After Abū al-Ḥasan was defeated, the three Ḥafṣid emirs of Bijāya, Qasanṭīna, and Tunis had to reclaim their dominions. The Marīnid interlude had emboldened some Bedouins and each Ḥafṣid emir needed to reassert his dominance over his domain. So frail was the grip these emirs had on power that when Abū ‘Abd Allāh, Bijāya’s emir, ventured out of the city to lead a campaign against Qasanṭīna, he immediately lost control of the western port city of Tadlis. The Marīnid episode meant that only with difficulty could the emir of Bijāya impose his rule over areas he had once controlled securely. Perhaps discouraged by the political situation in which he found himself, Abū ‘Abd Allāh sought the protection of the Marīnid ruler at Tilimsān, Abū ‘Inān, who offered to take care of him only if he renounced his rights over Bijāya. He accepted. In 1352, Bijāya came under Marīnid control. Abū ‘Inān appointed his relative ‘Umar b. ‘Alī al-Waṭṭāsī as governor—but left Abū ‘Abd Allāh’s ḥājib, Fāriḥ, in charge of the city.52
Fāriḥ traveled to Qasanṭīna looking for support against the Marīnids. In his absence, the new pro-Marīnid governor arrived to take over Bijāya, and Ḥafṣid supporters, backed by the Ṣanhāja, openly rebelled against him. They killed a number of judges and pro-Marīnid notables, and sent for Fārih, urging him to return. Unfortunately for him, the rebels soon after changed their minds and joined the Marīnid camp. When he arrived in Bijāya, they killed him, and sent his head to the Marīnid ruler. They then invited the Marīnid governor of Tadlis to become governor of Bijāya. After the Ṣanhāja left town in direction of Tunis, Marīnid officials arrested Fārih’s supporters, including Hilāl, a client of the Banū Sayyid al-Nās, and the judge Muḥammad b. ‘Umar. They also arrested “the leaders of the mob elements (‘uraf’ al-ghawghā’) from among the people of the city” and sent them to a prison in the western Maghrib.53 While it is not clear who the ghawghā’ were, they clearly had ties to judges and influential Andalusi families; and unlike the Ṣanhāja, the ghawghā’ were “people of the city,” and could not just leave town after their defeat.54 It is difficult, however, to identify the ghawghā’ or their political motivations with any more precision than this.55 Ibn Khaldūn would use the same word to describe the group that took over power in Bijāya later that year. It was not, however, surprising to find powerful groups such as the Ṣanhāja, pro-Ḥafṣid notables, and Andalusis involved in this anti-Marīnid rebellion. They each had reasons to oppose the Marīnids or to support their favorite Ḥafṣid. The end result was the same: the Marīnids controlled much of Ifrīqiyā, but the frail coalition that supported them did not hold together for long. Rather than a return of the Ḥafṣids, however, this time they faced an enemy against whom they were unprepared.
Popular Non-Dynastic Rule in Bijāya (1359/60–64)
The Marīnid Abū ‘Inān had appointed the governor of Tadlis, Yaḥyā b. Maymūn, to be governor of Bijāya. But his administration of the city ran counter to the interests of its notables and they sought to eliminate him. For help in doing so, they contacted the Tunisan ḥājib Ibn Tafrākīn and tried to rally the Ḥafṣids again. The emir of Tunis, Abū Isḥāq heeded their call, readied an army, and marched on Bijāya. “When they neared the city,” Ibn Khaldūn tells us, “the ghawghā’ revolted against the governor Yaḥyā b. Maymūn and arrested him and those with him. [The ghawghā’] put them in a ship and sent them to Ibn Tafrākīn who put them in jail, where they were treated well, until he felt sorry for them and sent them back to the [western] Maghrib. And so, the [Ḥafṣid] sultan Abū Isḥāq entered Bijāya in 761[1359–6O]…. He appointed his son [Abū ‘Abd Allāh, emir of Bijāya] and the Almohad sheikh Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Wahhāb b. Muḥammad from Akmāzīr as his ḥājib.”56 The Ḥafṣids were back in power in Bijāya, or so it seems, because according to Ibn Khaldūn, who is our only source of information on the subject, “the leader of the men of the ghawghā’ was ‘Alī b. Ṣālih, who was among the [inhabitants] of low quality in Bijāya and their most contemptible. Around him had gathered the evil [ones] and the criminals.57 And with the power he had over them he was able to overpower the dawla.”58 In other words, ‘Alī b. Ṣāliḥ, the thug, was the effective ruler of Bijāya, not Abū Isḥāq or his son.59
When Abū ‘Abd Allāh, the former emir of Bijāya, was “freed” by Abū ‘Inān, he headed to his former capital in the company of Awlād Sibā‘ sheikhs, who jockeyed for position in the new situation. According to Ibn Khaldūn, he attempted to unseat “his uncle” for four years, without much success.60 During the fifth year, he persuaded the much more powerful Dawāwida and the Sadwīkish to help him, and so he entered the city in 1364. He was helped by sedition among the rebels.
When the ghawghā’ were certain that the emir [Abū ‘Abd Allāh] was going to break their hold [on the city], and they became tired of the rule of ‘Alī b. Ṣālih, their leader (‘arīf), they revolted against him and reneged on their oath to him.61 They left his cause and firmly joined the emir Abū ‘Abd Allāh…. Then they brought to him his uncle Abū Isḥāq, and [Abū ‘Abd Allāh] was benevolent with him. [Abū Isḥāq] left [Bijāya] for his capital [Tunis]. Abū ‘Abd Allāh took control of Bijāya, the seat of his emirate, in 765 [1364] from ‘Alī b. Ṣāliḥ and those with him among the leaders of the mob (‘urafā’ al-ghawghā’) who were [responsible] for the rebellion (fitna). He took all their possessions and then accomplished God’s decree by killing them.62
The leader of the ghawghā’ in Bijāya did not claim to rule on behalf of an emir, Ḥafṣid or Marīnid—even if the Ḥafṣid Abū Isḥāq was in Bijāya. ‘Alī b. Sāliḥ does not seem to have pledged allegiance to Abū Isḥāq. At the same time, he did not receive the oath of allegiance from either the city’s notables or the ‘āmma, but only from the ‘urafā’ who supported him. He was primus inter pares of an alliance of men who did not belong to notable families and who took over the reins of power.
The Effects of Elite Jockeying for Power
When in the early 1280s, the tailor Ibn Abī ‘Umāra came to power, he had been backed by powerful Bedouins and urban elites. His usurpation of the Ḥafṣid name would have been impossible without their support. But the ghawghā’ seized a political opportunity afforded by the post-Marīnid invasions and the high level of contentiousness between elite factions. While it is easy to make too much of this episode, it illustrates well the decomposition of the political bloc behind the local emirate. The Marīnid invasions demonstrated that in the largest cities of Ifrīqiyā, elite rule was not the only possibility. The local option could easily lead to the autonomy of cities without the need for the dynasty or its elite supporters. The question was whether anyone else would pursue this option or elite groups would form an alliance strong enough to eliminate it as a possibility. Over the next four decades, the elites would succeed in banding together over Ifrīqiyā.
The Coming of the Regional Emirate (1364–1400s)
Taking Bijāya Back
After four years of rule by the ghawghā’ in Bijāya, Ḥafṣid rule was restored in 1364. The emir Abū ‘Abd Allāh took over the city and employed the son of an influential Tunisan Andalusi family as his ḥājib. A few months later, he replaced him with his infinitely more famous brother, the historian ‘Abd al-Rahmān b. Khaldūn.63 Ibn Khaldūn remembered receiving a very warm welcome when he arrived in Bijāya from Granada,