al-Mu'tadid Yahya al-Muwahhidi
Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Muwahhidi, titled al-Mu'tadid. The people of Marrakesh chose him as caliph after Abd al-Wahid al-Makhlu' had been deposed. Within a few days Abu al-'Ala Idris claimed the caliphate at Seville and the people of al-Andalus pledged allegiance to him; Yahya besieged him in Marrakesh, but then his companions were routed, and the people of the city, regarding him as ill-omened, expelled him. He sought protection among a people in a fort in the direction of Tlemcen, and a young man of theirs, who held a vendetta against him over his father, stabbed him and killed him.
Reign · Almohad Caliphate · no. 8 in the chain · 1227–1229 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
-
Abbasid Investiture of Ibn Hud
Ibn Hud, having risen against the Almohads and taken al-Andalus, proclaimed the Abbasid caliph; the investiture document and black robes arrived from Baghdad, and the qadi Abu l-Mutarrif congratulated him that its day resembled the day the black banners came out of Khurasan — the Abbasid da'wa preached once more in al-Andalus.
-
al-Ma'mun's repudiation of the Almohad creed
In 626 AH the caliph al-Ma'mun entered Marrakesh, arraigned the Almohad shaykhs and killed a hundred notables, then ordered Ibn Tumart's name struck from coinage and khutba and cursed in the Berber call to prayer, added «أصبح والحمد لله» to the dawn adhan, licensed a church in Marrakesh, and expelled the Muwahhidun from al-Andalus where the populace killed them — a repudiation reversed only when his son al-Rashid repurchased the shaykhs' allegiance by restoring the Mahdi's rites.
-
Battle of Portopí
Draft card for the Battle of Portopí in 1229, James I's landing taking Mallorca from the Muslims; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
-
The fall of Majorca to the Rum
The conquest of Majorca (Safar 627/Dec 1229): when its governor raided the mainland for timber and seized a Barcelona flat-bottom, James I bound his barons by oath and gathered twenty thousand ashore and sixteen thousand by sea; the rout on Monday 18 Shawwal opened the walls, the city was stormed on Sunday, and twenty-four thousand were killed 'on one account' while the governor was taken and tortured to death after forty-five days.
-
Loss of Merida from Ibn Hud
The Christians took the district of Merida from Muhammad ibn Hud in 626 — 'the opener of calamities at his hand,' for Merida had been the capital of the al-Jawf country in Arab and Ajam days.
-
Siege of Alaró (1229)
Draft card for the Siege of Alaró in 1229, the last stand of Mallorca's Muslims against James I's conquest; its sources are not yet checked on the page.