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Yaqub al-Mansur

Ruler of the Almohad Caliphate from 1184 to 1199

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ455739 ↗
Source-derived summary

Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Muʾmin al-Manṣūr (Arabic: أبو يوسف يعقوب بن يوسف بن عبد المؤمن المنصور; d. 23 January 1199), commonly known as Yaqub al-Mansur (يعقوب المنصور) or Moulay Yacoub (مولاي يعقوب), was the third Almohad caliph. Succeeding his father, al-Mansur reigned from 1184 to 1199. His reign was distinguished by the flourishing of trade, architecture, philosophy and the sciences, as well as by victorious military campaigns in which he was successful in repelling the tide of the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula.

Early life

His father was Abu Yaqub Yusuf whilst his mother was a Christian concubine called Sahir. According to Arabic specialist, Rom Landau, Yusuf's mother was a "Negro slave". He would later acquire the name Ya'qub the Victorious.

Reign

Military activities

Al-Mansur's father was killed in Portugal on 29 July 1184; upon reaching Seville with his father's body on 10 August, he was immediately proclaimed the new caliph. Al-Mansur vowed revenge for his father's death, but fighting with the Banu Ghaniya delayed him in Africa. After inflicting a new defeat on the Banu Ghaniya, he set off for the Iberian Peninsula to avenge his father's death.

Editorial summary

“Yaqub al-Mansur” enters the record as ruler of the Almohad Caliphate from 1184 to 1199. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Yaqub, al-Mansur and Ruler can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1199, 1184—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1160. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Yaqub, al-Mansur and Ruler.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Yaqub al-Mansur” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Yaqub, al-Mansur and Ruler provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q455739. VIAF identifies the subject as 55199128. The Library of Congress control number is n84007659. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1199 and 1184.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Yaqub al-Mansur” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.