The Mahdi was fighting a Mahdi, and Muhammad bin Hisham was excessive in killing his opponents, to the point that he made a garden from their heads, planting various plants in them. He also distilled wine in his palace and drank it, so much so that they called him "Nabidh" (the distiller). When the Almohads and Almoravids departed, and the Spanish triumphed over the Muslims, leaving the Muslims with only a small area in Al-Andalus, the kings of Banu al-Ahmar looked forward to an awaited Mahdi who would strengthen them against the Spanish and expel them, as they themselves were unable to expel them. As time passed, talk of the Mahdi and the Mahdi increased. From ancient times, people saw the success of this idea. The Umayyads invented a Mahdi named Al-Sufyani. The author of "Al-Aghani" said that Khalid bin Yazid bin Muawiyah added to the news of Al-Sufyani and magnified him, and there was in him the meaning of the awaited Mahdi. This belief in Al-Sufyani persisted into the Abbasid era. The Abbasids also revived the idea of the Mahdi, but they placed it within the Abbasid house, not the Alawi. The Caliph Al-Mahdi took this title for a purpose. As for the Shiites, they also embraced this idea and confined it to the Alawi house.