Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa

Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa ibn Nusair (in Arabic: عبد العزيز بن موسى‎) was the second vali of Al-Andalus, ruling between the years 714 to 716. He resided in Ishbiliya (Seville). He married Egilona, the widow of the last Visigoth king Rodrigo.

Biography

He was the son of Musa ibn Nusair, who had entrusted him with various missions in the Maghreb. He had accompanied his father when he landed in the Iberian Peninsula in the year 712. He returned to Isbiliya to quell an uprising against the Jewish rulers, and from there he set about conquering the entire south of the Peninsula, while his father and Tariq ibn Ziyad conquered the north.

When in 714, the father went to Damascus when called by Caliph Walid I, he appointed his son Abd al-Aziz as governor (walí) of al-Andalus.

In 713 he married Egilona, Rodrigo's widow, to try to attract the Visigoth nobility. They were the parents of Aïcha bint Abd al-Aziz (born between 713 and 717), married to Fortun ibn Qasi, ancestors of the Banu Qasi.

His figure and performance, despite his brief mandate, have been seen very differently by historiography. For some, he was a model of a ruler; For others, quite the opposite, and they accuse him of being an apostate and a rebel, thereby justifying his murder.

Musa appointed Habib ibn Abi 'Ubayda al-Fihri as an advisor, a person of great prestige among the Arab yund who remained in Al-Andalus. As ruler, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa sought to complete and consolidate the policy initiated by his father of consolidating Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula. To do this, he always encountered the difficulty of a shortage of military personnel, so he had to bring new contingents to whom he promised to give land.

This recruitment policy resulted in various economic and social tensions among the first conquerors who accompanied Musa to the Peninsula and who stayed there, as they had to share their profits and goods with the newcomers. Most of the new troops were Berbers or mawali (Umayyad clients or freedmen). These conflicts have been seen as the cause of the assassination of Abd al-Aziz, which was promoted by the Arab yund led by his leader Habib ibn Abi' Ubayda al-Fihri, the advisor put by his father.

At the end of 714, upon learning of the resignation of King Agila II, the allied Visigoths rebelled and proclaimed Ardon king. Abd al-Aziz tried to get them to obey the Caliph in 715, but failing to do so he decided to militarily conquer northeastern Tarragona and Septimania. But before gathering the army that had to march to the area, he was assassinated in the spring of 716. Christian sources attribute his death to a direct order from the caliph of Damascus, Suleiman I, when he was denounced for having converted to Christianity at the behest of his wife.

To more easily achieve Muslim rule in the Peninsula, Abd-al-Aziz followed a policy of pacts or treaties, through capitulations, with the Visigoth rulers. This policy was the most frequent and widespread. One of the best documented treaties - collected by various authors such as al-Dabbi, al-Razi, al-'Udri and al-Himyari - was the one he made (April 713) with Teodomiro, Visigoth ruler of the southeastern area. of the Peninsula—Orihuela, Mula, Lorca, Alicante, Elche, Balantala and Ello. In it and among fourteen other important and significant provisions, Teodomiro was allowed to continue ruling in said area after the conquest.

After his assassination, he was succeeded temporarily by Ayyub Habib al-Lajmi.