Almanzor

Youth

Muhammad ibn Abî' Amir is resulting on the paternal side of an Yemeni Arab family lawyers. It is Berbères on its maternal side, one of its ancestors took part in 711 besides in the invasion of Spain under the orders of Tariq ibn Ziyad . His/her maternal grandfather was doctor and vizier. He thus follows neat studies and begins his career as public writer then assistance of a clerk of justice.

Rise

The February 22nd 967 begins really its political ascendance: it is recommended by its employer to the vizier Al-Mushafî for a post of intendant and is chosen by Subh, the favorite skirt of the caliph, to manage his goods and those of a boy whom Al-Hakam II made him. Supported by Subh, Muhammad quickly will climb the levels of the capacity. At the end of ten years, he will have become the right-hand man of the caliph. In February 976, Al-Hakam, very sick, designates officially his/her son Hichâm like successor. It has only one ten years when his/her father dies on October 1st.

Seizure of power

Still alloyed with Al-Mushafî, Muhammad immediately thwarts a plot against Hichâm which it makes establish the October 3rd but soon, in.liaison.with his father-in-law Ghâlib, it organizes the fall of its benefactor who is stopped the March 26th 978 and becomes hâdjib, i.e. chief of the government. It has from now on the full powerss, except that to be a caliph in the place of the caliph. He then manages to overcome the Arab which had rebelled after its takeover by force while being based on new arrivals Berbères. In 981, it gets rid of his father-in-law to the battle of San Vicente.

Al-Zâhira

Dice 978-979, it makes build and installs its residence with Al-Madînat Al-Zâhira, close to Cordoue (Córdoba - Spain). A true city develops very quickly around the palate and its suburbs touch soon those of the capital. Al-Mansûr creates a school of poetry, which does not prevent it expurger the library of Al-Hakam II of the works only it considers suspect heresy.

Djihad

Of 977, date of its first warlike exploit, to its death, Al Mansûr will lead good about fifty victorious military forwardings in the name of Allah. Victorious of the king of León Ramire III in 978, it starts again the holy war (980). In Al-Andalus, he maltreats and persecutes the Mozarabes. Jewish and Christians take refuge towards north. It launches raids against the Catalogne (Barcelona is destroyed in 985) and against the Asturies (987) where it takes Saint-Jacques-with-Compostelle whose sanctuary is shaven (997).

This religious intolerance will have disastrous consequences for the caliphate of Cordoue: the refugees take along with them the technical training of the caliphate and will start the technological correction of the Christian Occident. The old Spanish operating states will be moulted in powers being able to compete in any point with the caliphate. Benefitting from the disorders reigning in Andalusia they will carry out the reconquista.

See also: Rebirth ottono-clunisienne, Reconquest, Reconquista

Succession

Its death (1002) in the town of Madinat-Al-Salim (today Medinaceli), the return of a forwarding to Calat-in-Nossor (today Calatañazor), its sons Abd Al-Malik and Sanchuelo succeed to him until in 1009, when the civil war starts which will lead to the disappearance of the caliphate in 1031.

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