On the first City of Gibraltar
Photo by Eyleen Gomez
In the first of a series of articles, Professor Clive Finlayson, the Director of the Gibraltar National Museum, charts the origins of the city and fortress of Gibraltar.
I have been approached on a number of occasions recently by interested members of the public who were confused by recent interpretations which have been given to aspects of the origins of our city and fortress. One was a tourist guide who responsibly wanted to ensure that he gave his visitors the correct information. It is also important that any histories being told to our children in schools rely on the latest available and verifiable data. I have spent over three decades researching our medieval history.
It was back in 1995 that I started directing Gibraltar’s first ever urban archaeological excavations.
Over the years I have worked with leading specialists and archaeologists, as it is vital that any excavations undertaken in Gibraltar are carefully supervised, with archaeologists present throughout. If not, we risk the loss not just of material culture but, most importantly, stratigraphic context. Once we have removed something, we cannot put it back.
The story of our medieval city and fortress is a long one, with much detail and also with remaining questions. I will start at the very beginning – 1160 CE. Following the death of Ibn Tumart, the al-Muwaḥḥidūn (Almohad) movement’s founder, in 1130, Abd al-Mu’min he rose to leadership and was proclaimed the first Caliph of the Almohads in 1133. He remained at the helm of the empire until his death in 1163.
It was in the year 1160 that al-Mu’min ordered the construction of a great city and fortress on the Jebel al-Fath (Mount of Victory) as he called Jebel Tarik (Gibraltar). The contemporary writer Ibn Sàhib al-Salàt described the works in this way:
“The noble command arrived to build a great city with the fullest permission of God and His aid, by which it was raised among the cities and villages, upon the blessed mountain of ancient benediction, in the peninsula of al‑Andalus, lofty and steep—the mountain of Ṭāriq, from which he conquered both what was near and what was far, those who submitted and those who resisted—so that this city might be the seat of [imperial] power during the passage of victorious armies, a staging point as the triumphant banners and unfurled standards advanced toward the land of the Christians.
In the noble decree, firm command was given to the illustrious sayyid Abū Sa‘īd ‘Uthmān, son of the Caliph ‘Abd al‑Mu’min, to go in person from Granada, with his retinue and a contingent of his troops, to Gibraltar, and there to join with the ṭālibs of Seville, to meet and confer also with the noble shaykh Abū Ḥafs, if he were able to come, and with Abū Isḥāq Barrāz b. Muḥammad, with al‑Ḥājj Ya‘īs, and with the qā’id ‘Abd Allāh b. Jiyār of Jaén, so that together they might deliberate on which part of that mountain the ordered city should be built.
The noble decree also commanded him, and likewise the illustrious sayyid Abū Ya‘qūb of Seville, to gather all the masons, plasterers, carpenters, and master builders from across al‑Andalus, under Almohad rule, and hasten to Gibraltar to fulfil the supreme order. All measures of governance were taken, and a great number of soldiers and qā’ids, scribes and accountants attended, to oversee the works, record the expenses, and ensure the project was carried out.
The illustrious sayyid Abū Sa‘īd, as commanded, departed from Granada, his residence, toward Gibraltar; and from Seville came the master builder Aḥmad b. Baso with all the masons and their fellows, and the labourers who assisted and obeyed them. They settled there and began construction at the site agreed upon, chosen as best for its nearness to the seashore, in the place that touched and encircled it. The hopes of the people of al‑Andalus rose higher than before, and they counted as renewed blessings, fortune, and victory the founding of this city.
The illustrious sayyid Abū Ya‘qūb in Seville took care to hasten the sending of workers and labourers for the project. The builders planned to erect lofty palaces and houses, and they raised upon their foundations vaults and arches to level the ground for construction, with hewn stones and lime, whose traces are admirable. It is said that the kings built according to their wealth; and if the ancestors of the family of ‘Abd b. Saddād were to see it, they would be convinced of their inferiority and would regard these works as superior to those who built the palace of Sindād.
Gibraltar is remarkable for its soil, noble for its land, great for its defences, rising to the heights of the sky and seeming almost to reach Gemini. Everything planted in its earth, in the hollows that spread across it, grows, branches out, becomes large, and bears fruit soon after being sown, coming to good fruition. All fruit trees thrive there—figs, vines, apple trees, pear trees, quinces, apricots, plums, citrons, bananas, and others—despite the narrowness of its elongated form, like a vein filled with dew and rain. Its waters are sweet, light, and clear.
The architect al‑Ḥājj Ya‘īs, during the time he directed the construction, as we have said, made at the summit of Gibraltar a windmill that ground grain by the air, tended by trustworthy men during the works. But when he returned to Marrākush, having completed what was entrusted to him, the mill fell into disrepair for lack of care.
After the work of building the houses and palaces, the wall and the gate called Bāb al‑Futūḥ (“Gate of Conquests”) were erected in the passage through which one entered from it to the mountain, between the sea that surrounds it on both sides. It proved unique in its fortifications, which do not permit it to be taken by any who might attempt it; and in the hearts of its inhabitants there is no room for fear, whether by land or by sea, for it is a fortress raised high and a place that rises up to the stars.”
Work on building Medinat-al-Fath, the “City of Victory,” started on the 19th May, 1160. The project was led by al-Hajj Ya’ish, a mathematician from Málaga, with help from the architect Aḥmad b. Baso. Al-Mu’min ordered that the new city should include a mosque, a palace for himself, more palaces for his sons, and a system to bring water from reservoirs. To keep it safe, the city was to be surrounded by a strong wall with a single fortified gate, called Bab-al-Fath, the “Gate of Victory.” Windmills were also planned for the high points of the Rock.
On 2nd November 1160, al-Mu’min arrived in Gibraltar from North Africa. He came to be honoured by the Muslim princes and nobles of al-Andalus and to look over the site chosen for his new city and he remained there until early January, when he returned to Marrakech. Work on Medinat al‑Fath did begin, but it seems the project was abandoned soon after. Ibn Sàhib al-Salàt, despite his praise of al-Mu’min and his work, tellingly remarks that the mill had fallen into disrepair for lack of care, once the architect had returned to Marrakech. Abd al-Mu’min died in May 1163, and his son, Abu Ya’kub Yusuf ibn Abd al-Mu’min, who took power by force, had no interest in continuing the city or its planned palaces.
Having served as Governor of Seville from 1156 to 1163, he had already fallen in love with Seville and later made it his imperial capital between 1172 and 1175. The skill of the architect Ahmad b. Baso, who had been brought to Gibraltar by al-Mum’in, can still be appreciated today, not in Gibraltar but in Seville—in the Patio de los Naranjos of the great mosque and in the mighty square tower that once served as its minaret, now the lower two‑thirds of the Giralda.
The building of al-Mu’min’s Madinat al-Fath and its fortress, in the space of just a few months, thus seems unlikely. The Cronica de Fernando IV (circa 1340) relates how in 1309:
“a few days after the King, Fernando, had begun the siege of Algeciras, he sent Juan Nuñez, Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, the Archbishop of Seville and the Council of Seville to besiege Gibraltar.” The Castilians “set up two siege engines and with them attacked it fiercely all the way round, till the Moors [after a month] could stand it no longer and were forced to parley with the King.” They offered to surrender provided they were allowed to leave for Africa: “one thousand one hundred and twenty-five Moors came out.”
The ease with which King Fernando IV’s troops captured Gibraltar, with just two siege engines in a month, certainly suggests that there wasn’t a strong fortification there by 1309 (just 149 years after its reputed construction). A large city was unlikely to have existed either, as the population was small, numbering just over a thousand inhabitants. All this strongly suggests that al-Mu’min’s project never took off. The absence of Almohad material culture in our urban excavations confirms this view.
So, to clarify any first confusion, Gibraltar’s first settlement – too grand to be called city – was established by the Almohads in 1160. Had al-Mu’min had his way, it may well have developed into the great city which he had intended it to be but political events changed all this and his son Yusuf took the project to Seville. The Giralda might well not be there today had al-Mu’min lived on and retained power. It was not to be. With this knowledge we can move forward to discuss the next stage in the development of urban and military Gibraltar, and its location.
