Amar S. Baadj

The Banu Ghaniya were an offshoot of the Almoravids who, when the main territories of the empire in Maghreb and al-Andalus fell to the Almohads in the 1140s, remained in control of the Balearic islands. Their name means "sons of Ghaniya", Ghaniya being the Almoravid princess from whom the family traced descent. It may be mentioned in passing that, for all that they originated as enforcers of Islamic orthopraxis, the Almoravids allowed their women an unusual degree of independence and power, and often used matronymics when the mother was of more illustrious origin than the father. Naturally, this "feminism" was a chief point of attack in Almohad propaganda against them.

In 1184 the Banu Ghaniya launched an invasion of what's now Algeria, with the stated intent of reestablishing the Almoravid empire. This might seem rather quixotic - pitting the resources of their little Balearic principality against the Almohad empire that stretched from Portugal to Tunisia - and indeed within a year the invasion had been crushed by the Almohads, despite commanding significant support among the locals.

This wasn't the end however: the Majorcan emir Ali b. Ghaniya made his way to Tunisia, which was being invaded by Qaraqush, an Ayyubid general - that is to say, a subordinate of Saladin - who had already taken over Libya. Together Qaraqush and Ali conquered most of Tunisia before being defeated by a full scale expedition by the Almohad caliph Ya'qub "the Victorious" in 1187.

Ali was killed fighting and was succeed by his brother Yahya b. Ghaniya, who quarreled with Qaraqush, who was no longer supported by Cairo - Saladin now being fully preoccupied by the crusaders - and after temporarily going over to the Almohads ended up as the petty ruler of the oasis town Waddan in Libya. Yahya on the other hand managed to recruit new forces from anti-Almohad tribes and went on to reconquer Tunisia after the caliph had gone back to Morocco.

This, naturally, lead to another full-scale Almohad expedition by the new caliph al-Nasir in 1204. The Banu Ghaniya and their tribal allies were duly defeated again, and to keep the cycle from repeating, al-Nasir appointed a hereditary line of governors, the Hafsids, to govern Tunisia as semi-independent viceroys. During the Almohad civil wars later in the century they became wholly independent and they ruled Tunisia into the sixteenth century.

Yahya survived, but perhaps because the Hafsids provided strong local leadership, switched from trying to conquer settled regions to launching endless series of raids with his allies among the Arab tribes and the Saharan Berbers, ranging all the way from Tripolitania to Morocco. He also got revenge on an old enemy by taking Waddan in 1212 and executing Qaraqush. He remained a thorn in the side to the caliphs until his death in ca 1236, by which time the Almohad empire was visibly collapsing, the Hafsids having already declared independence in 1229.

Baadj credits the Banu Ghaniya invasions and Yahya's raids with materially hastening the demise of the Almohads, though one wonders if in their absence the anti-Almohad tribes would not have found other champions or excuses to rebel.

The book is quite interesting - this might be obvious from how many words I spent summarizing the main action - but made longer than it needs to be partly because of Baadj's tendency to repeat himself, partly because a large chunk of it is spent summarizing the history of the region before the Banu Ghaniya, Almohads, and Ayyubids turn up on the scene.… (plus d'informations)