Year 1291 (MCCXCI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.
Year 1285 (MCCLXXXV) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.
The Battle of Río Salado also known as the Battle of Tarifa was a battle of the armies of King Afonso IV of Portugal and King Alfonso XI of Castile against those of Sultan Abu al-Hasan 'Ali of the Marinid dynasty and Yusuf I of Granada.
Abu Al-Hasan 'Ali ibn 'Othman, was a sultan of the Marinid dynasty who reigned in Morocco between 1331 and 1348. In 1333 he captured Gibraltar from the Castilians, although a later attempt to take Tarifa in 1339 ended in fiasco. In North Africa he extended his rule over Tlemcen and Hafsid Ifriqiya, which together covered the north of what is now Algeria and Tunisia. Under him the Marinid realms in the Maghreb briefly covered an area that rivalled that of the preceding Almohad Caliphate. However, he was forced to retreat due to a revolt of the Arab tribes, was shipwrecked, and lost many of his supporters. His son Abu Inan Faris seized power in Fez. Abu Al-Hasan died in exile in the High Atlas mountains.
Muhammad II was the second Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula, succeeding his father, Muhammad I. Already experienced in matters of state when he ascended the throne, he continued his father's policy of maintaining independence in the face of Granada's larger neighbours, the Christian kingdom of Castile and the Muslim Marinid state of Morocco, as well as an internal rebellion by his family's former allies, the Banu Ashqilula.
Abu al-Hajjaj Yusuf ibn Ismail, known by the regnal name al-Muayyad billah, was the seventh Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada on the Iberian Peninsula. The third son of Ismail I, he was Sultan between 1333 and 1354, after his brother Muhammad IV was assassinated.
Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ismail, known as Muhammad IV, was the ruler of the Emirate of Granada on the Iberian Peninsula from 1325 to 1333. He was the sixth sultan of the Nasrid dynasty, succeeding to the throne at ten years old when his father, Ismail I, was assassinated.
The Battle of Cape St Vincent of 1337 took place on 21 July 1337 between a Castilian fleet commanded by Alfonso Jofre Tenorio and a Portuguese fleet led by the Luso-Genoese admiral Emanuele Pessagno. The fledgling Portuguese fleet was defeated, bringing a quick end to the brief Luso-Castilian war that begun in 1336.
The siege of Algeciras was the first of many sieges of the city by Christian forces in the lengthy period of the Spanish Reconquista. The siege, ordered by King Alfonso X of Castile also known as "el Sabio", was a fruitless military campaign initiated by the Kingdom of Castile with the objective of removing the Benimerins from Algeciras. The siege on Algeciras, then known to the Muslims as Al-Jazira Al-Khadra, was strategically important because Algeciras had been at the time the main fortress and landing place for African reinforcement troops in the Iberian Peninsula. Castile, which had a powerful armada of ships anchored in the Bay of Gibraltar to blockade such reinforcement, had a few days previously to the siege, seen that fleet obliterated by the Muslim admiral, Abu Yusuf Yaqub at the Naval Battle of Algeciras.
The second siege of Gibraltar was an abortive attempt in 1316 by the forces of the Azafid Ceuta and the Nasrid Emirate of Granada to recapture Gibraltar, which had fallen to the forces of Ferdinand IV of Castile in 1309.
The history of Moorish Gibraltar began with the landing of the Muslims in Hispania and the fall of the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo in 711 and ended with the fall of Gibraltar to Christian hands 751 years later, in 1462, with an interregnum during the early 14th century.
The third siege of Gibraltar was mounted between February–June 1333 by a Moorish army under the prince Abd al-Malik Abd al-Wahid of Morocco. The fortified town of Gibraltar had been held by Castile since 1309, when it had been seized from the Moorish Emirate of Granada. The attack on Gibraltar was ordered by the recently crowned Marinid ruler Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman in response to an appeal by the Nasrid ruler Muhammed IV of Granada. The onset of the siege took the Castilians by surprise. The stocks of food in Gibraltar were heavily depleted at the time due to the thievery of the town's governor, Vasco Perez de Meira, who had looted the money that was meant to have been spent on food for the garrison and to pay for the upkeep of the castle and fortifications. After over four months of siege and bombardment by Moorish catapults, the garrison and townspeople were reduced to near-starvation and surrendered to Abd al-Malik.
The fourth siege of Gibraltar, fought from June until August 1333, pitted a Christian army under King Alfonso XI of Castile against a large Moorish army led by Muhammed IV of Granada and Abd al-Malik Abd al-Wahid of Fes. It followed on immediately from the third siege of Gibraltar, fought earlier in 1333. The siege began inauspiciously with a disastrous landing by Castilian forces on the west side of Gibraltar, before developing into a stalemate in which neither side had the strength to capture Gibraltar, nor to break out or lift the siege. Both sides faced acute shortages of food – the Gibraltar garrison was cut off from resupply, while the Castilians, deep within enemy territory, could only be resupplied via an unreliable sea route. After two months of inconclusive siege warfare, the Castilians and Moors reached a truce agreement that allowed both sides to make an honourable exit from the siege. Although the Moors managed to keep Gibraltar, the truce cost Muhammed IV his life when he was assassinated by disgruntled nobles the day after signing it.
Abu Malik Abd al-Wahid was a son of the Marinid sultan of Morocco, Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Othman. Although he had lost an eye, Malik was a capable military commander and served as governor of Algeciras and the Marinids' principal general in Al Andalus. He captured Gibraltar from Castile in June 1333 and participated in his father's campaign against rebels in the Kingdom of Tlemcen the following year. He was killed by Castilian forces in 1339 after being ambushed on the way back from a raid against the Castilian-held town of Jerez de la Frontera.
The fifth siege of Gibraltar, mounted between August 1349 and March 1350, was a second attempt by King Alfonso XI of Castile to retake the fortified town of Gibraltar. It had been held by the Moors since 1333. The siege followed years of intermittent conflict between the Christian kingdoms of Spain and the Moorish Emirate of Granada, which was supported by the Marinid sultanate of Morocco. A series of Moorish defeats and reverses had left Gibraltar as a Moorish-held enclave within Castilian territory. Its geographical isolation was compensated for by the strength of its fortifications, which had been greatly improved since 1333. Alfonso brought an army of around 20,000 men, along with his mistress and their five illegitimate children, to dig in to the north of Gibraltar for a lengthy siege. In the New Year of 1350, however, bubonic plague – the Black Death – broke out in the Castilian camp. Alfonso refused to abandon the siege but fell victim to the plague on 27 March 1350, becoming the only monarch to die of the disease.
The sixth siege of Gibraltar in 1411 was the only occasion on which control of Gibraltar was contested between two Islamic powers. After the failed fifth siege of Gibraltar in 1349–50, which ended with the death of King Alfonso XI of Castile from bubonic plague, the Kingdom of Castile was preoccupied with the Castilian Civil War and its aftermath. In 1369, Sultan Muhammed V of Granada took advantage of the Castilians' distractions and in the siege of Algeciras (1369) he seized the city of Algeciras, on the west side of the Bay of Gibraltar, which Alfonso XI had captured in 1344. After razing it to the ground he made peace with Henry II, the winner of the civil war. The truce was renewed by Henry's successors John I and Henry III. At some point during the truces, control of Gibraltar was transferred from the Marinid dynasty of Morocco, which had held it since 1333, to the Granadans. It is not clear why this happened; it may have been as a condition of the Granadans assisting the Marinids against rebels in Morocco.
The siege of Algeciras (1342–1344) was undertaken during the Reconquest of Spain by the Castillian forces of Alfonso XI assisted by the fleets of the Kingdom of Aragon and the Republic of Genoa. The objective was to capture the Muslim city of Al-Jazeera Al-Khadra, called Algeciras by Christians. The city was the capital and the main port of the European territory of the Marinid Empire.
The Battle of the Strait was a military conflict contesting the ports in the Straits of Gibraltar taking place in the late thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth. The conflict involves principally the Spanish Muslim Emirate of Granada, the Spanish Christian Crown of Castile and the North African Muslim Marinid state. The ports' strategic value came from their position linking Spain and North Africa, thus connecting Muslims in Spain with the rest of the Islamic world. The campaign had mixed results. Castile gained Tarifa permanently, and managed to take Gibraltar and Algeciras but both would revert to Muslim rule. Castile also failed to gain any port in the African side of the strait.
Alfonso Jofré Tenorio was the Admiral of Castile from 1314 until his death. He participated in a war against the Emirate of Granada in 1316, and led a blockade in 1326 during which he defeated the Granadan-Marinid fleet. In 1333 he participated in the defense of Gibraltar against a Marinid-Granadan siege, but Castile was defeated and he signed a 1334 treaty that formalised the cession of the town. He died in a naval battle against the Marinid fleet of Abu al-Hasan Ali on the Strait of Gibraltar.
The Battle of Ceuta (1339) was one of the battles of the Battle of the Strait.
Sultanate of Morocco 
Kingdom of Castile