fine wool (1), fasted on Mondays and Thursdays, and divided the fayʾ (state revenues) according to the Sacred Law, so the people loved him.

ʿAzīz says in his book al-Jamʿ: “ʿAbd al-Muʾmin would exact what was rightfully due even if it fell upon his own son, and he allowed no unbeliever to remain in his realm—neither Jew nor Christian—so that all of his subjects were Muslims.”

ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn ʿAlī (2) relates: “His first vizier was ʿUmar Artāj (3), whom he later removed, appointing in his stead Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn ʿAṭiyya the secretary. When he captured Bijāya he recruited from its people Abū al-Qāsim al-Qālimī as chief scribe. In 553 AH he put Ibn ʿAṭiyya to death, seized his wealth, and installed ʿAbd al-Salām al-Kūmī as vizier. He killed the latter in 557 AH and appointed his son ʿUmar in his place. He assigned the judiciary first to Ibn Jabal al-Wahrānī, then to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Mālaqī. He captured Yaḥyā al-Ṣanhājī, lord of Bijāya—he and his forefathers were among the last deputies of the Banu ʿUbayd, the Rāfiḍī usurpers—but afterwards treated Yaḥyā generously and made him one of his commanders. ʿAbd al-Muʾmin favored the scholars, loved them, and lavished gifts upon them. The Maṣāmidah came to be called the Muwaḥḥidūn (Unitarians) because the Mahdī had trained them in matters of creed and kalām (dialectical theology) (4).

ʿAbd al-Muʾmin was dignified, solemn, possessed of perfect nobility, generous, high-minded, and eminently suited to rule. Meanwhile the situation in al-Andalus deteriorated: the Almoravids grew lax and preferred ease; the Franks grew bold against them; each commander entrenched himself in his own city, and unrest broke out against them