Almohad fleet dominates the western Mediterranean

1156

The Almohad caliph Abd al-Mu'min launched an ambitious naval building program at the Atlantic ports of Salé and Ceuta that produced a war fleet capable of challenging the Normans, Genoese, and Pisans for supremacy in the western Mediterranean. For a generation, Almohad warships controlled the Strait of Gibraltar and raided the exposed coasts of southern Iberia and the Balearic Islands with near impunity.