Editing Almohad Caliphate (section)

===Holding years===
[[File:Abu Yaqub Yusef Coin.png|thumb|300px|Coin minted during the reign of [[Abu Yaqub Yusuf]]]]

In 1212, the Almohad Caliph [[Muhammad an-Nasir|Muhammad 'al-Nasir']] (1199–1214), the successor of al-Mansur, after an initially successful advance north, was defeated by an alliance of the three Christian kings of [[Kingdom of Castile|Castile]], [[Aragón]] and [[Kingdom of Navarre|Navarre]] at the [[Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa]] in the [[Sierra Morena]]. The battle broke the Almohad advance, but the Christian powers remained too disorganized to profit from it immediately.

Before his death in 1213, al-Nasir appointed his young ten-year-old son as the next [[caliph]] [[Yusuf II, Almohad Caliph|Yusuf II "al-Mustansir"]]. The Almohads passed through a period of effective [[regent|regency]] for the young caliph, with power exercised by an oligarchy of elder family members, palace bureaucrats and leading nobles. The Almohad ministers were careful to negotiate a series of truces with the Christian kingdoms, which remained more-or-less in place for next fifteen years (the [[Siege of Alcácer do Sal|loss of Alcácer do Sal]] to the [[Kingdom of Portugal]] in 1217 was an exception).

In early 1224, the youthful caliph died in an accident, without any heirs. The palace bureaucrats in [[Marrakesh]], led by the ''[[Vizier|wazir]]'' Uthman ibn Jam'i, quickly engineered the election of his elderly grand-uncle, [[Abdul-Wahid I, Almohad Caliph|Abd al-Wahid I 'al-Makhlu']], as the new Almohad caliph. But the rapid appointment upset other branches of the family, notably the brothers of the late al-Nasir, who governed in [[al-Andalus]]. The challenge was immediately raised by one of them, then governor in [[Murcia]], who declared himself Caliph [[Abdallah al-Adil]]. With the help of his brothers, he quickly seized control of al-Andalus. His chief advisor, the shadowy Abu Zayd ibn Yujjan, tapped into his contacts in Marrakesh, and secured the [[deposition (politics)|deposition]] and assassination of Abd al-Wahid I, and the expulsion of the al-Jami'i [[clan]].

This [[coup]] has been characterized as the pebble that finally broke al-Andalus. It was the first internal coup among the Almohads. The Almohad clan, despite occasional disagreements, had always remained tightly knit and loyally behind dynastic precedence. Caliph al-Adil's murderous breach of dynastic and constitutional propriety marred his acceptability to other Almohad ''[[sheikh]]s''. One of the recusants was his cousin, Abd Allah al-Bayyasi ("the [[Baeza, Spain|Baeza]]n"), the Almohad governor of [[Jaén, Spain|Jaén]], who took a handful of followers and decamped for the hills around Baeza. He set up a rebel camp and forged an alliance with the hitherto quiet [[Ferdinand III of Castile]]. Sensing his greater priority was Marrakesh, where recusant Almohad ''sheikh''s had rallied behind Yahya, another son of al-Nasir, al-Adil paid little attention to them.