Yusuf al-Mutamin Biography

Yusuf al-Mutamin

Taifa King of Zaragoza born around 1040 and died in autumn 1085.During his short reign he tried to gather in his hands the entire paternal patrimony, broken down into his inheritance, but Due to his efforts to fight his brother Mugdir, he could not face the advance of Sancho Ramírez de Aragón through his territories.Yusuf al-Mutamin owed most of his military successes to the collaboration of the Cid.

Son of Ahmed Ibn Hud al-Muqtadir, Yusuf belonged to the Banu Hud dynasty, coming from Arabia and who had risen to power in Zaragoza in the figure of Sulayman Ibn Hud al-Mustasin.In 1081, before the serious illness of his father, Yusuf Ibn Ahmed took power in Zaragoza; its domains included the city of Zaragoza, Tudela, Huesca and Calatayud.Yusuf's brother, Mugdir Imad al-Dawla, received as his paternal inheritance the kingdoms of Lleida, Denia, Tortosa and Monzón.In this way, the powerful Hudí kingdom of the upper Brand of Al-Andalus formed by al-Muqtadir during his long reign was disintegrated among his descendants, which was a frequent reason for fights between them.

death of al-Muqtadir, Yusuf claimed as the first-born the right to receive all the paternal patrimony, but Mugdir of Lleida, sure of the loyalty of his troops, did not recognize him.Yusuf, who had the loyalty of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, sent the Cid in 1082 to the town of Almenara to rebuild his castle and take care of the defense of the line of fortresses on the eastern border of the Zaragoza kingdom: Balaguer, Almenara , Tamarite and Monzón, who opposed the strong positions of the county of Barcelona, governed by Ramón Berenguer II.

When Mugdir de Lleida learned of the proximity of the Cid (Almenara is just twenty kilometers from Lleida) he asked the count of Barcelona for help and also received the support of other Catalan counts, who besieged the square while that the Cid was in the fortress of Escarp, which he had just taken.When Yusuf heard from the Cid of the capture of Almenara, he went to Tamarite, where he met the knight from Burgos; On the advice of Don Rodrigo, Yusuf decided to avoid fighting a much superior army and tried to maintain possession of the fortress in exchange for paying tribute to his brother Mugdir.

Although Imad al-Dawla accepted the offer, his allies, confident that they could gain the fortress by arms, continued the siege.El Cid left Tamarite for Almenara and there he defeated the attacking army (1082), taking a large number of prisoners, including Count Berenguer Ramón II of Barcelona, brother of the sovereign of the county.This victory for the Cid gave Yusuf enormous prestige and the sovereign of Zaragoza showered the knight of Vivar with gifts.

At the beginning of his reign, Yusuf had to deal with quelling uprisings and conspiracies from within his kingdom.He sentenced his father's vizier, Ibn ar-Royolo, to death, a character who was accumulating great power in the Zaragoza court, and whom he suspected was conspiring to take over the government.The chronicles have not left the date of the vizier's death, but it is possible that this was also related to the Rueda uprising of 1082: its governor, whose name the chronicles have not left, was in charge of guarding al-Muzaffar, Yusuf's uncle who had been confined in the fortress by al-Muqtadir; He sided with his prisoner, who had been lord of Lleida, and asked Alfonso VI of Castile for help to support him in an uprising against Yusuf al-Mutamin; the Castilian monarch accepted and marched towards the castle, but the sudden death of al-Muzaffar made the governor of Rueda change his mind and he ambushed Alfonso (January 6, 1083), although the king managed to flee.

Between February and April 1083, Yusuf al-Mutamin saw King Sancho Ramírez of Aragón attack his territories and seize Agüero, Ayerbe and Graus, on the northern border of the Hudí kingdom.The king of Zaragoza once again entrusted the Cid with the defense of these territories, but that of Vivar could only make a few raids against the Aragonese king in the Monzón region, so he looked for a new field of action and found it in Morella, in the lands ruled by Mugdir Imad al-Dawla.By order of Yusuf al-Mutamin, the Cid he rebuilt the fortress of Olocau to take it as a base of operations in the conquest of Morella.

Mugdir asked the Aragonese king Sancho Ramírez for help and he, who had just seized Secastilla from the Hudí kingdom (May 1084), went to the defense of the Lord of Lleida and after unsuccessful peace negotiations presented battle to the Campeador on August 14, 1084.After the victory, Don Rodrigo went to Zaragoza where he was widely acclaimed.

During Yusuf's reign, Zaragoza was a center where not only the Cid was welcomed, but also many uprooted from al-Andalus and political refugees such as the poet Ibn Ammar, who had been Prime Minister of Abbad of Seville and who when he arrived at the Zaragoza court in 1082 received the same dignity, from which he promoted different military actions of his lord, Yusuf.

The chronicles refer that thanks to his cunning, several fortresses were won for the Hudí kingdom whose names and date of conquest do not refer.At the initiative of Ibn Ammar, Yusuf al-Mutamin undertook the conquest of Segura de la Sierra (Jaén) in July 1084, but the capture of his vizier made the sovereign Hudí desist from the company.According to the sources, when Yusuf paid the ransom of Ibn Ammar, he himself killed with the ax.

Regarding foreign relations, the most outstanding action of Yusuf was the marriage alliance between Zaragoza and Valencia, made concrete at the wedding of a son of Yusuf, Ahmed al-Mustasin II, with a daughter of Abu Bakr Ibn Abd al-Aziz (6-VI-1085).This alliance had as a clear political purpose the mutual defense of both kingdoms against the expansionism of Alfonso VI.

Shortly after the alliance between Zaragoza and Valencia, a few months after Toledo had capitulated to Alfonso VI, Yusuf al-Mutamin died, leaving his kingdom in the hands of Ahmed II al-Mustasin, who had been named heir two years earlier and had begun to mint money while his father was still alive.

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