January 1302, and subsequently Alfonso de la Cerda also joined the alliance and recognised Muhammad's rights to Tarifa. However, before the campaign started, Muhammad II died on 8 April 1302 (8 Shaban 701 AH). He was succeeded by his son, Muhammad III. There were allegations that Muhammad III, perhaps impatient to assume power, had poisoned his father, although this was never confirmed. Governance and legacy Muhammad built on the nascent state created by his father, and continued to secure his realm's independence by alternatively allying with other powers, especially Castile and the Marinids, and sometimes encouraging them to fight each other. A sense of identity also emerged in the realm, united by religion (Islam), language (Arabic), and an awareness of an ever-present threat to its survival from its Romance-speaking Christian neighbours. Historian Ibn Khaldun commented that these ties served as a replacement for asabiyyah or tribal solidarity, which Ibn Khaldun thought was fundamental to the rise and fall of a state. Muhammad II was the true organiser of the Nasrid state with his reforms to the administration and the army. His considerable legislative activity included the institution of the Nasrid royal protocol (rusūm al-mulk), and of the court chancery (al-kitāba), in which the chief figure of his reign was the future vizier Abu Abdallah ibn al-Hakim. His reign also saw the expansion and institutionalisation of the Volunteers of the Faith (also called ghazis in Arabic): soldiers recruited from North Africa to defend Granada against the Christians. Many of them were members of tribes or families which had been exiled from the Marinid state. Some of them settled in the city of Granada, establishing the quarter of Zenete (named after the Berber tribe of Zenata), and some in the western areas of the realm, such as Ronda and the surrounding area. They received payments from the state, but often came into conflict with the locals in the areas they settled. When, in the early 1280s, Granada came into conflict with the Marinids, the Volunteers remained loyal and defended Granada against Castile, when it attacked at the same time. Over time, the Volunteers became Granada's most important military force, numbering 10,000 at the end of Muhammad's rule and eclipsing Granada's locally recruited army. Their leader, the shaikh al-ghuzat, held an influential position in Granadan politics. Different men were named as the shaikh by Muhammad at different points of his reign, including Ali