Almanzor

Origins and youth

Although there are doubts about the exact date of his birth, everything seems to indicate that it occurred around the year 939. He was born into an Arab landowning family of Yemeni origin, belonging to the al-Ma'afir tribe. They had been established since the conquest of Visigothic Iberia in Torrox, a farm by the mouth of the Guadiaro river, belonging to the cora (territorial subdivision) of al-Jazīrah (governed from al-Jazīrah al-Khaḍrāʾ الجزيرة الخضراء, the site of modern Algeciras). His family had received lands there from Tariq ibn Ziyad as reward to an ancestor, Abd al-Malik, who had distinguished itself in the taking of Carteia during the Umayyad conquest of Hispania.

Some of the family had served as Qadis and jurists. The family's position improved significantly with the appointment of ibn Abi ʿĀmir's paternal grandfather as Qadi of Seville and his marriage to the daughter of a vizier, governor of Badajoz and doctor to Caliph Abd al-Rahman III. ibn Abi ʿĀmir's father, Abd Allah, was described as a pious, kind and ascetic man, who died in Tripoli while returning from his pilgrimage to Mecca. His mother, Burayha, also belonged to an Arab family. Even so, the family was middle class, modest and provincial.

Ascent in the Caliphal Court

Though still very young, Ibn Abi ʿAmir moved to Córdoba, where he developed his studies in law and letters under the tutelage of his maternal uncle. This training was intended to facilitate entering the state administration, because the opportunities for advancement in the military were limited to Arabs. Like many other youth from wealthy families, he received training in interpretation of the Quran, prophetic tradition and application of Sharia, thus completing his education as a faqīh, with the intention of becoming a judge, and from this time he retained his taste for literature. Instructed by renowned masters of Islamic legal tradition and letters, he showed talent in these studies.

The death of his father and the bad family situation led him to abandon his studies and take the profession of scrivener. After occupying a modest position as a scribe along the alcázar and mosque of Córdoba – close to the offices of the Administration – to earn his livelihood, the youth soon stood out for his talent and ambition and he began his political career as a clerk in the audience chamber of the capital's chief Qadi, Muhammed ibn al-Salim, an important advisor to the Caliph Al-Hakam II despite the fact that his positions were exclusively religious and not political. Ibn Abi ʿĀmir soon caught the attention of Vizier Ja'far al-Mushafi, head of the civil administration, who would introduce him to caliphal court, probably on the recommendation of Ibn al-Salim. Already noted for his knowledge and professional competence, he began to accumulate positions in the Administration. Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, in his thirties, was one of the young functionaries who took part in a generational turnover of the court at the beginning of Al-Hakam's reign.

In late February of 967, he was given charge of Abd al-Rahman, son and heir of Al-Hakam II by his favorite, the Basque Subh (Aurora), a slave with very diverse training, from singing to Islamic jurisprudence to poetry, who owed her power to her ascendancy over the caliph as the mother of his children. With her, Ibn Abi ʿĀmir established a privileged relationship extremely beneficial for his career. Although his role was probably secondary, his responsibility managing the estates of the heir to the throne and those of his mother granted Ibn Abi ʿĀmir close proximity to the reigning family, and he quickly began to accumulate important positions. Seven months after his first appointment, and thanks to the intercession of the royal favorite, he became director of the mint, and in December 968, he was named treasurer of the vacant inheritances. The following year he was promoted to Qadi of Seville and Niebla, one of the most important in the state, and at the death of his charge Abd al-Rahman in 970, he was placed in the same role for the young heir, Hisham. By this time he had married the sister of the head of the caliphal guard, a client of the new heir, and began to accumulate wealth. A residence was built in al-Rusafa, near the former palace of Abd al-Rahman I, and he began to make sumptuous gifts to the Caliph's harem. He was accused of embezzlement and removed from his post as head of the mint in March 972, but was helped financially to cover the alleged embezzlement. He obtained a police command and he retained his responsibility for the heir and intestate estates.

Taking power

Elimination of pretenders and formation of triumvirate

The death of Caliph Al-Hakam II on 1 October 976 and the proclamation of his son Hisham as his successor inaugurated a new period in the political career of Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, and also represented a pivotal event in the history of the Caliphate, which thereafter was marked by his tenure and by the gradual withdrawal of the third Caliph. Al-Andalus went through a serious succession crisis at this time, because the designated successor, Hisham, born in 965, was too young to rule. He had been only eight or nine years old in 974 when his father first introduced him to the process of government, and was still a minor when his father died. This was an extraordinary situation because neither the emirate nor caliphate had previously been in the hands of a child. Some schools of Islamic jurisprudence rejected the possibility of a minor becoming Caliph, but the Umayyad Al-Andalus tradition had secured the inheritance from parent to child, while the case of Abd al-Rahman III set a precedent for primogeniture. Faced with this situation, and despite the efforts of Al-Hakam during the last years of his reign to ensure the succession of his son by associating him with the tasks of government, there was division on the succession. Some favored the appointment of a regent, the chamberlain al-Mushafi, while others preferred to give the caliphal title to one of the brothers of the deceased Caliph, the twenty-seven-year-old al-Mughira, who was the favorite younger son of Abd al-Rahman III.

Two prominent Eastern European slaves (saqaliba) occupying important court positions – one, the uncle of the new Caliph – who were present at Al-Hakam's death decided to take action before this division was more widely known. They moved to place al-Mughira on the throne, with the condition that he name his nephew Hisham as his heir, and to remove the chamberlain, al-Mushafi, thereby giving them ascendance at court over the faction supporting Hisham. The two, who would nonetheless occupy prominent places in the ceremony proclaiming Hisham once their plan was thwarted, had the support of the thousand saqalibas of the court and control of the palace guard. The chamberlain, who was the real center of political power after the death of al-Hakam and even in the last years of his reign, had pretended to support the conspirators, only to subvert them thanks to the support of Berber troops. He quickly broke up the plot with the help of Subh, and instructed Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, then a senior official and member of the court with privileged access to the young Caliph and his mother, to murder the pretender. The support of Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, the right hand of Subh, for the young caliph was crucial to his rise to power.

Ruin of al-Mushafi

While the alliance between Ibn Abi ʿĀmir and al-Mushafi had undermined the traditional power of the court slaves, relations between the two soon deteriorated. The Chamberlain's failure to address the loss of prestige due to the succession intrigue and Christian incursions that in 976 almost reached the capital allowed Ibn Abi ʿĀmir to gain control of army troops in the capital of the Caliphate after assuring Subh of his ability to restore that military prestige. Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, unlike the chamberlain, was inclined towards the military response to Christian incursions and was willing to command a retaliatory strike. Al-Mushafi, however, had advocated a defensive strategy, that, despite Cordoban military power, had conceded the territories north of the Guadiana to the Christian states. At the same time, and also thanks to the influence of Subh, Ghalib obtained the government of the Lower March and command of the border armies.

In February 977, Ibn Abi ʿĀmir left the capital for his first campaigning season in Salamanca, following the strategy of containment of the Christian states maintained during the previous reign. His appointment as warden – head of an army – of the capital's troops drew him into alliance with Ghalib – the warden of the border armies – and brought about the end of the triumvirate that the two had formed with al-Mushafi. In his first campaign, lasting nearly two months, he plundered the outskirts of the baths at Baños de Ledesma. and brought two thousand captured prisoners to Córdoba, but failed to take any fortresses. In autumn, he attacked Salamanca.

Ibn Abi ʿĀmir won military prestige by repulsing Christian forces and attacking Cuéllar during a second 977 campaign, and Salamanca in the autumn of the same year, not for conquest, but to weaken the enemy and gain domestic popularity. This new prestige allowed him to apply for the post of prefect of Córdoba, a role until then filled by a son of al-Mushafi. The new military reputation of Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, with the support of the harem and of Ghalib, allowed him to obtain the position without the chamberlain's consent. This led to open confrontation between Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, hitherto an apparent faithful and efficient servant of the chamberlain, and al-Mushafi. The latter owed his power to the support of the previous caliph, and lacked firm support, being considered an upstart by the leading families in Córdoba's governing administration. He tried to counter the alliance between the other two members of the triumvirate by marrying another of his sons to Ghalib's daughter, Asma. Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, who had won the favor of the cunning mother of the Caliph, of Ghalib, and of major families of the civil service, skillfully intervened, using the intercession of Subh and directly addressing Ghalib to encourage him to withdraw his initial approval and instead allow Ibn Abi ʿĀmir himself to wed Ghalib's daughter. The magnificent wedding was held in the spring of 978, eight months after the signing of the marriage contract sealed the alliance between Ghalib and Ibn Abi ʿĀmir and marked the decline of the power of the chamberlain. A few days after the wedding, Ghalib and Ibn Abi ʿĀmir left for a new campaign targeting Salamanca. Military successes increased the power of the two allies and further undermined the chamberlain at court. The two wardens received new titles as reward for their victories, and Ibn Abi ʿĀmir was named 'double vizier', for Interior and Defense, the two most important vizierships. Ghalib had been given the title of chamberlain at the end of 977 – an unprecedented situation as there had never been two chamberlains at the same time – depriving al-Mushafi of most of his duties, and al-Mushafi was subsequently dismissed and imprisoned. His relatives and supporters in positions of the Administration were arrested and his possessions confiscated. Ibn Abi ʿĀmir succeeded the defeated al-Mushafi as a second chamberlain for the Caliphate. The most important supporting positions were held by trusted people, in some cases family members. The elimination of the old chamberlain reduced the visibility of the Caliph, and Ibn Abi ʿĀmir gradually became the intermediary between his lord and the rest of the world. Aware that his power emanated from Hisham, Mansur was careful, however, to continue to maintain the appearance of the minor's sovereignty.

Showdown with Ghalib ibn Abd al-Rahman

Having crushed the opposition at court, the two co-leaders soon clashed. The old general resented prostrating before Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, who had devoted himself to strengthening his power and controlling access to the caliph. Ghalib believed the maneuvers of his ally, including the construction of his new palatial residence, the reinforcement of the Berber military units, and his increasing control over the Caliph, would eventually damage the dynasty. For his part, Ibn Abi ʿĀmir viewed his father-in-law's continued military prestige as obscuring his own military prowess, despite successive victorious campaigns. After several joint raids into Christian lands, mainly led by the veteran Ghalib despite the growing military experience of Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, a confrontation erupted in the spring of 980, over a campaign around Atienza. Betrayed by Ghalib and wounded, his life only saved through the intercession of the Qadi of Medinaceli, Ibn Abi ʿĀmir reacted by immediately attacking the fortress where his father-in-law's family was, and looted it once taken. Almanzor continued north, but the confrontation with Ghalib, fortified in Atienza, ended the larger campaign, intended to be his second against Castile since 975. Ghalib was forced into exile in Christian territory. In the fall, Mansur led a new offensive against 'Almunia', which is unidentified. Then in 981, a year of great martial activity for Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, he sent five military campaigns north, the first in February and March.

After several clashes between the co-leaders that ended favorably for Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, in April of 981, Ghalib, allied with Castile and Pamplona, defeated him. In May, Ibn Abi ʿĀmir counterattacked after having united Berber troops, his own Cordoban men, and some of the border units that his enemy had long commanded. Ghalib, meanwhile, had the backing of another part of the Caliphate's border forces and his Castilian and Navarese allies. On the verge of achieving victory over his son-in-law on in the Battle of Torrevicente on 10 July 981, Ghalib was found dead in a ravine without signs of violence. He may have died of natural causes, being almost eighty years old. The troops of his rival, disconcerted by the death of their leader, largely passed to Ibn Abi ʿĀmir's flag. Ghalib's body was severely mutilated, first by his own troops at the direction of Ibn Abi ʿĀmir, who wanted to prove his enemy's death, and then exposed in Córdoba. Several of his main allies were also killed in the battle, which gave the winner the nickname, Almanzor, ("the Victorious") by which he is known to history. The passing of Ghalib made him sole chamberlain and allowed him to eliminate any possible opponents at court, although his legitimacy came only from his position as regent and the tolerance of the Caliph's mother. With the elimination of Ghalib, the power of the Caliph became concentrated in his person.

Alliance with the queen mother and troubled government

For twenty years, until the breakup of his alliance with the caliph's powerful mother in 996, Ibn Abi ʿĀmir acted in part as her representative, advisor, treasurer, mediator, informant, and her commander of the armies and the police. It was she who made most of the decisions, in consultation with her son's regents. She was aware of all the political developments of the government and the court and was a dominant force in factional struggles. Subh had a lot of trust and affection for Almanzor, and her support for him was so obvious to everyone that it caused rumors that they were in love. From the reign of Caliph Al-Hakam II to the new Caliph Hisham, it was Subh's patronage, apart from his own ability, that promoted him and removed his opponents from the court.

Despite years of competition at court for power and administration by others, however, the Caliph, upon reaching his majority, made no move to assume control, possibly due to some kind of illness or other inability to carry out the responsibilities of his position. The historian, Al-Dhahabi, attributes Almanzor's locking up the Caliph to the latter being "feeble minded, believing what can't be true". For example, someone brought him a piece of rock, saying it is from Jerusalem's site of the prophet's ascent to heaven. The Caliph rewarded him with a lot of gold. In another instance, someone presented him with a donkey's hoof, claiming it is Uzair's donkey, and he was also rewarded. Yet another person brought him hair, claiming it is the prophet's.

Almanzor not only assumed the caliphal power, but also roles as guardian of the incapacitated Caliph and guarantor of dynastic power. The fact that he merely controlled the administration and army on behalf of Hisham, however, made him expendable, so he took steps to strengthen his position. The capital was placed in the hands of a cousin of his, who controlled it tightly, and he elevated a series of supporters, generally unpopular and considered despotic, who managed to gain control of various Taifas after the disintegration of the Caliphate. He also allied himself with important border lords.

In 988 and 989 he had to face a double threat: a long drought that caused famine and forced him to apply some social measures to alleviate the shortage (delivery of bread or rescission of taxes, among others) and the emergence of a new rebellion against him in which his eldest son sought to replace him. Almanzor managed to disrupt the conspiracy, which had been joined by the governor of Zaragoza, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muhammad of the Banu Tujib, and that of Toledo, an Umayyad descendant of Caliph Al-Hakam I, 'Abd Allah bin Abd al-'Aziz al-Marwanid also known as Abdullah Piedra Seca, but his efforts to get his son to submit proved fruitless. The latter took refuge with the Castilians after the arrest of his fellow conspirators. Almanzor launched a successful campaign against Castile and took custody of his wayward son, who was tried and beheaded at dawn on 8 September 990. Almanzor, still reeling from his eldest son's betrayal, disowned him, while also ordering those who had killed him at Almanzor's command to themselves be executed. The governor of Zaragoza would be executed in his presence while he spared the life of Piedra Seca—perhaps because Almanzor did not want to stain his hands with Umayyad blood.

Almanzor, leader of al-Andalus

Rupture with Subh and concentration of political power

With Ghalib eliminated and Hisham unable to perform his duties as Caliph, Almanzor began to weigh preparing for the succession, and even the possibility of officially taking power. In 989, he tried unsuccessfully to have the faqīhs accept his home, Medina Alzahara, as a major mosque. From 991 he positioned his son Abd al-Malik in a similar way as Al-Hakam had done with Hisham, appointing him chamberlain and supreme warden of the Caliphate's armies, although Almanzor did not step aside from those roles himself. At the same time, he discreetly presented to the faqīhs who advised the senior Qadi the possibility that he himself might replace the Caliph because Hisham was incapable and no one else in the state could hold the position. The regency, formerly founded on Hisham's minority, could no longer be justified by his mere inability to carry out his functions. The opinion of the faqīhs, however, was negative: if not Hisham, according to the legal experts, power should devolve to another member of the tribe of Muhammad. Almanzor reluctantly accepted the decision, and in the following years he gradually assumed even greater powers, corresponding to those of the Caliph: he confirmed the official appointments with his own seal rather than that of the Caliph, in spite of nominally acting on his behalf, he appointed a new mint official, appropriated new titles and moved part of the administration to Medina Alzahira. He also had his name mentioned after that of the Caliph in Friday prayers and maintained a court parallel to that of the sovereign at al-Zahira. In 991, under pressure from the chamberlain, the council of faqīhs changed their unfavorable opinion as to the conversion of Medina Alzahira into a major mosque, although its use continued to be frowned upon by many notable Cordobans.

His attempts to seize power ended the long alliance between Almanzor and Subh in 996. After twenty years as a representative of Subh, Almanzor confronted the Caliph's mother and her supporters. After the collapse of the alliance, Subh tried with all her might to eliminate Almanzor and united with all his opponents and enemies and divided the court into two factions, a group supporting Almanzor and the survival of his power and another group supporting Subh whose goal was to take over the government by her son. The clash between the two cliques was triggered by Subh withdrawing eighty thousand dinars from the royal treasury to finance an uprising against the chamberlain. Almanzor discovered this thanks to his agents in the palace, and he reacted by successfully petitioning the council of viziers and Faqīhs to transfer the treasury to his residence, Medina Alzahira, characterizing Subh's theft as a robbery by the harem. With Almanzor sick, Subh took over the palace and tried in vain to block the transfer. Abd al-Malik, Almanzor's son, won the support of the viziers. The Caliph repudiated the rebellion of his mother in late May 996, and Abd al-Malik took custody of both him and the treasure. Though the rebellion she headed on the peninsula lost steam due to loss of funding and the rapid defeat of its few supporters, the money she had previously taken allowed Subh to finance a rebellion in the Maghreb. Although Almanzor had not yet managed to quell this revolt by fall 997, it failed to gain any support on the peninsula.

Reform of army and administration

The separation between the temporal power, held by Almanzor, and the spiritual, in the hands of Hisham as Caliph, increased the importance of military force, a symbol – along with the new majesty of the chamberlain's court, rival of that of the caliph himself – of the power of Almanzor, and an instrument to guarantee the payment of taxes.

Almanzor successfully continued the military reforms begun by Al-Hakam and his predecessors, covering many aspects. On one hand, he increased the professionalization of the regular army, necessary both to guarantee his military power in the capital and to ensure the availability of forces for his numerous campaigns, one of the sources of his political legitimacy. This policy de-emphasized levies and other non-professional troops, which he replaced with taxes used to support the professional troops—often saqalibas or Maghrebis—which freed the natives of al-Andalus from military service. Recruitment of saqalibas and Berbers was not new, but Almanzor expanded it. On the other hand, he created new units, unlike the regular army of the Caliphate, that were faithful primarily to himself and served to control the capital. Emir Abd al-Rahman I had already used Berbers and saqalibas for a permanent army of forty thousand to end the conflicts that hitherto had plagued the emirate. At the time of Emir Muhammad I, the army reached thirty-five to forty thousand combatants, half of them Syrian military contingents. This massive hiring of mercenaries and slaves meant that, according to Christian chroniclers, "ordinarily the Saracen armies amount to 30, 40, 50, or 60,000 men, even when in serious occasions they reach 100, 160, 300 and even 600,000 fighters." In fact, it has been argued that, in Almanzor's time, the Cordovan armies could muster six hundred thousand laborers and two hundred thousand horses "drawn from all provinces of the empire."

In order to eliminate a possible threat to his power and to improve military efficiency, Almanzor abolished the system of tribal units that had been in decline due to lack of Arabs and institution of pseudo-feudalism on the frontiers, in which the different tribes each had their own commander and that had caused continuous clashes, and replaced it with mixed units without clear loyalty under orders from Administration officials. The nucleus of the new army, however, was formed increasingly by Maghrebi Berber forces. The ethnic rivalries among Arabs, Berbers and Slavs within the Andalusi army were skillfully used by Almanzor to maintain his own power—for example, by ordering that every unit of the army consist of diverse ethnic groups so that they would not unite against him; and thus preventing the emergence of possible rivals. However, once their centralizing figure disappeared, these units were one of the main causes of the 11th-century civil war called the Fitna of al-Andalus. Berber forces were also joined by contingents of well-paid Christian mercenaries, who formed the bulk of Almanzor's personal guard and participated in his campaigns in Christian territories. Almanzor's completion of this reform, begun by his predecessors, fundamentally divided the population into two unequal groups: a large mass of civilian taxpayers and a small professional military caste, generally from outside the peninsula.

Defense of religious orthodoxy and legitimation of power

One of the instruments Almazor used to strengthen his power was his court, at which writers and poets celebrated his virtues—praise that was used as propaganda among the people.

The stability and prosperity of the regime and its rigorous defense of Islam, which Almanzor showed through various pious gestures, gave him popular support. Also numbered among these gestures were copying a Koran that he took with him during his campaigns, and the expansion of the mosque of Cordoba (987–990). The political ambitions of the chamberlain had important repercussions on culture and religion, which he was forced to support. His image as Islam's leader led to the censorship of some sciences considered non-Islamic, and to the purging from Al-Hakam's important library of works considered heretical. His political interests required him to ingratiate himself with the lawyers when his power was still unsteady, and led him to censure logic, philosophy and astrology, despite his appreciation for culture. His meddling in religious matters led to the appointment of his own uncle, himself a veteran qadi, as the principal qadi after the death of the hostile Ibn Zarb, who had opposed some of his proposals. The main expression of his defense of religion, however, was his military campaigns against the Christian states, a method of legitimization that the caliphs had used before but which Almanzor took to extremes. Successive victories, despite their transient benefits to the realm, had a great propaganda effect, both in the Caliphate and in the enemy states of the north. To each crisis of his political career, he responded with large and/or multiple military campaigns.

The campaigns also had a beneficial economic effect because of the loot – especially abundant slaves – obtained by them and because of the security they granted to the borders.

The Maghreb campaigns

The meager Cordoban cereal production forced the Umayyads to obtain stocks from the Maghreb, and, thus, to oppose Fatimid expansion in the region, which jeopardized their supply. At stake was commercial control of the western Mediterranean. Unlike his campaigns on the Iberian Peninsula and with the exception of the one carried out jointly with Ghalib at the beginning of his career, Almanzor did not take a personal role in the fighting in the Maghreb, but simply a supervisory one. The effective direction of the fight was in the hands of subordinates, whom he would ceremonially accompany to Algeciras to see off the troops as they crossed the strait.

Abd al-Rahman III had conquered Ceuta and Tangier and fortified them in 951, but he had not been able to prevent the Fatimids from taking control of the Maghreb in 958–959, after burning the Umayyad fleet in Almería in 955. In 971, Umayyad clients suffered another heavy defeat. The Fatimid march to Egypt around 972 benefitted the Umayyads, who were left facing a Fatimid client, the Sanhaja Berber Buluggin ibn Ziri.

The Caliphate's strategy began by the fortification of Ceuta, manned by a large garrison. In May of 978, the Zenata tribes seized the city of Sijilmasa, at the northern end of the trans-Saharan gold, salt and textile trading routes, and where they founded a pro-Córdoba principality ruled by Jazrun ibn Fulful, the city's conqueror. The success of the Umayyad political machine, continued by Almanzor, allowed him to concentrate the offensive power of the Berber tribes on the expansion of the regions that recognized his legitimacy and limited clashes among those accepting Córdoba's protection. This conquest, which gave great prestige to Hisham and Almanzor—and affronted the Fatimids because it was the city where its founder had appeared before the Berber Kutama tribe—allowed them to counteract the influence of the Fatimids who, after moving to Egypt, had left these regions under the control of the Zirid dynasty. Ibn Ziri launched a victorious campaign that temporarily disrupted the Zenata and allowed him to recover much of the Western Maghreb before besieging Ceuta. The refugees there asked for help from Almanzor, who sent a large army that he accompanied as far as Algeciras, to repulse Ibn Ziri, who decided to retire although he continued harassing Umayyad supporters until his death in 984. The effects of Ibn Ziri's inroads, however, were transient: at his death most of the tribes of the region once again accepted Cordoban religious authority.

In 985, before the Idrisid Al-Hasan ibn Kannun, who had proclaimed himself Caliph, returned from his refuge in the Fatimid court in Egypt, Almanzor saw off a new army that crossed the Maghreb to confront him under command of his cousin. Reinforcements were later dispatched, commanded by the eldest son of Almanzor, and his father-in-law, the governor of Zaragoza. Overwhelmed, the Idrisid negotiated his surrender and proceeded to the Cordoban court, but Almanzor had him assassinated on his way to the city, and later executed his cousin who had granted safe conduct to the rebel.

Campaigns against Christians

Raids

Since the death of Ramiro II of León in 950, his kingdom along with the kingdom of Pamplona and the county of Barcelona had been forced to recognize Cordoba's sovereignty through an annual tribute, with default resulting in reprisal campaigns. Almanzor began carrying these out in 977 and he continued to do so until his death in 1002, although most were concentrated in his later years when he was most powerful. In parallel with the Maghreb campaigns, Almanzor was devoted to the war against the Christian kingdoms of Iberia. Although the various sources are in conflict on the precise details, it is estimated that he made about fifty-six campaigns, twenty of these being in the first period from 977 to 985. In these offensives, Almanzor balanced attacks on centers of political and economic power with those against sites of religious importance. The famous raids, cavalry strikes and aceiphas, literally "summer campaigns" and called by the Christians cunei, had as their tactical and economic objective the taking of captives and cattle from the enemy; strategically they sought to generate a state of permanent insecurity that prevented Christians from developing an organized life outside of castles, fortified cities or their immediate vicinity. Their main feature was the short duration of the campaigns and the remoteness of the points reached by them. In spite of the military success of the many incursions, they failed to prevent in the long term ruin of the state. Although they halted the advance of Christian repopulation and dismantled important fortresses and cities, they failed to significantly alter the boundaries because Almanzor rarely occupied the territories he plundered.

The region most affected and vulnerable to the campaigns was the Douro valley. This was the destination for Christian settlers who were driven to repopulate it due to demographic pressure in Asturias, the heartland of the kingdom. This area was protected by the Cantabrian Mountains, a narrow strip of land that nonetheless could defend itself—unlike Leon or Galicia, which were more vulnerable to Moorish cavalry raids. In fact, Almanzor's campaigns reached all of Christian Spain with the exception of the Cantabrian coast, and contributed to León and Galicia coming more solidly under the sovereignty of the Asturian Crown, but still with great autonomy, due to the weakness of the kingdom's expansion.

The first eight campaigns were carried out with the support of his father-in-law Ghalib. Among them were three in the Salamanca lands (two in 977 and one in 978), another against Cuéllar (the same year), one against Pamplona and Barcelona (the long summer campaign of 978), one against Zamora (or maybe Ledesma, according to other authors, in the spring of 979) and one against Sepúlveda (in the summer of 979, which he could not take, although he razed its surroundings). The eighth was one in which he accompanied to Algeciras the forces destined to Maghreb, between September 979 and early 980.

Death and succession

Almanzor died on August 9, 1002 of illness at the age of about sixty-five in Medinaceli. During his last days, the dying chamberlain commended the government of the caliphate to his son, who hurried to Córdoba after his death to take his father's position and avoid any fickle opposition from the supporters of the family of the Caliph. The Historia silense says:

But, at last, divine piety took pity on such ruin and allowed Christians to lift their heads because, in the thirteenth year of his kingdom, after many and horrible massacres of Christians, he was taken away in Medinaceli, a great city, by the devil, who had possessed him in life, and buried in hell.

His body was covered with the linen shroud that his daughters had woven with their own hands from raw material derived from the income of the estate inherited from their ancestors in Torrox, seat of their lineage. His remains were interred in the courtyard of the palace, covered by the dust his servants had shaken from their clothes after each battle against the Christians. According to the Arab historian Ibn 'Idhari, the following verses were carved in marble as an epitaph:

His exploits will teach you about him,

as if you saw it with your own eyes.

No one like him will ever given by God to the world again,

nor will anyone to defend the frontiers who compare with him.

The dynasty Almanzor founded continued with his son Abd al-Malik al-Muzaffar, and then his other son, Abd al-Rahman Sanchuelo, who was unable to preserve the inherited power, and was murdered in 1009. The fall of the Amiris set off the Fitna of al-Andalus, a civil war that resulted in the disintegration of the centralized Caliphate into regional taifa kingdoms.

Later, the legend of a defeat immediately prior to his death in a Battle of Calatañazor appeared first in the Estoria de España and was later adorned in other documents. Tradition holds that "in Calatañazor Almanzor lost the drum" (en Calatañazor Almanzor perdió el tambor) a term indicating that he there lost his joy because of the defeat that was inflicted.