leading citizens to make the move as well. Architects were commissioned to build or repair the fortifications, palaces, and houses for the populace. A garrison was established, ready to prosecute the jihad in al-Andalus at the caliph’s command. The Almohads, this move seemed to be saying, were bringing glorious caliphal rule in al-Andalus back to its proper seat. Of course, such a message would need to be made only if there were people who needed to be convinced of it. ʿAbd al-Muʾmin died in 1163, and when, after a swift but tense coup d’état, his son Yusuf I succeeded him (though he deferred taking the title of caliph for a few years), he continued his father’s policy of bringing the jihad to al-Andalus.24 This involved Muslim targets, above all the recalcitrant “Wolf-King” Ibn Mardanish, lord of Murcia and Valencia. He had long been a thorn in the side of the Almohads, stymieing nearly all expansion in the east. Yusuf I’s armies slowly strangled off the territories belonging to his domains, and co-opted what remained of the Wolf-King’s family after his death in 1172. But by now the Christians had returned to the offensive and posed numerous problems. The Portuguese warlord Giraldo Sempavor (“The Fearless”) captured Trujillo and Evora and, with the help of the king of Portugal, in 1169 nearly captured Badajoz. Here the internal rivalries of the Christian courts provided the Almohads with the opening they needed. Fernando II, king of Leon, would not sit idly by while Badajoz fell to his Portuguese rivals. So he offered the Almohads an alliance and sent troops to assist the besieged Almohad garrison. In the fighting the king of Portugal himself was taken prisoner, released only upon relinquishing his recent conquests. So in 1170 Badajoz reverted to the Almohads. Afterward Fernando II renewed his treaty with the Almohads at, of all places, al-Zallaqa, the plain northwest of Badajoz where in 1086 the Almoravids had won their famed victory against Alfonso VI. Perhaps this was another symbolic revisiting on the part of the Almohads; it was certainly suggestive of Almohad fortunes. With Badajoz returned, Giraldo Sempavor was driven out of the region, and the Almohads seemed to be, like the Almoravids decades earlier, the newly anointed saviors of al-Andalus. It was an illusion. Andalusi enthusiasm for war depended heavily upon the charismatic leadership of the caliph: when he was present in al-Andalus, major losses could be averted; when he was absent, the Franks roamed with impunity. And Yusuf was absent more than he was present. When he left for Morocco in 1176, years of Christian raids and conquests and mostly feeble Andalusi responses followed. An exception was a massive naval battle in 1181 in the Atlantic off of Silves, The Fallen Tent
181