first regional emirate came at the hand of Bijāya’s wealthy merchants. In 1284–85, a delegation of Bijāyans, headed by the prominent Andalusi Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, went on a mission to Tilimsān to convince the Ḥafṣid emir Abū Zakariyā b. Abī Isḥāq to be their ruler.
[Ibn Sayyid al-Nās] went to Tilimsān to urge Abū Zakariyā to claim his lordship [over Bijāya]. [After convincing Abū Zakariyā], he borrowed money from Bijāya’s merchants and spent it to acquire the instruments and symbols of kingship (ubbahat al-mulk) on his behalf. He also gathered clients and followers [in his name].29
The merchants’ money had bought Bijāya its own independent emir and, although the sources do not tell us this, probably secured them a good return on their investment in the form of official support for trade.30 Their involvement in politics helped put an official stamp on the commercial orientation of the city.
As the main organizer and leader of this operation, Ibn Sayyid al-Nās reaped great benefits. As soon as Abū Zakariyā Yaḥyā (r. 1285–1301) took over the reins of power, he appointed Ibn Sayyid al-Nās to the position of ḥājib, the highest in his administration. Commenting on Ibn Sayyid al-Nās’s performance in the position he too had held, Ibn Khaldūn ranked it higher than that of the legendary ḥājib of al-Mustanṣir (r. 1249–77). But in an aside characteristic of his style, Ibn Khaldūn also explained that Ibn Sayyid al-Nās’s task may have been facilitated by the absence of influential Almohad sheikhs in Bijāya who could have challenged him.31 This remark may merely indicate Ibn Khaldūn’s jealousy toward the man whose shoes he later filled. Nonetheless, it suggests that the Almohads did not represent a significant political group in the city. In Bijāya, the Almohads had lost the influence they had held in the half-century since the Ḥafṣids had taken over the city. The Ḥafṣid strategy of undermining their power by appointing Andalusis had worked better and faster in Bijāya than in Tunis.32 The influence of Andalusis in Bijāya was such that when the Andalusi Ibn Sayyid al-Nās died, his secretary, another Andalusi, replaced him.33
But the power of a few individuals can hardly be taken to mean that in the 1280s, Andalusis formed a unified party. Even a perfunctory survey of the sources demonstrates that Andalusis were fully engaged in politics against other Andalusis, and that there was hardly such a thing as Andalusi solidarity. If anything, powerful Andalusi individuals led opposing factions against Andalusis and non-Andalusis alike, with the purpose of gaining influence over the Ḥafṣid rulers or ingratiating themselves with them. But this did not prevent members of the old families of Bijāya from attributing the loss of influence they felt to the Andalusis, from feeling that Andalusis discussed political matters in threatening ways, and that they often acted in consort. Prominent Bijāyans of the “old” families such as the judge Abū al-‘Abbās al-Ghubrīnī (1246–1304) were not among the leaders of the independence movement, even if they supported it. Certainly, it would have been difficult for the Andalusis to achieve Bijāya’s autonomy without their participation and support. But together, the two groups formed a powerful enough coalition that it succeeded in bringing about a local emirate, and in maintaining it for decades to come.
Behind the Local Emirate
The coming together of powerful Andalusis and “old” Bijāyans enabled the formation of an independent Ḥafṣid emirate in Bijāya. The event was noted in Tunis, where the ruler immediately formed an alliance
