I am Yafar ibn Sad, tanner of Balansiya.

I was born in the year 428 of the Hégira, six years later my father, who is a tanner, decided to leave Qurtuba (Cordoba) and go to Balansiya after the deposition of the last Califa. We settled in the suburban slum of Roteros, that the king of the Taifa of Balansiya just ordered the built. It was a time of wealth for the city. He built a magnificent wall and there was mass amounts of trade, but soon came the disasters for Al-Andalus. When business was going well for us, with a recently installed cordobanes leather workshop, the troops of Dun Firrand, king of Galicia, were stationed outside the walls of the city and caused a great slaughter. We were then forced to pay tribute to christian kings and the mercenary troops of Álvar Fáñez and Rodrigo Diaz to keep the peace, but we had not seen the worst of it. El Cid mercilessly besieged the city, and occupied it by the impotence of Almoravids and at Ra'is burned Ibn Yahhaf, our last hope. We can only give thanks to Allah and the prophet for having preserved our lives.