The Red Earth Echoes in Silves:

The stability that followed the Islamic conquest contributed to transforming Silves into an urban city with clear Islamic features; mosques were built, markets were consolidated, and Arab and Yemeni migrants flowed in, as al‑Idrisi noted. When the independent Umayyad Emirate was established under Abd al‑Rahman I in 756 CE, Silves became part of the administrative structure of al‑Andalus, joining the district of Ukshunuba, which covered much of today’s southern Portugal.

Most of the historical sources do not mention the name of Silves during the period between the year the Muslims entered al‑Andalus in 711 CE and 844 CE, when the Vikings raided the western coasts of al‑Andalus during the rule of Emir ʿAbd al‑Rahman II (822–852 CE). This silence is largely because Silves was a small town belonging to the district (kūra) of Ukshunuba and had not yet risen to the level of an important city, which it would only achieve later under the Almohads in the 12th and 13th centuries (Al-ʿUqaydī, 2009). 

The importance of Silves as a naval base in western Al-Andalus grew significantly during the Umayyad Caliphate. Its shipyard contributed to the production of a vast number of ships that joined the Andalusian navy. Most units of that fleet were stationed either at the primary base in Almeria in the east to counter the Fatimid threat, or in Seville in the west to confront the Viking threat (Al-ʿUqaydī, 2009).

In this regard, the historian Ibn 'Idhari mentions: 

...They [the Vikings] reached the plains of Lisbon, where the Muslims marched out to meet them. A battle proceeded in which many Muslims fell in combat and many of the disbelievers were slain. The fleet of Seville then set sail, capturing them at the River of Silves. They took their positions, destroyed several of their vessels, rescued the Muslims held captive within them, and killed a great number of the polytheists. Consequently, the enemy fled in total defeat... (Ibn Idhārī, 2013, translated by author).

In the early 11th century, Silves was not spared from the political earthquake in al-Andalus, when the Umayyad Caliphate collapsed and fragmented into a small independent emirate known as the Taifa kingdoms (mulūk al-ṭawāʾif). 

By the early Taifa decades, Silves passed through different rulers. It first came under the control of the Banu Muzayn, a local dynasty that briefly declared independence over the Andalusian west, before the expansionist ambitions of the Abbadis of Seville (Banū ʿAbbād) drew it into their growing western Andalusian domain (Anan, 1969). 

The Abbadis, who ruled from Seville under the leadership of al-Muʿtaḍid and later his son al-Muʿtamid, were among the most powerful and culturally ambitious of all the Taifa rulers, and their absorption of Silves into their territories would produce one of the most remarkable and personal connections in the city’s entire history.

That was reflected when al-Muʿtamid ibn ʿAbbād, the poet Emir, became a governor of Silves. Having stayed there most of his youth, it was on the banks of the River Arade that al-Muʿtamid met Ibn ʿAmmār (Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAmmār), a poet who would become his closest companion, his court poet (Anan, 1969).

Under al-Mu‘tamid’s governance and Ibn ‘Ammār’s influence, poetry in Silves was a language of diplomacy and administration. Even after al-Mu‘tamid left for Seville to be the ruler of the Abbadis Taifa, al-Mu‘tamid wrote some of the most famous poems about his nostalgia for Silves and the Palace of the Verandas (Qasr al-Sharajib) where this city was the heartbeat of Andalusian culture, driven by the friendship of two men who lived their lives like the poems they wrote. 

This legacy is most visible in the city’s primary square, Praça al-Mu‘tamid. In a spectacular display of cultural bridge building, the poetry is exhibited in the center of the square in both Arabic and Portuguese.