Muhammad ibn Mardanis

Abu ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Mardanīš (born AD 1124×25 [AH 518], died AD 1172 [AH 568]) was the king of Murcia from AD 1147 (AH 542) until his death. He established his rule over the cities of Murcia, Valencia and Dénia as the power of the Almoravid emirate declined, and he opposed the spread of the Almohad caliphate. Christian sources refer to him as the "Wolf King" (Latin rex Lupus, Spanish rey Lobo or rey Lope).

Ibn Mardanīš's full name was Abu ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Mardanīš al-Ȳuḍāmī (or at-Tuȳībī), indicate he was the son of Saʿd, son of Muḥammad, son of Aḥmad, son of Mardanīš. He was a mūwallad, a descendant of a native Iberian convert to Islam, and his last name is not of Arabic origin. The thirteenth-century Islamic scholar Ibn Khallikān derived it from an Ibero-Romance term for dung (via Latin ), perhaps because of Ibn Mardanīš's friendly relations with the Christians. It is more likely a corruption of Merdanix (today Merdancho), the name of a tributary of the river Najerilla, which was on the border between Christian and Islamic Spain in the early tenth century. This hydronym in turn derives from the Latin for dung, indicating dirty waters. This is consistent with Ibn Mardanīš's family emigrating from the aṯ-Ṯaḡr al-Aʿlā (Upper March) around the Rioja, as told in Arabic sources.

In the first year of his rule (1147/8), Ibn Mardanīš faced the rebellion of his relative, Yūsuf ibn Hilāl, based in the castle of Montornés. Yūsuf conquered the castles of al-Ṣujayra and al-Ṣajra, and defeated Ibn Mardanīš before the walls of Moratalla, which he occupied. With a reduced following he attacked the fortress of Peñas de San Pedro and was captured. Ibn Mardanīš threatened to gouge out his eyes unless he ordered the surrender of Moratalla. He refused and his right eye was removed. Ibn Mardanīš then ordered Yūsuf's wife to surrender the castle or else see her husband blinded. She refused and Yūsuf's other eye was removed. Ibn Mardanīš then sent his prisoner to Xàtiva, where he died shortly thereafter in 1148 or 1149.

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