Taifa

, Arabic �ta'ifah�, plural �tawa'if� a faction or party, as applied to the followers of any of the petty kings who appeared in Muslim Spain in a period of great political fragmentation early in the 11th century after the dissolution of the central authority of the Umayyad caliphate of C�rdoba. After the dictatorship of al-Muzaffar (reigned 1002 - 08), civil war reduced the caliphate to a puppet institution and allowed