and arranged several matters with him. Then turmoil broke out in al-Andalus in 483 AH: the Almoravids advanced, besieged a number of al-Muʿtamid’s fortresses, seized some of them, and in 484 AH killed his son al-Maʾmūn. The hostility became entrenched and the cauldrons of strife boiled over. They next laid the most relentless siege to Seville, and al-Muʿtamid displayed a valor and a longing for martyrdom the like of which had scarcely been heard.

In Rajab of that same year the Almoravids stormed the city, launched successive raids, the people poured out naked, and they captured al-Muʿtamid (1).

ʿAbd al-Wāḥid (2) said: “Al-Muʿtamid emerged from his palace wearing only a thin tunic (3), without mail or shield, sword in hand. A horseman hurled a spear at him that pierced the tunic; he struck the horseman and felled him (4), whereupon the Almoravids turned back.

“Later, at the time of ʿAṣr, the Berbers renewed the attack, gained the heights overlooking the city by way of its valley, and set it ablaze. The defense collapsed, and the tear outgrew the patch with the arrival of the column led by the sultan’s nephew. The Berbers left the townspeople nothing; al-Muʿtamid’s palaces were plundered, and he was forced to write to his two sons, ordering them to surrender their two castles—otherwise, he warned, ‘I shall be killed; my blood is the pledge for that.’ The two were al-Muʿtadd and al-Rāḍī, who were in Ronda and Martila. They came down under false guarantees of safety, but the Almoravids slew al-Muʿtadd and treacherously murdered al-Rāḍī.

“They then took al-Muʿtamid and his household to Tangiers after stripping them of their wealth, and he was confined in Aghmāt (5) for two years.”