Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar was a Castilian knight and ruler in medieval Spain. Fighting both with Christian and Muslim armies during his lifetime, he earned the Arabic honorific as-Sayyid, which would evolve into El Çid, and the Spanish honorific El Campeador. He was born in Vivar, a village near the city of Burgos.
Year 1097 (MXCVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
Yusuf ibn Tashfin, also Tashafin, Teshufin, was a Sanhaja leader of the Almoravid Empire. He cofounded the city of Marrakesh and led the Muslim forces in the Battle of Sagrajas.
This is a timeline of notable events during the period of Muslim presence in Iberia, starting with the Umayyad conquest in the 8th century.
The Battle of Uclés was fought on 29 May 1108 during the Reconquista period near Uclés just south of the river Tagus between the Christian forces of Castile and León under Alfonso VI and the forces of the Muslim Almoravids under Tamim ibn-Yusuf. The battle was a disaster for the Christians and many of the high nobility of León, including seven counts, died in the fray or were beheaded afterwards, while the heir-apparent, Sancho Alfónsez, was murdered by villagers while trying to flee. Despite this, the Almoravids could not capitalise on their success in the open field by taking Toledo.
Sisnando Davides was a Mozarab nobleman and military leader of the Reconquista, born in Tentúgal, near Coimbra. He was a contemporary and acquaintance of El Cid, but his sphere of activity was in Iberia's southwest.
The Battle of Sagrajas, also called Zalaca or Zallaqah, was fought between the Almoravid army led by their King Yusuf ibn Tashfin and an army led by the Castilian King Alfonso VI. The Almoravids responded to the call of Jihad by the taifas which commonly fought amongst themselves however they had united to battle the powerful Christian states to the north. The Taifas, and Takrur who contributed 4,000 black moorish troops alone, aided the Almoravids during the battle with troops, favoring the battle for the Muslim side. The battleground was later called az-Zallaqah because of the poor footing caused by the tremendous amount of bloodshed that day, which gave rise to its name in Arabic.
The Taifa of Valencia was a medieval Muslim kingdom which existed in and around Valencia, Spain. It gained independence from the Caliphate of Córdoba circa 1010 and became its own small kingdom, or Taifa, for most of the 11th century. It was absorbed by the Taifa of Toledo in 1065, which in turn fell to Alfonso VI of León and Castile in 1085. From 1094 to 1099, the kingdom was ruled directly by the Castilian military commander known as El Cid, then by his wife Jimena after his death, until being annexed by the Almoravids in 1102.
García Ordóñez, called de Nájera or de Cabra and Crispus or el Crespo de Grañón in the epic literature, was a Castilian magnate who ruled the Rioja, with his seat at Nájera, from 1080 until his death. He is famous in literature as the rival of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid, whose high position at court he took over after the Cid's exile in 1080. He was one of the most important military leaders and territorial governors under Alfonso VI, and was entrusted with military tutorship of the king's heir, Sancho Alfónsez, with whom he died on the field of battle at Uclés.
The Battle of Morella (14 August 1084×88), southwest of Tortosa, was fought between Sancho Ramírez, King of Aragon and Navarre, and Yusuf al-Mu'tamin, King of Zaragoza, while the former was engaged in a campaign of conquest against the latter. All surviving sources for the battle are either later by a generation or literary in character, and they are confused on the chronology and dating of the event. The encounter was a defeat for Sancho and sparked a brief reversal of fortunes in the Navarro-Aragonese Reconquista. The Castilian hero, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid, was a general for al-Mu'tamin at the time. According to the Aragonese Crónica de San Juan de la Peña (c.1370), Sancho later sought out El Cid, who had also defeated his father in the Battle of Graus (1063), and defeated him in the year 1088. However, the Crónica is the only source mentioning such an encounter and, as it was written three hundred years later, most leading scholars give no credence to this claim, which was probably intended to justify the prerogatives of Peter IV of the Crown of Aragon.
The Battle of Bairén was fought between the forces of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, also known as "El Cid", in coalition with Peter I of Aragon, against the forces of the Almoravid dynasty, under the command of Muhammad ibn Tasufin. The battle was part of the long Reconquista of Spain, and resulted in a victory for the forces of the Kingdom of Aragon and the Kingdom of Valencia.
Emperor of the Two Religions was a title reportedly used by King Alfonso VI of León and Castile after 1085. While Alfonso used the title Emperor of All Spain from at least 1077, the evidence for his adoption of a specific title referring to Christianity and Islam after 1085 is late and scholars are divided on its reliability.
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn al-Khālaf, called Ibn ʿAlqāmā, was an Andalusi Muslim official and historian.
The siege of Badajoz (1169) was a military engagement between the Portuguese, led by King Afonso I of Portugal, and the Almohad garrison of Badajoz, allied with the Kingdom of León. The allied forces inflicted a severe defeat on the Portuguese.
In 1125–1126, the Arago-Navarrese king Alfonso the Battler launched a military expedition to capture the city of Granada from the Almoravids. The campaign was carried out over nine months during which he camped for a long time near Granada, he plundered fields and riches, he defeated the Almoravid army in pitched battle in Arnisol Anzur, near Puente Genil, south of the current province of Córdoba) and rescued a contingent of Mozarabs with which he repopulated the lands of the Ebro Valley recently conquered by the kingdom of Aragon.
The Battle of Badajoz was a military engagement between the Almoravids and the raiding party from Castile. The Castilians were soundly defeated.
The Siege of Aledo was one of the many battles in the conflict between the Almoravids and the Taifa kingdoms on one side, and the Kingdom of Castile on the other, in the Andalusian region.
The Siege of Almeria was a successful attempt by the Almohads to capture the city of Almeria from the Christians in 1157, who had captured the city a decade ago. The Almohads expelled the Leonese and Genoese garrison and repelled a Castilian attempt to relieve it.
The Capture of Aceca was a military engagement between the Almoravids and the Castilians at the fort of Aceca, northwest of Toledo. The Almoravids were victorious.
The Siege of Valencia (1092-1094) or El Cid's conquest of Valencia was fought between the Kingdom of Castile and the Taifa of Valencia. The Castilian victory established the Lordship of Valencia.
