When the Ḥafṣid ruler Abū zakariyā Yaḥyā (r. 1229–49) died, his son Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad al-Mustanṣir (r. 1249–77) became ruler of Ifrīqiyā. Acceding to the throne in Tunis, al-Mustanṣir took control of a large kingdom that stretched from Ṭarāblus (Tripoli) in the east to Bijāya in the west. During his long reign, Bedouins, powerful Almohad sheikhs, and urban elites continuously challenged his authority. In 1270, the integrity of his kingdom miraculously survived a Crusade against Tunis led by Louis IX.¹ Saved by Louis’ death, al-Mustanṣir still had to pay a great sum of money to end the...

The Ḥafṣid dynasty was not able to keep all of Ifrīqiyā under its political control in the fourteenth century. However, there is nothing preventing the local configuration of Ḥafṣid rule from fostering the development of a regional economy. Political unity and economic integration needed not go hand in hand. But the activities of the ruling elite and its allies did nothing to encourage, promote, or support the types of specialization in production and circulation that would have made Ifrīqiyā an economic unit. Instead, the range of their intervention outside cities narrowed over time and become mostly extractive and predatory and,...

In the tenth century, Bijāya made its first appearance in written sources as one of a number of small ports on the Mediterranean coast when the merchant, traveler, and geographer Ibn Ḥawqal (fl. 970) mentioned the city in passing.¹ A century later, however, it was a large and important port. Al-Bakrī (d. 1094), an Andalusi writer who based his “Book of Kingdoms and Routes” on the reports of merchants and travelers, described Bijāya as a safe haven populated by Andalusis.² He added that Bijāya was the primary port that serviced Qal‘at Banī Ḥammād, the Ḥammādid capital.³

Bijāya’s growth continued. At...

More than anything else, the political history of Ifrīqiyā demonstrates the fragility of Ḥafṣid domination, the continuing need of forming alliances with various groups outside the cities, and the dynasty’s limited success in persuading non-urban elites of the necessity of its rule. Any discussion of the political ideology imbedded in elite sources must begin by acknowledging these basic truths about politics. Doing so allows us to focus on why the sources framed their narratives in ways that emphasize the centrality of the Ḥafṣid dynasty, even as they described less favorable political realities. Before going further, however, it seems useful to...

Abū al-‘Abbās al-Ghubrīnī (1246–1304), judge and author of a biographical dictionary of Bijāya’s learned men, distinguished sharply between those who belonged in his great text and those who should be consigned to oblivion and obscurity. In the last decades of the thirteenth century, during the reign of the first independent Ḥafṣid emir of Bijāya, Abū zakariyā Yaḥyā (1285–1301), al-Ghubrīnī wrote with contempt about those who used Sufi ideas to gather people around them.

These people are a bunch of ignoramuses (jumlat aghbiyā’) who have no knowledge (‘ilm); their practices (‘amal) are improper, they are not [legitimate] Sufis (taṣṣawwuf),...

Through their patronage of institutions of learning and their appointment of intellectuals to official positions, the ḤafṢids shaped the institutional context within which intellectual production took place. schools, the courts, and Sufi zawāya (sing. zāwiya) were essential sites for the execution of their cultural politics. They used them to gain the favor of some, quiet others, and undermine the standing of those who stood against them.

The ability of an emir to gain the support of prominent intellectuals to his cause was critical to his legitimacy among the elites. Their help allowed him to build up his stature, undermine his...