13

The Zīrids and Ḥammādids

361–547/972–1152

Tunisia and eastern Algeria

1. Zīrid governors of the Maghrib for the Fāṭimids

3. Ḥammādids of Qal‘at Banī Ḥammād

The Zīrids were Ṣanhāja Berbers inhabiting the central part of the Maghrib, who early identified themselves with the Fāṭimid cause in North Africa, bringing military relief to the Fāṭimid capital of al-Mahdiyya when in 334/945 it was besieged by the Khārijī rebel Abū Yazīd al-Nukkarī ‘the Man on the Donkey’. Accordingly, when the Fāṭimid caliph al-Mu‘izz left for Egypt, he appointed Buluggīn I b. Zīrī, whose family had already served the dynasty as governors, to be viceroy of Ifrīqiya. Buluggīn kept up the traditional enmity of his people with the nomadic Zanāta Berbers, and overran all the Maghrib as far west as Ceuta. A branch of the family under another son of Zīrī, Zāwī, took service in Spain under the Ḥājib al-Muẓaffar b. al-Manṣūr Ibn Abī ‘Amir, and after 403/1013 was able to found a Taifa in Granada (see above, no. 5, Taifa no. 6).

Buluggīn’s grandson Bādīs entrusted the more westerly part of his governorship to his uncle Ḥammād b. Buluggīn I, and the latter built a capital for himself and his family at Qal‘at Banī Ḥammād, in the upland plain of the Hodna near Msila in the central Maghrib. After discord broke out in 405/1015 between Ḥammād and Bādīs, in which the former temporarily transferred his allegiance to the ‘Abbāsids, there was a divisio imperii: the Zīrid main branch of North Africa remained in Ifrīqiya, with its capital at Kairouan, while Ḥammād’s line took over the lands further west.

The rich resources and wealth of Ifrīqiya tempted the Zīrid al-Mu‘izz b. Bādīs to rebel against his Fāṭimid overlords, and in 433/1041 he gave his allegiance to the ‘Abbāsids (the Ḥammādid al-Qā’id, after temporarily recognising the Baghdad caliphs, returned to Fāṭimid allegiance). Hence shortly afterwards, the Fāṭimids in Egypt released against the Zīrids bands of unassimilated, barbarian Bedouins of the Hilāl and Sulaym tribes, who migrated from Lower Egypt to the Maghrib. These Arabs gradually worked their way across the countryside, terrorising the towns and forcing the Zīrids to evacuate Kairouan for al-Mahdiyya on the coast and the Ḥammādids to withdraw to the less accessible port of Bougie (Bijāya), renamed al-Nāṣiriyya after its founder al-Nāṣir b. ‘Alannās. Having lost control of the land, the two sister lines turned to the sea and built up a fleet; it is, indeed, this period which inaugurates the age of the Barbary corsairs. But they were unable to prevent Muslim Sicily from falling to the Normans, even though peaceful commercial relations were later established with the Norman kings. By the twelfth century, the Zīrids were hard pressed; Roger II of Sicily captured al-Mahdiyya and the Tunisian coast, forcing the Zīrid al-Ḥasan b. ‘Alī to pay tribute. Also, within the Maghrib, the Almohads (see below, no. 15) were now advancing relentlessly eastwards. The Ḥammādids were overrun, and the last ruler, Yaḥyā, surrendered at Constantine and ended his days in exile in Morocco. The last Zīrid, al-Ḥasan, was at one point reinstated as Almohad governor of al-Mahdiyya, functioning there until the Almohad sultan ‘Abd al-Mu’min’s death in 558/1163, but died also in Morocco eight years later.

Lane-Poole, 39–40; Zambaur, 70–1; Album, 16.

EI^l ‘Zīrids’ (G. Marçais); EI² ‘Ḥammādids’ (H. R. Idris).

H. W. Hazard, The Numismatic History of Late Medieval North Africa, ANS Numismatic Studies, no. 8, New York 1952, 53–7, 89–96, 233.

H. R. Idris, La Berbérie orientale sous les Zīrīdes X^e–XII^e siècles, 2 vols, Paris 1962, with detailed genealogical and chronological tables at II, 830ff., making many corrections to Zambaur.

Amin T. Tibi, The Tibyān. Memoirs of ‘Abd Allāh b. Buluggīn, last Zīrid Amīr of Granada, Leiden 1986, with table of the Zīrids of Muslim Spain, showing connections with the North African lines, at p. 30.