When al-Nāṣir died in 1213, ‘Abd al-Wāḥid briefly withheld his support for the designated caliph Abū Ya‘qūb, an act in which he probably drew on his father’s moral standing. ‘Abd al-Wāḥid ultimately recognized the caliph’s appointment. He also enjoyed support among the Almohad sheikhs in Ifrīqiyā: when he died in 1221, the sheikhs recognized his son Abū Zayd ‘Abd al-Raḥmān as his successor to the governorate of Ifrīqiyā. But the Almohad ruler al-Mustanṣir (r. 1213–24) did not agree with their choice, and instead appointed Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Ismā‘īl b. Abī Ḥafṣ to serve as interim governor until the governor of Seville, and ‘Abd al-Mu’min’s grandson, Abū al-‘Ulā, could take over in Ifrīqiyā.
The political defeat of the Ḥafṣid clan in Ifrīqiyā was brief, and they owed their next victory, once again, to Ibn Ghāniya, who used the confusion to rebel yet again. New to the area, Abū al-‘Ulā was unable to rout Ibn Ghāniya immediately. Instead, ‘Abd al-Wāḥid’s son, Abū Zayd, defeated Yaḥyā in 1223 and headed for Tunis as a victor. This could not but have solidified the family’s claims to leadership in the region. The new caliph, al-‘Ādil (r. 1224–27), recognized Abū Zayd for his impressive military victory and appointed him governor of Ifrīqiyā. But his authoritarian and unpopular governorship ended in 1226, after just two years, when the caliph appointed his brother, the sheikh Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Abd al-Wāḥid b. Abī Ḥafṣ, to replace him. One Ḥafṣid had been deemed lacking, and another was now appointed in his stead—so thoroughly had the Almohads come to rely on the house of Abū Ḥafṣ.
The new Ḥafṣid governor of Tunis, Abū Muḥammad, had little to no control over Bijāya and western Ifrīqiyā. But that was the least of his concerns. As soon as he took over, he had to fend off yet another Ibn Ghāniya–led rebellion in southern Ifrīqiyā, as well as the rebellion of the Walḥāsā in the region of Būna. The chaos afforded yet another opportunity for a Ḥafṣid governor to stake his claim to the region—to become, as it were, a son of Ifrīqiyā.
Ifrīqiyā Becomes Ḥafṣid
The lord (mawlā) Abū Zakariyā claimed independence (istabadda) in Ifrīqiyā, since it was his country (balad) and the country of his father and brother.15
With yet a third son of ‘Abd al-Wāḥid, Abū Zakariyā, the Ḥafṣid dynasty made Ifrīqiyā its home. In 1227, Abū Zakariyā became governor of Tunis, having previously served as the commander of Gābis. The Almohad caliph would have sent the diploma of governorship to Abū Muḥammad, who had served in the post under the previous caliph, except that Abū Muḥammad, following the path of moral indignation first carved by his grandfather Abū Ḥafṣ, refused to recognize the caliph’s appointment. Abū Zakariyā received the appointment instead. In 1228, one of his first acts was to prove his loyalty to the regime over his family: with the help of Almohad troops, he exiled his brother Abū Muḥammad. He then entered Tunis and became the ruler of the Almohad province of Ifrīqiyā—the third descendant of Abū Ḥafṣ to assume the post.
Abū Zakariyā’s loyalty to regime was neither blind nor uncritical. Despite his support for the caliph over his own brother’s objections, he still retained some distance from events in the capital, and could be provoked to rebellion when the Hintāta were threatened. Indeed, al-Ma’mun (r. 1227–32) tested Abū Zakariyā’s loyalty in the course of a wider conflict in the Maghrib. Al-Ma’mūn’s rule over the Maghrib was hardly secure. While he was trying to reassert Almohad control in al-Andalus, he received news that his cousin Yaḥyā b. al-Nāṣir had rebelled in the Maghrib. He immediately headed south to engage in battle with his cousin, and in the course of the conflict, publicly repudiated the mahdī’s doctrine. He also killed a great number of Almohad sheikhs, some of whom were Hintāta.16 The response was immediate: the Ḥafṣids were, after all, Hintātīs and could not simply accept the slaughter of kin. Abū Zakariyā disavowed al-Ma’mūn and, in his stead, recognized Yaḥyā b. al-Nāṣir as the legitimate Almohad caliph. But whether out of principle or political motives, Abū Zakariyā could not sustain fealty to a mere pretender. In 1229, he eliminated Yaḥyā’s name from the Friday sermon (khuṭba), and made the imams deliver it instead in the name of the mahdī and the four “rightly guided” caliphs (rāshidūn). Abū Zakariyā then formalized his independence from Marrakech by taking up the title of emir (amīr), the only title he ever bore. Seven years later, he added his own name to the weekly sermon, thus publicly proclaiming himself an independent ruler (1236–37).17
For later Ḥafṣid historians such as Ibn al-Shammā‘, Abū Zakariyā claimed Ifrīqiyā because it was already his country. This is typical of the chronicles’ tendency toward historical foreshortening. In reality, the first Ḥafṣid ruler was an Almohad and articulated the legitimacy of his rule in Almohad terms. Abū Zakariyā fashioned himself as the inheritor of the charisma and spiritual leadership of Ibn Tūmart, and of the military skills and piety of ‘Abd al-Mu’min. His supporters also made use of the fact that his grandfather, Abū Ḥafṣ, had been an early follower of the mahdī and a great Almohad general. While he was viewed as rooted in the region, his political legitimacy still drew on roots in the far west.
As for the Almohad sheikhs of Ifrīqiyā, with the political situation in the west spiraling out of Almohad control, they had two choices: go back to Marrakech in loyalty to the caliph or stay in Ifrīqiyā. Many stayed. Once they were no longer there on a temporary assignment, they had to reassess their situation and commit themselves to being in Ifrīqiyā. Abū Zakariyā permitted their role to shift: they now gained renewed influence at the court, precisely at a time when Tunis was flourishing as a capital; Abū Zakariyā sponsored the building of a prayer hall (muṣallā) outside the city’s walls and organized spacious markets around the Great Mosque of Tunis.
Abū Zakariyā’s sense of continuity with the Almohads was palpable both inside and outside the court. Following Almohad custom, he redesigned Tunis’s Kasbah, the fortified tower and walled quarters where the ruling family and high government officials lived. In Ramadan 1233, he inaugurated a new minaret for the Kasbah’s mosque, which had been and remained known as the Almohad Mosque. In the treaties with northern Mediterraneans, his subjects are described as “Almohads.”18 Even his methods of cultivating loyalty and punishing offenders were Almohad, including favoring the Ku‘ūb and Mirdās at the expense of the Dawāwida who had supported Ibn Ghāniya. Unsurprisingly, the Dawāwida resisted the new order, and just as unsurprisingly, Abū Zakariyā sent an army against them, defeated them, and made them relocate from Tunis to the Zāb and the area south of Qasanṭīna. In 1238, he marched against the defiant Hawwāra, defeated them, and forced the survivors into servile labor, just as the Almohads had done.
Having consolidated his power in Ifrīqiyā and nipped in the bud a conspiracy of Almohad sheikhs, Abū Zakariyā now focused on expanding his realm. But here he had a momentous decision to make. Would his emulation of the Almohads extend to actually taking over their realm? Would he assume their mission of protecting the Muslims of al-Andalus? Abū Zakariyā chose a course of restraint, but sovereigns in the Maghrib nonetheless looked to him as an Almohad successor. In 1242, he invaded Tilimsān (Tlemcen), but decided not to march against the Almohads in the western Maghrib. Yet the kings of Iberia who led “the Christian reconquest” feared Abū Zakariyā’s growing power: in 1231, James I of