Raid of Seville

Raid of Seville
Part of the Portuguese Reconquista
Date Late 1225 Location Seville, Almohad Caliphate Result Portuguese victory
Belligerents
Kingdom of Portugal	Almohad Caliphate
Commanders and leaders
Sancho II of Portugal	Abdallah al-Adil Abu Zayd b. Yujjan
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Very heavy; According to one report, 20.000 people were massacred [1]

The Portuguese raidof Seville took place in late 1225, when a Portuguese military contingent inflicted a bruising defeat on the Almohads forces and then proceeded to pillage the outskirts of Seville and massacre its population. ^{[2] [3]}

This raid, among many other Christian incursions into Almohad territory, had started to worry the Andalusi population, who now saw the Almohads as incompetent and unable to defend their territory. This particular quote by Al-Shaqundi, although talking specifically about this Portuguese raid, clearly demonstrates fear and vunerability of the Muslims to the Christians: ^[4]

"The Portuguese had come to raid this region and had pillaged and taken what they found. Al-Adil, the ruler of the Maghreb, was in Seville at the time with his wazir, Abü Zayd b. Yujjän, and the high officials and Almohad shaykhs. They had neither the money nor the means to resist the enemy: the power of the empire was then in decline and the luster of the dynasty tarnished. If a disaster afflicted one of its subjects, if his flocks were raided, he could not hope for any help or get any assistance."

Because of this and other internal problems, a wave of popular revolts in Al-Andalus ensued and the local population quickly deposed their Almohad governors. Local strongmen would take over and rule in their place. ^[5]

See also

• Moroccan-Portuguese conflicts
• Reconquista
• Triana raid of 1178

References

1. Kennedy, Hugh (1996) ''Muslim Spain and Portugal: A Political History of al-Andalus''. London: Addison-Wesley-Longman
2. Catlos, Brian A. (2018-05-01). Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain. Basic Books. ISBN   978-0-465-09316-8.
3. Catlos, Brian A. (2014-03-20). Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050–1614. Cambridge University Press. p. 55. ISBN   978-0-521-88939-1.
4. Elinson, Alexander (2009-02-15). Looking Back at al-Andalus: The Poetics of Loss and Nostalgia in Medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature. BRILL. p. 135. ISBN   978-90-474-4272-1.
5. Ph.D, Jeffrey M. Shaw; Demy, Timothy J. (2017-03-27). War and Religion: An Encyclopedia of Faith and Conflict [3 volumes]. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. ISBN   979-8-216-16317-6.