Abu Ya'qub Yusuf ibn Abd al-Mu'min

Abu Ya'qub Yusuf ibn Abd al-Mu'min, the second Almohad caliph, son of Abd al-Mu'min ibn Ali. ³

He deposed his brother Abu Abd Allah Muhammad, who had been heir apparent and whose name was struck on the dinars, in Sha'ban 558 AH, and he held power alone. He appointed his brother Abu Hafs Umar over the island of al-Andalus. ³

Ibn Khallikan relates that he grew up among knights and scholars. He was a faqih and a memorizer, with an inclination toward wisdom and philosophy more than toward literature. The Yusufi dinars are attributed to him in the Maghrib. ⁴

He entered al-Andalus in 566 AH with a hundred thousand horsemen and camped at Seville. He began to recover Muslim lands from the Franks, besieged Toledo and then withdrew. He took Gafsa in 575 AH. ^{5 6}

He crossed to al-Andalus in 580 AH and besieged Santarem for about a month. He fell ill and died in Rabi al-Awwal of the same year, and was carried to Seville. It is said he was struck by an arrow. Ibn al-Athir relates that he died without a will, so the commanders and the sons of Abd al-Mu'min made his son Ya'qub king. ⁷

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), unsigned, describes Yusuf as the second Almohad ruler, reigning 558-580/1163-1184. He took the throne by a coup, although his elder brother Muhammad had been proclaimed heir in 549/1154. Muhammad ruled for about two months, a fact most historians of the dynasty pass over. The vizier 'Umar b. 'Abd al-Mu'min claimed that the father had cancelled the heir's name in the khutba and wished Yusuf to succeed, and summoned Yusuf from Seville, where he had governed for six years, to be proclaimed at Ribat al-Fath (Rabat). Other brothers refused to recognise him: 'Ali, governor of Fez, died mysteriously after a journey; 'Abd Allah, governor of Bijaya, was poisoned; 'Uthman, governor of Cordova, also refused. For five years Yusuf used only the title amir al-muslimin. He dismissed the army his father had gathered at Rabat and put down a revolt among the Ghumara. ⁸

In al-Andalus the sayyids 'Umar and 'Uthman campaigned against Ibn Mardanish and his Christian mercenaries and defeated Almohad forces near Murcia in 560/1165. Portuguese captains took several towns in 563/1168, and Afonso Henriques and Giraldo sem Pavor besieged Badajoz, which was saved only by Ferdinand II of Leon's intervention. Ibn Mardanish's lieutenant Ibn Hamushku submitted to the Almohads; Yusuf crossed the Straits and besieged Murcia from Cordova. Ibn Mardanish died of chagrin in 567/1172 as his work was undone. Yusuf's siege of Huete in 1172 failed, and in 568/1172-3 a raid by Count Jimeno was defeated near Caracuel. Afonso Henriques and the count of Castile then had to sign a five-year armistice, and Beja was refortified in 569/1173-4. ⁸

Yusuf later married a daughter of Ibn Mardanish. The Almohad position in Ifriqiya was secured by moving Arab tribes west and by taking Kafsa in 576/1180-1 after a three-month siege, which ended the revolt of 'Ali b. al-Rand. In 1177 Alfonso VIII took Cuenca after nine months of siege, and the Portuguese crown-prince Sancho attacked Triana, Niebla and the Algarve, forcing Beja to be evacuated again. Yusuf then decided on a major campaign, and in 1184 Castile and Leon made peace at Fresno-Lavandera, Ferdinand II renouncing his old alliance with the Almohads. Yusuf reached Santarem on 27 June 1184; the garrison held out, and the caliph was mortally wounded when Ferdinand II came up. He died near Evora on the road to Seville on 18 Rabi' II 580 (29 July 1184). ⁹

The article calls him the most gifted of the Almohad caliphs. He was the son of a Masmudi woman, a daughter of the qadi Ibn Imran, born in the Atlas at Tinmallal and trained in Marrakush in the doctrine of the tawhid. His long stay in Seville from the age of seventeen made him a refined Andalusian litterateur. He surrounded himself with philosophers, physicians and poets, restored Seville as the capital of al-Andalus, and patronised Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd and Ibn Zuhr. He ruled the Maghrib with absolute power, but the endless war with the Christians exposed his weakness as a military leader, the low morale of his armies and the poor supply system. He began the extension of Marrakush to the south in 579/1183, continued by his son Ya'qub. ⁹