etymologies and etiologies 29
in the succession crisis following the death of al- Ḥakam II led to a civil
war ( fitna), the bloody sack of Cordoba — which had actively resisted the
Berber candidate — in 1013 , and ultimately, the downfall of the Umayyad
Caliphate in al- Andalus.
It is worth underscoring, again, that Ibn Khaldūn’s version of these
events is refracted through the prism of the politics of fourteenth- century
North Africa, a period and region with a strong identification with the
Berber past. And in this sense, as M’hammad Benaboud and Ahmad Ta-
hiri have warned, his clear distinctions between Andalusīs and Berbers as
well as the seeming solidity of tribes should be approached with caution.^78
All the same, two broad conclusions can be drawn from this material. First,
a large and influential contingent of Zanāta soldiers settled permanently
on the Christian- Islamic frontier in Iberia in the tenth century, more than
two centuries before the chancery registers of the Crown of Aragon be-
gan. Second, the Umayyad- Zanāta history also reveals a mutually coercive
dynamic — between royal court and warrior — that would echo throughout
the history of the jenets in Islamic and Christian lands.
Zanāta Kingdoms
Ibn Khaldūn’s first period of Zanāta ascendency ended with the rise of the
Almoravids (al- Murābiṭūn) in the eleventh century, backed by Ṣanhāja
Berbers, and subsequently the Almohads in the twelfth century, supported
by Maṣmūda Berbers.^79 During the periods of Almoravid and Almohad
rule in North Africa and al-Andalus, the Zanāta tribes found themselves
widely dispersed: some, like the Maghrāwa, who had dominated the first
period, were entirely destroyed; others submitted to the new powers; and
yet others declared short- lived independence on the frontiers.^80 Accord-
ing to Ibn Khaldūn, the old Zanāta tribes showed little desire or ability
to rise above this condition: “They are, up to this day, a people taxed
and besieged by states.”^81 Only with the collapse of the Almohad power,
Ibn Khaldūn explains, did a new set of Zanāta tribes — the Marīnids and
‘Abd al- Wādids — a “second wave (al- ṭabaqa al- thāniyya),” untouched by
luxury, seize the opportunity to build new states:
[The Zanāta] remained in that land [the desert], wrapped in clothes of pride
(mushtamilīn lubūs al- ‘izz) and ceaseless disdain (mustamirrīn li’l- anafa [sic]) for
others. The majority of their earnings were from livestock (an‘ām wa’l- māshiya),