Banu Ghaniya

The Banu Ghaniya were a Massufa Sanhaja Berber dynasty and a branch of the Almoravids. Their first leader, Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf, a son of Ali ibn Yusuf al-Massufi and the Almoravid Princess Ghaniya, was appointed as governor of the Balearic Islands in 1126. Following the collapse of the Almoravid power at the hand of the Almohads in the 1140s, the Banu Ghaniya continued to govern the Balearic Islands as independent emirs until about 1203, with a brief interruption in the 1180s. Later leaders (Ali ibn Ishaq and Yahya) made a determined attempt to reconquer the Maghreb (and in particular Ifriqiya), taking Bougie, Constantine and Algiers, and conquering most of modern Tunisia from about 1180 onwards.

They were influential in the downfall of the Almohad Empire in Eastern Maghrib. In Tunisia Ali ibn Ishaq adhered to the Abbasid Caliphate and was formally appointed by Al-Mustadi with the title of "heir of the Almoravids".

Emirs

Genealogy of the Banu Ghaniya

• Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf 1126–1165 (deposed)
• Ishaq ibn Muhammad (son) 1165–1183
• Muhammad ibn Ishaq (son) 1183–1184
• To Almohad 1184
• Ali ibn Ishaq (known as Ali ibn Ghaniya) 1184–1188, emir (by conquest) of Bougie (1185–1186) Algiers (1186) and Gafsa (1186–1187), warlord in Tunis 1187–1188
  • Tashfin ibn Ishaq, emir of Majorca (in opposition to 'Ali) 1185–1187
  • 'Abdallah ibn Ishaq (known as 'Abdallah ibn Ghaniya), emir of Majorca 1187–1203
• Yahya ibn Ishaq (known as Yahya ibn Ghaniya) 1188–1202/1203 warlord in Tunis 1188–1212

Bibliography

• Abun-Nasr, Jamil M. (1987). A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-33184-5.
• Baadj, Amar S. (2015). Saladin, the Almohads and the Banu Ghaniya. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-29620-6.
• Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1996). The New Islamic Dynasties. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-10714-3. Retrieved 30 March 2021.
• Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (2004). The New Islamic Dynasties: A Chronological and Genealogical Manual. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-2137-8.
• Ki-Zerbo, Joseph; Tamsir Niane, Djibril (1997). Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-85255-094-6.