Meanwhile the Gothic provinces, called kingdoms (sometimes united, sometimes divided), had not been blind to their advantage in pressing the Moors on every side, and the latter steadily, though slowly, shrank within more restricted confines, until the Tagus and the Guadiana were their most northern boundaries. Grim Yussef died in 1104, and the great Alfonso in 1109. The latter, under whom Castile had risen steadily to the first rank among the kingdoms of the north, and who was known as the “Buckler of the Faith,” had been victor in thirty–nine battles, and had but twice suffered defeat. The year 1104 saw the crown of Aragon pass to Alfonso I, who was married to a daughter of Alfonso VI of Castile. It has been said that if the two Alfonsos had but united their forces, while holding their respective kingdoms, the Moors might have been expelled from Spain three hundred years sooner than they were. About this time rose to power in Morocco a fanatical Moslem known as Mohammed ben Abdullah, the son of a lamplighter in the mosque of Cordova. He was educated in Cordova and in Bagdad, but later went to Morocco, where he made his home in the Atlas Mountains and proclaimed himself the Mahdi, or leader of the faithful. He soon had many followers, who called themselves _Almohades_, or followers of the one God. Raising an immense army, Mohammed came down from the mountains and besieged the city of Morocco, which was defended by Ali the son of Yussef. Both Ali and Mohammed died during the siege, and one Abdelmummen succeeded the Mahdi in command. He took the city, driving out and killing the inhabitants, and repeopling it with Bedouins from the desert and the mountains. Proclaimed sovereign of all Africa and Moslem Spain, Abdelmummen invaded the peninsula with an army so vast that two months were consumed in crossing the straits, and an alarm spread throughout all Europe; but the men of the new sect were more anxious, apparently, for converts to their creed than victories over the Christians, for in the end the Almoravides were either expelled or converted, and the Almohades reigned supreme. Their dominion extended from the Atlantic to the Nile in Africa, and in Spain over all that the Christian arms had not wrested from their predecessors. Abdelmummen died in 1162, leaving the kingdom to his son Cid Yussef, who built the mosque of Seville, the great aqueduct that brought water to that city, and the bridge across the Guadalquivir. He was killed in 1184 and his son Yacoub succeeded, who in the year 1195 won a great victory over Alfonso VIII, at the battle of Alarcos. A little more than a century previously the Moslems had gained another victory, at Zallaca; but these two, vast as were their results, were to be avenged by an overwhelming defeat which the God of the Christians was preparing for them.