Taifa of Ceuta

The Taifa of Ceuta was one of the small states that emerged in the western Maghreb and al-Andalus after the breakup of the Caliphate of Córdoba in the early eleventh century. Ceuta and Tangier had formed part of the Hammudid taifa of Málaga from 1026. From 1036 the city was governed on behalf of the Hammudids by the Barghawata, a Berber group with a distinctive non-Islamic religion. Shortly before 1061 the Barghawata leader Saqqut seized power for himself, founding an independent taifa. According to the sources, he could field an army of 12,000 cavalry. The taifa was short-lived: the Barghawata were defeated and conquered by the rising Almoravid movement in 1078-1079. The Taifa of Ceuta was one of the many successor states formed after the collapse of the Umayyad caliphate, and its history reflects the fluid political and religious landscape of the far western Mediterranean in the eleventh century.