| rdfs:comment | - The Almohades had successfully integrated the Emirates of the Iberian Peninsula together with those in North Africa into a somewhat unstable political entity. The Almohad governors of Balansiya, Zayd Abu Abd Allah Muhammad and Zayd Abu Zayd were able to act with complete autonomy, including giving titles of kingship. They never exercised this right by coined money or renouncing their fealty to the Almohad Caliphate or to its emperor. After the Almohad defeat at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, the empire disintegrated and fractured in smaller kingdoms called taifas. The most important of these were the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada or Emirate of Granada, the Hafsid Taifa of Tunisia, the Banu Zian Taifa of Algeria, and Marinid controlled Morocco.
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| abstract | - The Almohades had successfully integrated the Emirates of the Iberian Peninsula together with those in North Africa into a somewhat unstable political entity. The Almohad governors of Balansiya, Zayd Abu Abd Allah Muhammad and Zayd Abu Zayd were able to act with complete autonomy, including giving titles of kingship. They never exercised this right by coined money or renouncing their fealty to the Almohad Caliphate or to its emperor. After the Almohad defeat at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, the empire disintegrated and fractured in smaller kingdoms called taifas. The most important of these were the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada or Emirate of Granada, the Hafsid Taifa of Tunisia, the Banu Zian Taifa of Algeria, and Marinid controlled Morocco. In 1224, James I of Aragon called on his nobles from Aragon and Catalonia to initiate the conquest of Muslim controlled Balansiya, entering the area through Teruel. Zayd Abu Zayd promptly asked the Aragonese monarch for a truce which he accepted in return for one fifth of the income from Balansiya and Mursiyya. During the summer of 1225, James I attempted to take the castle at Peñíscola by laying siege to it. That siege was ultimately unsuccessful as the Aragonese nobles abandoned it. By 1228, an indigenous Valencian-Muslim rebellion led by Ibn Hud, gained enough support to take the city of Madina Mursiyya and to dominate the regions of Orihuela, Dénia, Gandia, Xàtiva, and Al-Yazirat Suquar. The rebellion further laid siege to Balensiya itself, albeit unsuccessfully due to the menace of a relief force from the Kingdom of Castile. Ibn Hud retired to Madina Mursiyya without taking Balensiya. The pact between the Christian king and Abū Zayd caused many Muslims to switch their allegiance in favor of Zayyan ibn Mardanish, the grandson of Abu al-Hajjaj, thinking that Abū Zayd had betrayed them and abandoned Islam. Abū Zayd fled Valencia and headed north while Zayyan triumphantly entered the city in the winter of 1229 without proclaiming himself king. From Madina Mursiyya, the anit-Almohad rebel, Ibn Hud, laid siege to Valencia, pressuring Zayyan into abandoning the city. James I of Aragon, who had recently conquered Majorca in 1229, decided to try once again to conquer the Taifa of Valencia.
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