Description
Book SynopsisWinner of the Wallace K. Ferguson PrizeWinner of the Dionisius A. Agius Book PrizeThe Wolf King explores how political power was conceptualized, constructed, and wielded in twelfth-century al-Andalus, focusing on the eventful reign of Muhammad ibn Sad ibn Ahmad ibn Mardanish (r. 11471172). Celebrated in Castilian and Latin sources as el rey lobo/rex lupus and denigrated by Almohad and later Arabic sources as irreligious and disloyal to fellow Muslims because he fought the Almohads and served as vassal to the Castilians, Ibn Mardanish ruled a kingdom that at its peak constituted nearly half of al-Andalus and served as an important buffer between the Almohads and the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. Through a close examination of contemporary sources across the region, Abigail Krasner Balbale shows that Ibn Mardanish's short-lived dynasty was actually an attempt to integrate al-Andalus more closely with the Islamic Eastparticularly the Abbasid caliphate. At stake in his battle
