the palace and said, “O Manṣūr! Shall people rejoice while I must weep? My son is a prisoner in the land of the Byzantines.”
Al-Manṣūr at once wheeled his mount around and ordered the army to march against the district where her son was being held. On another occasion one of his own sons disobeyed him, fled, and sought asylum with the king of Samūrah. Al-Manṣūr advanced on the city, laid siege to it, and swore that he would not depart without the boy. They handed him over; he ordered him executed, and the sentence was carried out near Samūrah.
Among the proofs of al-Manṣūr’s manly courage is that he was once surrounded in the city of Futta. He hurled himself from the top of its mountain, reached his camp, and was left with both feet badly crushed⦗1⦘, unable to ride. A litter was therefore fashioned for him and set upon a mule, and in it he took part in seven campaigns while he was little more than a lump of flesh. Consider, then, this lofty resolve and extraordinary bravery.
His death marked the end of order and the beginning of corruption in al-Andalus, for his policies, though beneficial in the short term, proved disastrous in the end. Before his rule, each Arab tribe dwelt in its own territory; when war arose, the caliphs would assign every tribe a fixed quota, and they would march out. When al-Manṣūr seized power he brought twenty thousand men of the Ṣanhāja and Nafza Berber tribes into al-Andalus, scattered the Arabs from their lands, and diminished their standing, thereby securing authority for himself, being of no royal lineage. He killed a number of the Umayyads, kept close watch over al-Muʾayyad, and forbade him to meet anyone, though he might display him on festival days for formal greetings.
When al-Manṣūr and his son al-Muẓaffar Abū Marwān died, the fabric of order unraveled, corruption set in, and the populace suffered. Shanshul then rose, transgressed, and committed great outrages, while al-Muʾayyad biʾllah remained under strict confinement. Shanshul sent agents to frighten and threaten him, declaring that he would kill him unless he transferred the succession to him. He then summoned the judges and leading notables to present themselves at the palace of al-Zahrāʾ,