Al-Hasan succeeded his father, Ali ibn Yahya, upon the latter's death in 1121.^[3] Reduced to the coasts of modern Tunisia, during his reign, the Zirid emirate faced the increasingly threatening attacks of the Italo-Norman Kingdom of Sicily. The Normans were provoked largely by Almoravid attacks on their shores, but blamed them on the Zirids, as al-Hasan's father had requested Almoravid aid against Sicily.^[3] In the fall of 1135,^[4] the Normans occupied Djerba, and finally targeted the Zirid capital of al-Mahdiya itself in 1148.^[3] With his state's economy already in decline, and weakened further by drought and famine, al-Hasan was unable to resist the Norman attack, fleeing instead to the Hammadids in Algiers.^[3]

The Hammadids also attacked Mahdia in the summer of 1135. ^[5]

There he remained under virtual house arrest until 1152, when the Almohad Caliphate under Abd al-Mu'min captured Algiers. Brought to the Almohad capital of Marrakesh, al-Hasan urged the Almohads to reconquer Ifriqiya. An Almohad expedition indeed expelled the Normans from al-Mahdiya in 1160, but al-Hasan was only allowed to settle in its extramural quarter of Zawila.^[3] He remained there until the death of Abd al-Mu'min in 1167, when he was ordered to return to Marrakesh, but died on the way at Tamasna.^[3]

Life

See also

References

Sources