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Abu Yusuf Ya'qub ibn Yusuf ibn Abd al-Mu'min, Almohad commander of the faithful and lord of the lands of the Maghrib. He died around the year 595 AH in Marrakesh ¹.

Ibn Khallikan describes him as clear-complexioned, tall, handsome of face, deep-voiced and eloquent in speech. He was accomplished in the sciences, knowing the roots and branches of law, epistolary writing, histories, geometry and medicine ¹.

When the truce between him and Alfonso ended at the close of the year 590 AH, he resolved to fight the Franks. He fell gravely ill at Sala, so that his physicians despaired of him, then he rose and fought them at the battle of al-Arak ¹.

al-Maqqari reports that he recovered Shalb in the year 586 AH, after he had besieged it himself, and sent an army that conquered four cities ².

It is said that he wandered the land, gave up rule, and was buried at al-Biqa'. al-Maqqari transmits from al-Sharif al-Gharnati, in his commentary on the Maqsura of Hazim, that this has no basis, and that it is the raving of the common people ³.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), unsigned, dates Ya'qub al-Mansur's reign to 580-595/1184-1199. His father Yusuf died before Santarem on 29 July 1184. Ya'qub brought the body back to Seville, where he was proclaimed on 10 August. He went on to Marrakush, took the title amir al-mu'minin, issued severe financial edicts and enforced strict orthodoxy; he also tried to hear cases himself at public audiences, and built heavily. He found the palace of Dar al-Hajar too cramped and built the suburb of al-Saliha as his residence. ⁴

In Ifriqiya the Banu Ghaniya took Bougie on 22 May 1185, and 'Ali b. Ghaniya also took Algiers, Miliana, Ashir and Kal'at Bani Hammad. In 582/1186 Ya'qub's forces, with the Ceuta fleet, recaptured Algiers and Bougie, and 'Ali b. Ghaniya withdrew to the Djarid. The Almohad army sent against the rebels was defeated on 24 June 1187 on the plain of 'Umra near Gafsa, and Ya'qub avenged the defeat at al-Hamma on 14 October 1187. Yahya b. Ghaniya kept up the struggle for almost another half-century. ⁴

In Iberia the Portuguese king Sancho I, with Crusader contingents on their way to Palestine, took Silves on 3 September 1189 after a three-month siege. Ya'qub struck back in 1190, imposing an armistice on Castile and Leon and taking Torres Novas, while Tomar, defended by the Templars, held out. In 1191 he recaptured Silves on 10 July, after taking strongholds south of the Tagus. In 1193 he ordered the fortress of Hisn al-Faradj (Aznalfarache) built near Seville. When Alfonso VIII attacked the Seville region, Ya'qub defeated him at Alarcos on 18 July 1195, and took the title al-Mansur for the victory. The next spring he took Montanchez, Trujillo and Santa Cruz and raided the Tagus valley up to the vega of Toledo; a later expedition reached Madrid, which was defended by Diego Lopez de Haro, and Alcala de Henares, without success. ⁵

Worn out by illness on his return to Marrakush, he named his son Muhammad as heir and retired to devotions and good works, such as the founding of a hospital and distributions of alms. He forced the Jews to wear a distinguishing sign. In his last days he was tormented by remorse for having ordered the execution of close relatives, and he gathered the shaykhs and his family at al-Saliha to state his last wishes. His death is fixed on 22 Rabi' I 595 (23 January 1199). ⁶

The article calls his reign the apogee of the Almohad empire: his energy, care and rigour, and his victories in Ifriqiya and Spain, raised his army's morale and surrounded him with legend. His buildings at al-Saliha, the Kutubiyya mosque and its minaret in Marrakush, the Giralda of Seville and the mosque of Hasan in Rabat, continued the work of his father and grandfather. Yet the splendour of his court hid signs of decay. The Christian pressure in al-Andalus could not be stopped, and the Arab and Majorcan revolt in Ifriqiya, always suppressed and always reviving, drained the empire of force. The article blames the weak successors, children or youths, for the collapse that followed. ⁶