The king who sent for an army to save him — and lost everything | WHO OWNS THE STRAIT? Part 2

History Onion · Part 2 The Invitation · 2:59

In 1085 Alfonso VI of Castile took Toledo. He had been bleeding the Muslim kings of southern Spain for years with heavy tribute — bankrupt them, then take their cities. To pay it, those kings taxed their own people beyond what Islamic law allowed. The richest of them, al-Mutamid the poet-king of Seville, could not bear being cursed from every pulpit as the man who handed al-Andalus to the infidels. So he sent to Morocco for an army. His son Rashid begged him not to: whoever came would not stop at helping, he warned — he would take Seville for himself. The Almoravids came. They broke Alfonso's army at Sagrajas. Then their commander Yusuf ibn Tashfin went to the jurists, collected rulings that the kings of al-Andalus governed unlawfully, obtained a letter from the caliph in Baghdad — and took Seville. Al-Mutamid died a prisoner at Aghmat in Morocco. His son had been right. And much of al-Andalus welcomed it, because the Almoravids cancelled the illegal taxes.