Al-Azraq Treaty of 1245

1245 treaty between James I of Aragon and Al Azraq

The Al Azraq Treaty of 1245 was a surrender treaty between the Christian King James I of Aragón, his son in law Prince Alfonso X of Castile, and the Mudéjar commander Abū 'Abd Allāh Muhammad ibn Hudhayl, more commonly known as al Azraq. It was signed on 15 April 1245 in Valencia on al Andalus in what is now modern day Spain, the Iberian Peninsula. The treaty is one of only two bilingual Muslim Christian surrender treaties to survive into the present day. According to James I, the treaty marked the end of the reconquista.

Muslim and Arab forces from Northwest Africa, under the military leadership of Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, conquered al Andalus between 711 and 718 C. E. At the time, the region was under the control of the Visigoths but, after the Battle of Guadalete, the area fell to the Umayyad Caliphate. The Caliphate collapsed in the East in 750 CE, but continued on al Andalus until 1031 when it broke up into 23 small emirates known as the tafia kingdoms. These became the main rivals of the Christian territories on the Peninsula. The Umayyads were then subsequently replaced by the Abbasid Dynasty in the East. Many Christians fled to the Northern parts of the peninsula and established the kingdom of Asturias, which eventually split into the kingdoms of Castile, Galicia, and León. The Asturians conquered the Umayyads at the Battle of Covadonga in 722; this is when many historians determine that the Reconquista began. After this event, the Umayyads faced the loss of Galicia (739), León (754), Barcelona (801), and Salamanca (939). According to the historian Alan Heston, the Caliph of Córdoba, al Mansur, "undertook more than fifty jihads into Christian areas of northern Spain to pillage and eventually expand Muslim rule to all of present day Spain." In 997, al Mansur called for the destruction of the Church of St. James in León. This site served as an important pilgrimage destination for Christians since it claimed to hold the tomb of James, the brother of Jesus. The tomb was left alone, but the church itself was dismembered, with the doors and bells taken to Córdoba to expand its mosque. The year 1000 saw the weakening of Islamic hold on the peninsula since al Mansur left Córdoba in a weaker condition than he received it and the Umayyad caliphate finally broke apart in 1031. In the 1100s, Urban II offered indulgences to men who were willing to fight on the peninsula, but only when Christian states were in extreme danger. This was an incentive that was offered to crusaders who "taken the cross" for the Holy Land. The bull conflates Muslims, Jews, schismatics, and other groups into the same category of heretical non Christians while "allow[ing] for a hierarchy of otherness in which European Christians stood higher than others." This bull was reissued again in 1245 by Pope Innocent IV, the year the al Azraq Treaty was signed. It existed in various forms in other parts of the world, but in Western Europe it developed during the Carolingian Empire's deterioration of authority in the tenth century. It then spread to regions such as al Andalus, England, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe. The parceling out of lands created a class that was able to collectively amass more power than their sovereign and the Church. Barendse also argues that feudalism specifically subjugated peasants and "[f]eudal armies were predominantly instruments for the subjugation of the peasantry" as were "symbols of feudalism" such as "illegally erected castles."

Common Law in Aragón was becoming heavily influenced by the old beliefs of Rome which can be seen in different edicts enacted by James I. This was due in part because of the influence of universities in Bologna and Montpellier whose students graduated and went to work in the court of Aragón and its judiciary. In 1238, James I issued the Regni Valentie, a territorial code dictating the governance of the newly conquered Valencia that was heavily inspired by Justinian's Digest. In it, a wide variety of actions are marked as "treasonous": "Acts of rebellion against royal authority, including counterfeiting and inciting townsmen or villagers to riot," "conspir[ing] with the enemy or travel[ing] through enemy territory without royal permission," as well as "family members who murdered any of their relatives and then would not submit to royal officials for punishment." It also included rules surrounding vassalage. In Aragón, a practice known as "defiance" allowed "aggrieved vassals ten days to formally abrogate ties with their lords" and those "who violated this 'cooling off period' in any way would be considered a 'proven traitor'." He also declared that Muslim members of a convert's family could not take their property while the aforementioned convert was still alive.

In 1247, two years after the al Azraq Treaty was signed, the Mudéjar leader and his troops began a revolt that lasted until 1258. Bruns and Chevedden consider this to be a "counter crusade" by the Mudéjars. In the South, they besieged Christian defensive positions at Peñacadel or Benicadell castle. In the spring and summer of 1248, James I conducted sieges against the Mudéjar cities of Lucente and Xátiva, relieved the castle being attacked, and killed the rebel leader Ibn Bassāl. They also managed to drive the Mudéjar forces back to al Azraq's base at Alcalá. Pope Innocent IV intervened multiple times throughout the war, dispatching members of the church to regions of James I's kingdom as well sending out financial appeals and letters as a way to garner aid. On 13 November 1249, he published a "crusade circular" stating that the Muslims were "'infidel people still walking in darkness' and slavery" and were persecuting Christians. He stated that those who "take up the sign of the living cross, to give that king [James I] assistance against those people [Muslims]" via fighting in his army, would receive "full pardon of their sins." With this bull, Burns states that Innocent IV made the war into a full blow crusade against al Azraq and Mudéjars on the Peninsula. At some point during the counter crusade, "al Azraq came to James and said he wanted to become a Christian and marry a relative of the lord of Dénia. James rode to al Azraq's castle of Rugat, where his small party was savagely ambushed and the king himself nearly killed." A clear date was not given for this encounter between the two leaders. In 1250, a diplomatic shift to the war began as al Azraq sent a letter in Arabic to Queen Violante in which he acknowledged James I's rule over Valencia. According to Burns, "The convention of accepting a Christian ruler as having some extrinsic claims over one's resources or territory was a ploy common enough in frontier warfare and rationalized in Islamic terms." The two leaders exchanged envoys with Joan de Muracting acting as Violante's and Abū 'al Hasan (al Azraq's cousin) and Abū l' Qāsim acting as al Azraq's. The Mudéjar leader announced the preparation of his embassy to the leaders of Aragón a week before Innocent IV sent a letter to James I. The letter used stronger language than his previous ones and continued to offer indulgences for those who fought on the Peninsula. Berns states that this meant the king "had opened negotiations with his enemy at the very time he was seeking renewed crusade status and military aid from the pope." Innocent IV also wrote to different Orders, such as the Templars and Hospitallers, pushing his crusading beliefs on the organizations and seeking aid. A truce occurred between the two sides around February 1258 (called the Truce of Easter 1258) brokered by Castile. Al Azraq formed a semi alliance with Alfonso X which backfired and triggered James I's final push during the years 1257–1258. He besieged the stronghold of Alcalá between April and June 1258 and the city's defeat ended the war with a Christian victory. A treaty was signed in July of that year; Al Azraq was then exiled to North Africa. Like the Valencian Crusade, this war ended partially because James I bribed someone in al Azraq's inner circle, depriving him of the funds he needed to buy grain to feed his troops. In his autobiography, James I spends fifteen chapters speaking about the Mudéjar revolt of 1247 and tries his best to down play it, claiming it lasted "a good three or four years" instead of ten. He is also the first one to identify the name of the Mudéjar leader heading the revolt, calling him "al Azraq Our traitor" and "al Azraq Our betrayer" since he had violated the terms of their surrender treaty. Al Azraq returned to the Iberian Peninsula and al Andulas in 1260 to help lead another Mudéjar revolt. He was killed at the Battle of Alcoi in 1276. The revolt of 1260 ended in much the same way as the one in 1247.