Taifa of Dénia

The Taifa of Dénia was a Muslim kingdom on the eastern coast of al-Andalus, centred on the port of Dénia and at times including the Balearic Islands and parts of the Valencian coast. It was founded in 1010 by Mujahid al-Amiri, a former high official of the Umayyad caliphate, probably of Slavic origin, who had been raised at the court of Almanzor. Dénia struck some of the first taifa coins in 1011, and the kingdom quickly built one of the strongest navies in the western Mediterranean. With it Mujahid seized the Balearics in 1015 and launched an invasion of Sardinia, where he established a base for a year before the fleets of Pisa and Genoa destroyed his forces; his heir Ali Iqbal was captured and ransomed only in 1032. In the 1020s Mujahid intervened in Valencia, and he later took Murcia, Lorca, Orihuela and Elche, extending his power to the Segura, before making peace with Valencia in 1041. The taifa was a notable patron of letters and protected both its Christian and Jewish communities, whose merchants were central to its trade. After Mujahid's death in 1045 Ali Iqbal ruled for three decades, but in 1076 Dénia was conquered by Zaragoza. The city later passed to Tortosa and to the Almoravids, and a final taifa under Abu Zayd survived from 1224 until the Aragonese conquest in 1227.