Abbad II Al-Mu'tadid (ruled 1042–1069)
Abbad II al-Mu'tadid (1042–1069), the son and successor of al-Qasim, became one of the most remarkable figures in Iberian Muslim history. He had a striking resemblance to the Italian princes of the later Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, of the stamp of Filippo Maria Visconti.
Abbad wrote poetry and loved literature; he also appears as a poisoner, a drinker of wine, a sceptic, and a man treacherous to the utmost degree. Though he waged war all through his reign, he himself very rarely appeared in the field, but directed the generals, whom he never trusted, from his "lair" in the fortified palace, the Alcázar of Seville. He killed with his own hand one of his sons who had rebelled against him. On one occasion, he trapped a number of his enemies, the Berber chiefs of the Ronda, into visiting him, and got rid of them by smothering them in the hot room of a bath.
He habitually preserved the skulls of the enemies he had killed—those of the meaner men to use as flower-pots, while those of the princes he kept in special chests. He devoted his reign mainly to extending his power at the expense of his smaller neighbours, and in conflicts with his chief rival the king of Granada. These incessant wars weakened the Muslims, to the great advantage of the rising power of the Christian kings of León and Castile, but they gave the kingdom of Seville a certain superiority over the other little states. After 1063 Fernando El Magno of Castile and León assailed him, marched to the gates of Seville, and forced him to pay tribute.
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