Abū Yūsuf—Yaʿqūb, son of Sultan Yūsuf, son of Sultan ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn ʿAlī al-Qaysī, al-Kūmī, the Maghribī, the Marrakeshi, the Ẓāhirī. His mother was a Byzantine bond-woman named Sahr (1).

They invested him with authority in 580 AH, on the very day his father died; at the time he was thirty-two years old.

He was tall of stature, brown-skinned yet clear-complexioned, handsome of face, large-eyed, wide-mouthed, aquiline-nosed, dark-lashed, stout, round-bearded, deep-voiced, forceful in diction, truthful in speech; a consummate horseman, brave, sharp of insight, experienced in affairs, well-suited to leadership—one who combined piety, virtue, godliness, and dignity.

He had served as vizier to his father, gaining familiarity with both prosperity and adversity and uncovering the inner workings of the state bureaus.

His own viziers were ʿUmar ibn Abī Zayd; then Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd Allah, son of Shaykh ʿUmar Intī; then that man’s cousin Muḥammad, who later embraced asceticism and withdrew from public life; and finally Abū Zayd al-Hantānī (2), who afterward became vizier to his son.

In charge of the chancellery were Ibn Maḥshuwa (3), followed by the man of letters Ibn ʿAyyāsh (4).