Abū al-‘Abbās appointed the son of Abū ‘Abd Allāh as emir over Bijāya and then “advised [the new emir] to turn to Muḥammad b. Abī Mahdī, the leader of the city (za‘īm al-balad), the commander of the navy, and foremost among the wily and manly (ahl al-shaṭāra wa-al-rujūla) among the city’s men and its archers.” Ultimately, “Ibn Abī Mahdī [was] regent and spoliator of [the emir’s] rule (mustabiddan ‘alayhi).”66
Once more, Ibn Khaldūn describes a set of novel political relations but does not elaborate. The commander of the navy, backed by armed young men, was the effective ruler of Bijāya. The restoration of Ḥafṣid rule in Bijāya brought about a weak emir maintained in place by armed men. Shedding some light on the identity of these young men, Ibn Khaldūn comments:
The people of Bijāya started [committing acts of piracy] thirty years prior [to the Franco-Genoese expedition against al-Mahdiya in 1390]. They gathered a faction from among the pirates (ghuzāt al-baḥr), built a navy, and chose the best men for it. These would arrive at the European coasts and islands by surprise and kidnap however many [people] they could and take away however many ships they found, and return with booty, slaves and hostages. [This was so] until the western coastal towns of the [province of] Bijāya were filled with their hostages, who made the country’s roads overflow with the noise of their chains and shackles when they went about doing their business and seeking their release…. This was painful to the European nations … and they [sought] revenge on the Muslims.67
In Ibn Khaldūn’s treatment of the ghawghā’ and the pirates, one notices a clear preference for the latter. The pirates were tied to the Ḥafṣid dynasty since their leader had an official position as commander of the navy. It is reasonable to believe that he wielded a great deal of power because of the importance of his function to the Ḥafṣids, both as the leader of the navy and as provider of revenue. Furthermore, the pirates’ activities were inscribed in the logic of Crusade/counter-Crusade. That alone conferred upon them an ideological veneer not available to the ghawghā’. In the eyes of Ibn Khaldūn, the power that the leader of the navy had over the Ḥafṣid ruler was similar to the preeminence of the various ḥājibs and thus clearly distinct from the actions of the ghawghā’. Pirates were the armed hand of dynastic restoration.
Toward a New Regional Emirate
In 1369, the old ruler of Tunis, Abū Isḥāq, died. The emir of Qasanṭīna and Bijāya, Abū al-‘Abbās, quickly moved on the capital and took it over in 1370. For the first time in several decades, he brought the Ḥafṣid dynasty under a sole ruler. For the following twenty years, he worked tirelessly to consolidate his power and pacify the region. He fought countless battles against rebellious Bedouins, persuaded many others to accept him as ruler, and did the same with urban elites. During his reign, Bijāya lost some of its political significance because both Marīnids and ‘Abd al-Wādids were too weak to help support any independent city. As he rebuilt the sociopolitical foundations of a new Ḥafṣid dominion, Abū al-‘Abbās privileged Qasantīna and Būna at the expense of Bijāya.
Abū al-‘Abbās ruled for more than two decades (1370–94), the first such stretch in a few generations. Many, including Ibn Khaldūn, who dedicated his famous Kitāb al-‘ibar to him, admired his reign. Ibn Khaldūn credits Abū al-‘Abbās for reclaiming power from the hands of the ḥājibs, and beginning the process of concentrating power in the hands of the ruler. Ḥafṣid historians depict Abū al-‘Abbās as the ruler of all Ifrīqiyā, even though he delegated a great deal of power to emirs such as his son Abū Fāris of Qasantīna. But even correcting for later Ḥafṣid bias in favor of regional unity, Abū al-‘Abbās had begun the process of pulling Ifrīqiyā together.
When Abū al-‘Abbās died in 1394, Abū Fāris was recognized as the new emir. He left Qasantīna for Tunis and was proclaimed ruler without the sort of opposition the Ḥafṣids had until now made customary. Whereas Abū al-‘Abbās had established peace, Abū Fāris naturalized it. He expanded his domain in the south and in the west, bringing Tilimsān under his authority. Importantly, under his rule Tunis became the undisputed capital of Ifrīqiyā, and greatest city of the Maghrib, rivaled only by Fās (Fez), the Marīnid capital. His forty-year reign was that of a regional emir. The historians agreed: according to Ibn al-Shammā‘, Abū Fāris “attained the maximum control over Ifrīqiyā (balagha min mulki Ifrīqiyā al-ghāyatu al-quṣwā) by subduing the Bedouins (a‘rāb).”68
After Abū Fāris’s death, his grandson Abū ‘Abd Allāh ruled for a little more than a year. ‘Uthmān (r. 1436–88) succeeded him. ‘Uthmān had to face a certain Abū al-Ḥasan, who had declared himself ruler of Ifrīqiyā from Bijāya and attempted to take over Tunis. However, by 1440, his attempt was crushed, and ‘Uthmān ruled a unified Ḥafṣid dynasty for decades. Under him, the Ḥafṣids brought into the fold the urban notables who had previously been so difficult to persuade. Far from the cities and the areas that they controlled, the picture was less clearly in their favor. However, no single group could now challenge the Ḥafṣids. While the Bedouins enjoyed a great deal of autonomy vis-à-vis the dynasty—not all of them paid taxes or contributed soldiers—with Abū Fāris, the Ḥafṣids were once more able to bring all of Ifrīqiyā under their rule. Tunis was once more the capital of Ifrīqiyā.
In the view of Ḥafṣid authors, Abū Fāris proved to be the greatest ruler the dynasty had produced in more than a century. He subjected local emirates, Bedouin confederacies, and independent cities that had blossomed for nearly a century outside Tunis’s control. If this description of Abū Fāris likens him to a messianic figure, it is only because in the eyes of those who lived through the period of war and instability, he was one. He finally realized the political fantasies of the preceding generations. Ḥafṣid commentators saw him as the true heir to the legacy of his two ancestors, Abū Zakariyā (d. 1249) and al-Mustanṣir (d. 1277), whom they so idealized. For them, the accession of Abū Fāris was a second coming of the regional emirate and a rebirth of the dynasty.69
The Ḥafṣid intellectuals in the fifteenth century who celebrated Abū Fāris by comparing him to Abū Zakariyā and al-Mustanṣir accomplished an important ideological slight of hand. They recast the history of Ifrīqiyā in the intervening period in terms of the heroic task of returning Ifrīqiyā to the hands of the Ḥafṣid dynasty. This idea anchors their dynastic conception of historiography and casts the fourteenth century as a period of chaos and war between cousins.
How Ḥafṣid Was Ifrīqiyā?
In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Ḥafṣid emirs led a number of political coalitions. Sometimes, the support they garnered allowed them to control Tunis and all the large cities of Ifrīqiyā. At other times, they effectively controlled just a few cities. But many of these emirs were mere puppets in the hands of powerful Andalusi or Almohad ḥājibs. Consequently, the idea that Ifrīqiyā was a region ruled by the Ḥafṣid dynasty does not correspond to the political realities of the time. Even when, in its regional configuration, Ḥafṣid domination brought together cities from Tripoli to Bijāya, there were always areas that were beyond its reach—and not only mountainous ones. The local Ḥafṣid emirs’ ability to impose their domination was severely limited by their fear of venturing too far from their cities lest someone take them in their absence.
Adding up the areas effectively ruled by local Ḥafṣid emirs would, then, still leave a great deal of Ifrīqiyā outside the dynasty’s purview. Local emirs controlled areas near the cities. When the political realignments at the end of the fourteenth century eliminated local emirs, they did not radically alter this basic aspect of Ḥafṣid rule. Even under the regional emirate of Abū Fāris, the Ḥafṣids