Banu Qasi - Decline and Extermination

Decline and Extermination

With the fall of Lubb, his local rivals immediately fell upon the Banu Qasi lands. Sancho descended toward Calahorra. The Tujibids finally broke the siege of Zaragoza and captured Ejea. Al-Tawil retook the lands he had lost, and proceeded to overrun the family's eastern enclave, taking Barbastro and Lleida. Monzon was briefly controlled by Lubb's brother Yunis ibn Muhammad, but he could not hold it, and Monzon too fell to the al-Tawil. In the reduced western lands, Lubb was succeeded by brother Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Qasi. In 911, Abd Allah and al-Tawil jointly, along with al-Tawil's brother-in-law Galindo Aznárez II of Aragon, attacked Pamplona. After destroying several castles, they developed cold feet and withdrew, but were caught by Sancho. Al-Tawil defected and escaped, while Galindo was crushed and forced to recognize Sancho as feudal sovereign, ending the autonomy of the Aragon. Arab sources describe Abd Allah's rear-guard action at Luesia as a victory, but if so it was only a tactical victory and he immediately retreated south. In 914, Sancho turned the tables, marching into the heart of the Banu Qasi homeland, taking Arnedo and attacking Calahorra. In the next year, 915, Sancho turned toward Tudela, and there captured Abd Allah, killing a thousand of his best men. Mutarrif ibn Muhammad ibn Qasi, Abd Allah's brother, rushed to relieve the city, and Abd Allah was ransomed, his daughter Urraca and probably son Fortun ibn Abd Allah being given as hostages. However, two months later Abd Allah was assassinated, it is said, through the machinations of Sancho.

The only bright spot for the family in this period happened in the east. In 913, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik al-Tawil died, and the next year, the residents of Monzon rejected his son Amrus ibn Muhammad, and invited the Banu Qasi to return in the person of Muhammad ibn Lubb, son of Lubb ibn Muhammad. After a brief siege, he was able to reclaim the city for his family, as well as Lleida.

In the west, Mutarrif ibn Muhammad and his nephew Muhammad ibn Abd Allah struggled for dominance. The latter proved victorious, killing Mutarrif in 916. Since the death of Lubb in 907, the Banu Qasi had been left fractured and weakened in the face of two resurgent powers: to the north and west, a collaboration between the new king of León, Ordoño II, and Sancho I of Navarre brought a strong army south, ravaging the Banu Qasi lands around Viguera, Najera and Tudela in 918, while the young and energetic Abd ar-Rahman III, who was to temporarily reverse the centrifugal forces at work in the Emirate, soon to be Caliphate of Córdoba, sent armies north, routing the Christians. The next year the two Banu Qasi leaders, Muhammad ibn Abd Allah and Muhammads ibn Lubb, attacked the Banu al-Tawil at Barbastro, but Sancho took advantage of this, and allying himself with his cousin Bernard of Ribagorza and the Banu al-Tawil, he attacked and burned Monzon, which was hence lost to the Banu Qasi. In 920, the emir, Abd ar-Rahman III, personally led the Cordoban army north, and forced Sancho to abandon fortifications he had been building. After some maneuvering the emir met the armies of Ordoño and Sancho, and defeated them at Valdejunquera. In 923, the Christian allies brought another force south, and while Muhammad ibn Abd Allah formed a coalition of local nobles to resist it, their armies were dispersed and Viguera and Najera fell. Like his father, Muhammad was captured, then assassinated on Sancho's orders, and when Abd ar-Rahman launched another punitive campaign the next year, on his return to Tudela he removed the Banu Qasi and sent them to Córdoba, placing their old rivals the Tujibids of Zaragoza in their place. After 923, only the eastern enclave encompassing Lleida and the castles of Balaguer, Barbastro and Ayera were in the hands of the family. However, one by one these expelled Muhammad ibn Lubb ibn Qasi and turned to the Tujibids for leadership, leaving him only Ayera in 928, when Jimeno Garcés, the new king of Navarre, intervened on his behalf in opposition to Hasim ibn Muhammad al-Tujibi. The next year, Muhammad fell victim to an ambush and was killed by his brother-in-law "Raymond of Pallars".