It became independent as a taifa centered on the Moorish city of Murcia after the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba (11th century).

His campaign aimed at the fertile countryside around Murcia whose local Muslim rulers were bound by pacts with Castile and governing by proxy on behalf of this kingdom; Castilian troops often raided the area to assert a sovereignty which, in any case, was not stable but characterized by the typical skirmishes and ever changing alliances of a frontier territory.

The Castilians, led by King Alfonso X, took the Kingdom of Murcia at the end of this period, when large numbers of immigrants from north Catalonia and Provence settled in the town; Catalan names are still not uncommon.

[3] Throwing off Almoravid authority, Ibn Iyad of Murcia recognized the supremacy of the Hudid ruler Sayf al-Dawla in 1146.

Sometime between 1264 and the Aragonese conquest of 1266, Abu Bakr was overthrown by Abdallah ibn Ali of the Banu Ashqilula, allies of the Nasrids of Granada.