The Taifas Princes (1031-1086)

The crisis of the Marwanid caliphate in al-Andalus and the process of its gradual dissolution, starting in 1009 , culminated in 1031 in the acknowledgement by the regent of Cordoba, Ibn Jahwar, that all efforts to find a legitimate successor to the caliph Hisham II, most probably assassinated in 1016, were useless. From this point on, al-Andalus would be split up among myriad local powers, formed through the interplay of various forces and interests, but whoses leaders for the most part sought to be identified with the political heritage of the Cordoban caliphate. It was the historian Ibn Hayyan who, somewhat disdainfully, was to name theses potentates muluk al-tawa’if  (“lords of the provinces”, kings of the taifas), an Arabic formula which denoted the satraps established long ago by Cyrus the Great in the Persian Empire.

The fourth decade of the century saw an increased virulence in the struggle for control, led by the kings of the main taifas and above all by the lord of Seville, Abbad II al-Mu’tadid, the most ambitious of them all and the most determined to stake his power over most of Andalusian territory. His father, initiating a practice that was to become commonplace in the Muslim East, had him kept under supervision, and yet presented him to the other taifas as the caliph Hisham II, alleging that he had found him alive, whereas the sources describe him as an impostor. Between 1035 and 1070, the taifa of Seville expanded irresistably into the central-southern part of the peninsula at the expense of the neighbouring taifas, and even went on to threaten Cordoba, which was captured in 1069, while the taifa ruled by the Banu Ziri Berbers, with Grenada as its capital, imposed its domination on the Andalusian Levant by declaring itself the principal ally of Malaga’s Hammudid caliphate. Later, military pressure from Seville and Grenada, combined with the policy of marriage-alliances linking greater and lesser courts, led to a simplification of the puzzle that was Andalusia. On the northern borders with the Christian states, only the taifas of Toledo and Saragossa managed to escape from the turbulent currents of conflict between the two great rival taifas, thus enabling themselves to grow into energetic principalities.

When finally, towards the end of the 1050s – though the dating is uncertain – both the Marwanid pseudo-caliph and the last Hammudid Berber caliph succumbed, taken out respectively by the Abbadid and by the Zirid powers, the last symbols of the caliphate were snuffed out in silence. In the following generation, numerous taifa-lords presided over veritable kingdoms, whose pomp and circumstance did not however conceal their lack of political and military organisation or their feeble social cohesion. The search for political justification by other means thus served as a pretext for the upkeep of dazzling courts, attracting famous learned and lettered men, and for recourse to a heterogeneous mass of symbols of sovereignty, both in administrative writing and in literary works whose purpose was to represent the regal power.

The artisitic creations of the taifas, of which, besides their epigraphy, only rather few reliable accounts remain, reveal themselves to have been subject to this same propaganda-imperative. Post-caliphal art continued alongside the art of the flourishing caliphate in the taifas of the Levant, the region most thoroughly swept by the wave of emigrants from Cordoba; here the influence of the caliphate is discernible in epigraphy, in the decorative arts and in architectural remains. The tide of migrants from the ex-capital does not however account for this correspondence: rather, as demonstrated by Acien Almansa, it was under the will of the Levantine chiefs, the heirs of Amirid power, that the craftsmen’s hands began to revive models from the caliphate.

From the first decades of the century, a clearer departure is discernible in the art of those taifas whose lords sought greater autonomy from the Marwanid heritage, in particular those of Toledo and Saragossa, and, to a lesser extent, that of Seville. This discontinuity is apparent in the elaboration of a Kufic floral style close to epigraphy, both in the contemporary oriental style and  in the Zirid style from Ifriqiya, and in its use on a massive scale in architectural decoration for purposes of panegyric. It is also apparent in the anti-naturalist taste that characterizes, for example, the “casket of Palencia”, one of the rare sumptuous art objects that can be dated with certainty to the taifa period. This casket was produced by cabinet-makers from Cuenca, Cordoban artisans who had settled in the taifa of Toledo from the early decades of the century, and dates from the reign of al-Ma’mun ibn Dhi l-Nun, the most ambitious of the Toledan kings (who managed briefly to take control of Cordoba from his enemy al-Mu`tamid ibn Abbad). It is dedicated to his heir Ismail, and stands out from its Cordoban precursors by virtue of its much more abstract character: both the Kufic inscriptions and the animal decoration are more geometric and flat, in keeping with the fashion then dominant in peninsular art which, far from being a sign of regression, also characterises the oriental art of the period. This same tendency is found in the palaces of Toledo and Saragossa, where the capitals are flatter and more abstract in shape compared with those previously built in Cordoba, where the decorative panels display stylised zoomorphic motifs, foreign to the Andalusian tradition – though known in Iranian art -,  nestling among the foliage, and where the mixtiline arches point and mutliply the distinctive rounded lines of Cordoban palatine architecture, suggesting vegetal and animal forms. The art of the taifas, characterized as it is by the exploration of diverse styles in the service of propaganda, is well represented in the Aljaferia Palace, so named after the heir of the sovereign Abu Ja`far al-Muqtadir ibn Hud (who reigned until 1081). This imposing castle, whose remaining section has undergone heavy-handed modification over the centuries, blends forms from different regal traditions: its layout is based on that of the Umeyyad desert-castles, while its patio derives from Cordoban palatine models, and the reception hall – the Golden Room – would have evoked through its shape and décor the image of the cosmos whose centre was, of course, the Hudid king. This imagery, of Iranian derivation and foreign to the Arabo-Islamic tradition, is reported to have inspired the conception of the al-Mubarak palace of the kings of Seville, which has since vanished.

Doubtless, the obliteration of the taifas’ art, of which in many cases the only remaining traces are exalted descriptions in literary sources, is the natural consequence of the widespread use of supple and fragile materials – stucco and wood instead of marble in the decors, and brick instead of stone in palace-building. This choice can surely be attributed, in large part, to the gradual impoverishment of the muluks, who were forced to recrute Christian mercenaries to prosecute their warlike policies and who, from mid-way through the century, had to pay heavy tribute to the king of Castille, in a bid to ease the pressure he was applying on their borders. Yet they did not manage to stop the progression which led Alphonse VI to conquer Toledo in 1085, paving the way for the Christian conquest of a large part of al-Andalus, and, in the following year, for the entry of the Almoravid armies into the peninsula.

B. S.