Page 138 - Arabian Studies (I)

122 Arabian Studies I

completion the sultan ordered general rejoicing and all the people
paraded before him as he looked down from an upper floor of the
building. He distributed gifts to his subjects and the poets of the time
composed congratulatory and laudatory verses in honour of the
occasion. 1 2
When al-Macqill was finished, al-Mu’ayyad ordered the building of
a second palace named Salah, before he embarked on a tour of
Tihamah in this same year.13 Having returned from the coastal plain,
he received a number of delegations in his new palaces in Thacbat. i ^
al-Malik al-Muzaffar Hasan, the son of al-Mu’ayyad, fell ill in
712/1312. He was sent to Thacbat immediately by his father in the
hope that he would recover there, but he died in Dhu’l-Qacdah
712/March 1313. 1 5
al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad died in 721/1321 and was succeeded by his
son, al-Malik al-Mujahid c All. The latter had come down to Thacbat
in the following year from al-Dumluwah. It was while he was there
that a plot was hatched to oust him from power. Certain amirs and
mamluks planned to install as sultan in his place al-Malik al-Mansur,
Ayyub, the son of al-Malik al-Muzaffar Yusuf b. cUmar, the second
Rasulid ruler. In Tacizz, they had killed Shujac al-DTn cUmar b.
Yusuf b. Mansur, al-Mujahid’s adviser and minister (atabak and
wazir), and from there they marched on Thacbat to seize the sultan.
al-Mujahid was delivered over to his uncle, al-Mansur, who im­
prisoned him in Dar al-Adab in Tacizz and proclaimed himself sultan.
He called in his brother on whom he bestowed the title al-Malik
al-Nasir and handed out fiefs to him and to other relatives
sympathetic to him. al-Mansur’s power was however short-lived, for
al-Mujahid reclaimed his throne some three months later. 1 6
Changes had taken place during the reign of al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad.
With large palaces in Thacbat, the original picture one has of the
place as an idyllic retreat in the days of the Sulayhid amir, Mansur b.
al-Mufaddal, has now been lost. But even greater changes were to
come. al-Mu’ayyad’s son, al-Malik al-Mujahid, ordered the building of
walls around the settlement. The walls were completed in 733/
1332-3 and are in all probability those which one can see partly
standing today. Several gates were built in the walls and each manned
by a military guard. For the first time in its history, it was considered
necessary to build these defences around Thacbat. But al-Mujahid
went further. What was once the village of Thacbat was expanded
and the sultan ‘made it into a town’ (maddanaha). He had wonderful
houses and spacious buildings built. He constructed a new jdmic,
ensuring that it had an adequate water supply, and appointed an
imam, a muezzin and a khatib. The sultan determined also to