This is the English translation of «الدين المفتري عليه» (The Slandered Religion), Part 4 of 10.

Chapter Three: The Fragmentation — Petty States and the Taifa Kings (الفصل الثالث: التشرذم — دويلات وملوك الطوائف)

Three Caliphs at Once

Picture the scene: a day in the year 317 AH / 17 January 929 CE, in Cordoba’s majestic palace. Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir — grandson of Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil, the mightiest king of al-Andalus — enters the throne hall; chamberlains, ministers, and judges stand in rows, and the decision that shook the Islamic world is announced: al-Nasir is no longer merely “amir,” but has become “Commander of the Faithful,” caliph of the Muslims! The new title is engraved on the coinage, and supplicated for on the pulpits from al-Andalus to the Maghreb.

But wait… did the Muslims not already have a caliph? Indeed — two! In Baghdad sits al-Muqtadir the Abbasid on a throne inherited from his forefathers, bearing the title “Commander of the Faithful” and “Successor of the Messenger of God.” And in al-Mahdiyya in the Maghreb sits Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi, founder of the Fatimid state, bearing the same title — adding to it that he is the “Infallible Imam” who does not err! Three men in three capitals, each claiming to be “God’s caliph on earth,” excommunicating one another, mustering armies to war against their brothers in religion.

What mockery is this?! The religion that came to unite the nation under one banner now produces “caliphates” as factories produce goods: every aspirant raises Islam’s banner, each claims he alone is God’s legitimate representative on earth, and each sees in his brother an apostate or rebel to be fought! Was al-Nasir wrong when he declared the caliphate? Or was the Fatimid al-Mahdi the wrong one? Or al-Muqtadir the Abbasid sitting in Baghdad? The real question is not “which of them was the legitimate caliph?” but: how did a spiritual religious office turn into a title kings fight over as they fight over cities and fortresses?

The Fatimids: Infallibility in the Throne’s Service

The story began two decades before Cordoba. In the year 297 AH / 909 CE, Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi appeared in the Maghreb and announced a new state: the Fatimid state. But what was new here was not a state alone, but a complete political doctrine: the ruler is not merely a king ruling in religion’s name, but the “Infallible Imam” — a man who does not err, whose word is obeyed with absolute obedience, and opposing him is unbelief in God!

Contemplate the danger of this formula: when the ruler is infallible, no opposition to his rule is even conceivable — for the infallible does not err, and whoever holds him accountable holds God accountable! Thus religion — in its Fatimid form — became the ideal weapon for absolute despotism: the throne protected by an unquestionable sanctity, the people required to give blind obedience, not accountability.

And the Abbasids’ response in Baghdad to this challenge was laughable: instead of meeting an idea with an idea, they met sanctity with counter-sanctity. The Abbasid caliphs hardened in the Sunni creed, persecuted the Shi’a, and issued statements excommunicating the Fatimids and impugning their lineage. The political struggle for power turned into a sectarian war: each state legitimizing its existence with a doctrine, and invalidating its rival’s legitimacy with a counter-doctrine.

As for Baghdad itself, the irony was greatest: the “Sunni” Abbasid caliph had become a puppet in the hands of the Buyids — Persian Shi’a! — ruling Iraq and Persia in his name, taking from him the formal “investiture,” while he owned nothing of the affair. Picture the scene: a Shi’a Buyid prince enters upon the Sunni caliph, kisses the ground before him, takes from him the decree of appointment, then goes out to rule as he pleases — the caliph powerless even to object! A weak Sunni caliph granting legitimacy to strong Shi’a rulers… Is this not the complete picture of mixing religion with power? Religion here was no longer religion, but a rubber stamp printed on any existing authority, whatever its creed! And the funny — or tearful — thing is that the Buyids themselves needed this stamp: their rule — in people’s eyes — was “deficient in legitimacy” unless the caliph blessed it! Even the strongest usurper needs a religious paper to cover his usurpation!

Cordoba’s Glory… Then the Fall

And let us return to Cordoba, for in its story is a complete lesson. When Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir declared the caliphate in the year 317 AH / 929 CE, it was no arbitrary decision: the Fatimids were expanding in the Maghreb and threatening al-Andalus, and — in that age’s logic — a title matching theirs was unavoidable. Thus the Cordoban caliphate was born, and al-Andalus reached in al-Nasir’s reign and his son al-Hakam al-Mustansir’s the peak of its glory: Cordoba the greatest city of Europe, its libraries holding hundreds of thousands of volumes, its scholars translating and authoring, and the palace of Madinat al-Zahra — which al-Nasir built outside Cordoba — a marvel of architecture and splendor, visited by ambassadors from Constantinople and Rome.

But ask yourself: what remained of all this glory? A caliphate founded on one strong man — not on an institution the people choose — dies with the death of strong men. And when the caliphs after him weakened, chamberlains and ministers seized power, then the “Fitna” exploded — a grinding civil war between Arabs, Berbers, and Slavs — and Cordoba turned from the caliphate’s capital into a battlefield where palaces were plundered and libraries burned. And in the year 422 AH / 1031 CE, the last Umayyad caliph in al-Andalus was deposed, and it was officially announced: the Cordoban caliphate is over.

One hundred years only! A single century between the caliphate’s declaration and its fall — between 317 and 422 AH. Does this not invite you to think? A state that reached the summit of civilization, learning, and building, then collapsed in two or three generations — because its legitimacy hung on one man and one title, not on institutions the people own and protect. When the man fell, everything fell with him — as though the state had never been a state, but a large estate in its owner’s name, to be inherited, divided, and lost!

The Taifa Kings: Religion as Fuel of Division

No sooner had the Cordoban caliphate fallen than al-Andalus shattered into more than twenty petty states — what history knows as the “taifa kings.” Each king ruling a city or two: Seville, Granada, Toledo, Zaragoza, Valencia… Each sitting on a small throne, styling himself with the caliphate’s great titles: al-Mu’tamid, al-Muqtadir, al-Mutawakkil, al-Mu’tadid! Titles once said of caliphs ruling the Islamic world, now said of whoever rules a single city!

And the bitter irony: these petty kings — who fought in religion’s and sect’s name — were paying the “parias”: huge annual tributes from Muslim money to the kings of Castile and León in the north, each buying the Christians’ protection against his Muslim neighbor! Picture it: a Muslim king paying tribute to a Christian king, to protect his throne from his Muslim brother! Where is religion here? Where is Islamic brotherhood? Religion had become mere fuel for division: each faction raising its banner to justify its war on the other, while the treasuries were emptied into the enemies’ pockets.

And the logical result: in the year 478 AH / 1085 CE, Toledo fell — among the greatest and most venerable cities of al-Andalus — into the hands of Alfonso VI, king of Castile and León, without the taifa kings lifting a finger to rescue it. Each was busy with his petty throne, each thinking the tribute would protect him. Did it protect him? No — it encouraged the enemy to want more; for whoever feeds the wolf to protect his sheep only teaches him the way to the pen!

And ask: what would these kings have done with the tribute money had they spent it on armies instead of paying it to the enemy? And what if twenty petty states had united in one state the people choose? But “if” does not make history — what made it was the logic of petty thrones: each king prefers to be king of a subject city than a citizen in a great free state! Selfishness sanctified by religion — this is the sum of the taifa age.

Al-Mu’tamid ibn Abbad: “Herding Camels Is Better Than Herding Pigs”

And at the heart of this tragedy stands a man worth pausing over at length: al-Mu’tamid ibn Abbad, king of Seville, the most poetic and wittiest of the taifa kings — a poet sitting on a throne, loving literature and song, ruling the largest and richest of the taifa states. But poetry does not protect cities, and the wealth he spent on palaces and مجالس was also paid as tributes to Alfonso VI.

And after Toledo’s fall, al-Mu’tamid — and with him the people of al-Andalus — realized the danger had become existential: either union or annihilation. So he and thirteen princes of al-Andalus wrote a plea across the sea: to Yusuf ibn Tashfin, prince of the Almoravids in the Maghreb, the man famed for asceticism, jihad, and justice.

And here a dialogue immortalized by history took place in al-Mu’tamid’s مجلس. Some of his aides reproached him for summoning the Almoravids, with their famous words: “Kingship is sterile, and two swords do not gather in one sheath” — meaning Ibn Tashfin would not come to save your throne then leave, but would take kingship for himself! Al-Mu’tamid answered them with his words that became a proverb in history: “By God, I prefer herding the camels of the sultan of Marrakesh to becoming a follower of the Christian king and paying him tribute — herding camels is better than herding pigs!”

Indeed, his son al-Rashid objected, saying: “Father, will you bring into our al-Andalus one who will strip us of our kingship and scatter our unity?” Al-Mu’tamid answered him: “My son, by God, it shall never be heard of me that I returned al-Andalus to a land of unbelief, or left it to the Christians, so that the curse rises against me on Islam’s pulpits as it rose against others.”

Does this moment not deserve contemplation? A man who knows he is summoning the one who will depose him from his throne, and does it by choice — because the alternative — in his view — is worse: that al-Andalus fall into Christian hands and history curse him. Al-Mu’tamid here — for all his luxury and extravagance — understood what many kings did not: that the petty throne is worthless if the whole nation is lost.

And Yusuf ibn Tashfin crossed the sea with the Almoravid army, and the two hosts met on the plain of al-Zallaqah on Friday, 12 Rajab 479 AH / 23 October 1086 CE. And a battle raged among the greatest of Islamic history’s battles, ending in a crushing Muslim victory and a shameful defeat for Alfonso VI, who escaped wounded with a handful of his men. The Castilian advance halted, and al-Andalus’s fall was postponed more than two centuries.

But the story did not end here — it turned against al-Mu’tamid himself. Ibn Tashfin saw what the taifa kings were upon: division and bickering, turning away from jihad, returning to secret alliance with Alfonso; so he sought the jurists’ opinion — headed by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and Abu Bakr al-Turtushi — and they ruled that deposing them was obligatory to protect religion. So Ibn Tashfin crossed for the third time in the year 483 AH / 1090 CE, deposed the taifa kings one by one, and al-Mu’tamid was taken captive to Aghmat in the Maghreb, where he lived the rest of his life poor and fettered, dying in the year 488 AH — and it is reported that at his funeral it was called: “Prayer over the stranger”!

Contemplate the irony: the man who summoned al-Andalus’s savior died exiled at the hand of the one he summoned. And the lesson? The taifa kings did not fall because Ibn Tashfin was unjust, but because they themselves dug their graves: by division they paid tributes, by tributes they strengthened the enemy, and by allying with the enemy they gave the jurists the argument to depose them. Whoever digs a pit for his brother falls into it — even if the digger is a king and the fallen a king, even if the pit was dug by the hands of seeking the enemy’s aid!

Ibn Tashfin: The Savior Who Refused the Caliph’s Title

And here — at the heart of this tragedy — emerges a scene deserving long contemplation, for it sums up this book’s entire thesis. After the victory of al-Zallaqah, Yusuf ibn Tashfin’s stature grew; his tribe’s followers and his state’s notables gathered to him and said: you are “God’s caliph on earth,” and your right is greater than to be called prince — rather we call you “Commander of the Faithful”! The sacred title was on a golden platter: take the caliphate, for you are the savior, and you are the strongest!

So what did Ibn Tashfin do? He refused! He said — as the author of al-Hulal al-Mawshiyya reports: “God forbid that we be called by this name! It is only borne by the Abbasid caliphs, for they are of that noble lineage, and because they are the kings of the Two Sanctuaries, Mecca and Medina — and I am their man, upholding their call!” They insisted, and he accepted a lesser title: “Commander of the Muslims” and “Defender of Religion.”

Stop at this moment: a man at the peak of his power, all doors opening to him — refusing the caliph’s title! Why? Because — by his sound instinct — he grasped what the three “caliphs” had not: that the sacred title is not what makes legitimacy. He went further: he sent to the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadi in Baghdad asking him for the “investiture” — to invest him with the lands in his hand — and al-Muqtadi sent him the robes of honor and banners, titling him “Commander of the Muslims,” and Ibn Tashfin rejoiced at it greatly!

Do you not see the irony? The true savior — who saved al-Andalus from falling — did not claim the caliphate, but sought legitimacy from one weaker than him! While the taifa kings — ruling no more than a city or two — styled themselves with the caliphs’ titles! The lesson is plain: true power needs no sacred titles, and sacred titles make no true power. So what makes legitimacy, then? This is the question that will haunt us until the end of this book.

The Sect as a Political Tool

And in the east, the scene was the same in different garb. The sectarian split — Sunni/Shi’a — was used as a tool in the power struggle, nothing more: the Fatimids legitimizing their state by the Imamate and infallibility, so that rebelling against the ruler became rebelling against religion itself. And the Abbasids answering with Sunni hardening and the persecution of the Shi’a, so that loyalty to the sect became loyalty to the caliph. And the Shi’a Buyids ruling Iraq and Persia in the name of a weak Sunni caliph who owned nothing of his affair!

Stop a moment and ask: was the Sunni-Shi’a dispute in those centuries a jurisprudential dispute over the rulings of prayer and fasting? Or had it become a political identity upon which states are built and wars waged? The answer is plain: the sect turned from a jurisprudential effort — in which the striving scholar errs and is rewarded — into a political banner raised in the rival’s face. People came to be killed not because they erred in understanding a text, but because they were born into the “wrong” sect!

And this is the bitter fruit of mixing religion with power: when religion becomes the throne’s cover, religious difference becomes a political crime, killing in the sect’s name becomes “jihad,” and civil wars become “support for religion.” The religion that came as a mercy to the worlds turned — at the hands of throne-seekers — into fuel for civil wars.

The Price: Foreign Invasion

And the inevitable result of fragmentation: a nation busy with its internal wars became easy prey for every coveter. For when the Crusades began in the year 490 AH / 1096 CE, they did not find before them “one Islamic nation,” but warring petty states, some of which sought the Crusaders’ aid against others — exactly as the taifa kings had sought Castile!

Picture the scene of Jerusalem’s fall in the year 492 AH / 1099 CE: the Crusaders storming the Holy City — the first of the two qiblas and third of the sanctuaries — slaughtering its people in the streets and mosques, while the Muslim princes of Syria watched, each guarding his petty city, some of whom had allied with the Crusaders against their Muslim neighbor! Jerusalem did not fall because the Crusaders were stronger — but because the Muslims were scattered, each busy with his throne.

And ask yourself a painful question: how much Muslim blood was spilled in those centuries by Muslim hands themselves, more than the enemies spilled? The taifa kings warring with one another, the princes of Syria conspiring against one another, the Fatimids and Abbasids trading excommunication — then the enemy comes from outside and finds open doors and feuding hearts! Is this not the inevitable price of mixing religion with power? When religion becomes the cover of multiple thrones, the nation becomes feuding flocks awaiting the wolf.

But history — just in its cruelty — also presented the counter-proof: when the Muslims united, they won. In the middle of the sixth century AH, Nur al-Din Zangi began the unification project from Aleppo and Damascus: he did not raise the slogan of “the caliphate” nor claim infallibility, but gathered Syria under one banner by politics and jihad. Then his student Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi completed the path: he united Egypt and Syria, and in 583 AH / 1187 CE crushed the Crusader army at Hattin, then recovered Jerusalem after some 88 years of Crusader occupation.

So what is the lesson? Salah al-Din was no “caliph,” claimed no infallibility, and ruled by no “divine right.” He was a sultan who united the word and faced the enemy, and won. Victory was not made by a religious title, but by unity — unity founded on a unifying political project, not on a claimed sanctity. Does this not prove that what the nation needs is not a new “caliph,” but a system that unites its word and holds its rulers accountable? And when we say “a system,” we do not speak of another genius individual awaiting his appearance — for individual genius is rare and fleeting — but of enduring institutions that make unity and accountability the rule, not the exception.

The Conclusion

Fragmentation is the third chapter of the deviation: when religion became the throne’s cover, thrones multiplied and with them the “caliphates” multiplied — Abbasid, Fatimid, and Umayyad — and religion turned from a bond uniting the nation into banners fighting one another. The taifa kings paid tribute to their enemies to war against their brothers, the Fatimids made the ruler infallible so he could never be removed, the Abbasids answered with sectarian excommunication — and the result: a Jerusalem fallen, an al-Andalus eroded, a nation become every invader’s booty.

And the lesson these centuries repeat: the nation is not united by religious slogans, nor by sacred titles, nor by claimed infallibility — it is united by a just system the people choose and whose rulers they hold accountable, whatever their names and titles. For the eternal principle — that the nation chooses its ruler, holds him accountable, and removes him — is alone what prevents fragmentation; the mechanism is made by each age: it was the pledge and shura in the Companions’ age, and it is the constitution, parliament, and elections in our age — the principle one, the mechanism renewed.

And ask yourself finally: had the Muslims in those centuries possessed a system by which they chose their rulers and removed them — instead of aspirants fighting over “the caliphate” — would al-Andalus have shattered into twenty petty states? Would the Fatimid have needed to claim infallibility? Would the Buyid have needed a puppet caliph? Fragmentation was no fate — it was the logical result of a system that made legitimacy a gift from heaven to be usurped, instead of making it the nation’s right to be exercised.

But the story is not over yet. For while the Muslims were tending Jerusalem’s wounds and recovering it, in the far east a storm was gathering: hordes knowing no mercy, led by the grandsons of Genghis Khan, creeping westward… city by city, until they stood at the gates of Baghdad itself, capital of the Abbasid caliphate five centuries old. So what happened when the Mongols knocked on Baghdad’s doors? And what did “God’s caliph on earth” do when Hulagu stood at his palace’s threshold? That is what we shall see in the next chapter.