The Mercenary Mediterranean_ Sovereignty, Religion, and Violence in the Medieval Crown of Aragon - Hussein Fancy

124 chapter six

convinced the sultan to arrest the last known commander of the Ghuzāh

and take direct control of these soldiers himself. With this act, the Ghuzāh

ceased to be an independent institution. According to Ibn Khaldūn,

the remaining Marīnid princes in Granada held only an honorific role

at court.^36 And in that same year, underscoring his shift away from de-

pendence on North African military support, Muḥammad captured the

fortress at Algeciras and dismantled its massive fortifications, an endur-

ing symbol of Marīnid influence in Granada.^37 The suppression of the

Ghuzāh, however, did not end the trade in soldiers. In 1377 , Muḥammad

and King Pere III signed a bilingual truce, in which Granada promised to

continue to supply the Crown of Aragon with soldiers, referred to simply

as “knights” ( fursān/caballeros) rather than jenets, so long as they were

only used against mutual enemies.^38

As a whole and across their history, the Ghuzāh were riven by ten-

sions. They were caught between the motivations of the Marīnids and the

Naṣrids, motivations that occasionally aligned and occasionally ran con-

trary to one another. They were also divided by the ambitions of their

leaders, the members of the Banū Raḥḥū and the Banū Abī al- ‘Ulā, who

not only struggled among themselves for position at the Naṣrid court in

Granada but also harbored desires to return to power at the Marīnid court

in North Africa. Although Ibn Khaldūn made no mention of the fact that

the Ghuzāh sold their services to the Crown of Aragon, he did tell us that

these kinds of intra- Muslim tensions occasionally compelled leaders of

the Ghuzāh, like Idrīs b. ‘Uthmān b. Abī al- ‘Ulā, to seek refuge at the

Aragonese court.^39 Thus, he offered us one explanation and justification

for the presence of Ghuzāh elites in the lands of the Crown of Aragon.

These Marīnid princes were rebels (muradā’) against what they saw as

the unjust authority of the Marīnids or Naṣrids.^40 They understood their

service for the Aragonese king as a temporary measure as they struggled

to return to power. While a spirit of rebellion explains some cases, it does

not explain them all. The Crown of Aragon also recruited its jenets in

high- level and sweeping agreements with Granada and all of the king-

doms of North Africa.^41 From the beginning, these rulers permitted their

soldiers to fight for and live in a Christian kingdom. In other words, the

Marīnid Ghuzāh and the Aragonese jenets were sometimes an inversion

and at others an extension of one another. Given their ready willingness

not only to fight other Muslims but also to fight for Christians, in what

sense were the Ghuzāh really holy warriors, mujāhidūn? What did their

commitment to jihād mean?