Abderhraman I
'Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya ibn Hisham ibn 'Abd al-Malik or 'Abd al-Rahmān I (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بن معاوية بن هشام بن عبد الملك), known as Abder-Rahman I or 'Abd al-Rahmān I al- Dājil (الداخل, 'the one who enters' or 'the immigrated') (Damascus, March 731-Córdoba, 788) was a prince of the Umayyad dynasty who, in the year 756, after various vicissitudes, became the first independent emir of Córdoba, founding the Umawi dynasty there. He reigned for thirty-two years, dedicated mainly to crushing the revolts of the previous lord of the territory, supporters of the Abbasids and some Berber groups.
His mother was a Berber from the Nafza tribe, which helped him escape to Kabylia, in North Africa, when the Abbasid Revolution triumphed.
The internal situation of the emirate did not allow Abderramán I to direct the usual aceifas (Muslim raids) to the Christian territories of the north. His thirty-two-year reign passed between internal struggles to quell the resistance of the previous emir, Yusuf al-Fihri, and his sons, Syrian supporters of the Abbasids and Berbers settled in the Iberian Peninsula.
He was also known as al-Dájil ('the Immigrant'), Saqr Quraish ('the Hawk of the Quraysh') and the 'Hawk of Al-Dajil'. Andalus». Spelling variations of his name include "Abd ar-Rahman I", "Abdul Rahman I" and "Abderraman I".
Life
Childhood and youth
The grandson of Hisham ibn Abd al-Málik, the tenth Umayyad Caliph, and son of Prince Mu'awiya ibn Hisham and a Christian Berber slave concubine from the Nafza tribe, Abder-Rahman was born in a monastery on the outskirts of Damascus in March 731. When the caliph Marwan II was defeated and assassinated in 750 in Egypt and the new dynasty of the Abbasids was established, the young Umayyad was less than twenty years old. The new caliph, Abu ul- 'Abbas, fearful that the Umayyads might threaten his family's claim to the throne because of the influence they still possessed, invited his rivals to the Palestinian city of Abu Futrus, where a banquet was held at which the Umayyads were massacred. Umayyad attendants (July 25, 750). The only survivors of the massacre were Abd al-Rahman, his brother Yahya, his four-year-old son Sulayman, his sisters, and a freedman of Greek origin, Badr, who posing as refugees they fled from Damascus to a village, where they were pursued by Abbas's soldiers. Abd al-Rahman, his brother and his freedwoman had to flee into the desert in search of the Bedouin tribes, leaving behind their sisters and his son.
The Umayyads, who were pursued by their enemies, the Abbasids, reached as far as the Euphrates River. Abd al-Rahman and his freedman, Badr, swam across to the other shore, but Yahya did not make it across, so he was captured and beheaded. After witnessing Yahya's murder, both fugitives fled to Palestine, Syria, and then towards North Africa, the common refuge for those who wanted to escape from the Abbasids.
During the change of dynasty, the Umayyad region had fallen into the hands of local caciques, former emirs or lieutenants of the caliphs, from whom they sought independence but were not supported. After a while, Abderramán discovered that his life was threatened, he fled further west and took refuge among the Berber tribes of northern Morocco (in the Nafzas tribe to which his mother belonged), but these They ended up expelling him. Badr and a few faithful of the Umayyad dynasty accompanied him on his travels, and in the midst of these dangers he kept his spirits up thanks to his confidence in one of the prophecies of his great-uncle Maslama, according to which he would restore the fortunes of his family.
Arrival to the Peninsula
Abder-Rahman arrived in Ceuta in 755, after having crossed all of North Africa in the company of his loyal vassal Badr. From there he sent an agent to the Iberian Peninsula to seek support from other clients of the family, descendants of the conquerors in the peninsula, who were numerous in the province of Elvira, currently Granada.
The country was in a state of confusion due to the weak leadership of Emir Yusef or Yusuf, a mere puppet in the hands of one faction; the territory was divided by tribal tensions between Arabs and Berbers due to racial conflicts between them. This gave Abderramán an opportunity that he had not found in Africa. Thanks to the invitation of his supporters, Abderramán arrived on the Granada coast of Almuñécar in September of the year 755. In Archidona he proclaimed himself emir. Already installed in the castle of Turrush, supported by the Mozarabs of the fortress (Christians who paid extra tribute for staying in Muslim territory), he recruited a small army with which he was able to rise to power. At that time, Yúsef could not face him because he was helping Zaragoza, besieged by the rebels. Yusef returned to the south immediately, but his troops had suffered heavy losses in the north.
In March of the year 756, Abderramán entered Seville, which by then dominated the provinces of Elvira, Sidona and Málaga. He entered with his troops, made up of Syrians, Yemenis and Berbers, who advanced through the Guadalquivir valley, while Yúsef left Córdoba for Seville, but noticing the advance of his enemy, he returned to the capital. The two armies ended up meeting on opposite banks of the river, which was in high water, making it impossible to cross it. Both forces marched in parallel to the area of Al-Musara, on the outskirts of Córdoba.
They entered into negotiations and Yusef offered one of his daughters in marriage and land dowries. On March 13, Abderramán, aware of the fatigue of his troops and the good condition of the adversaries, proposed to his men that they accept peace or fight; his soldiers opted for the latter option. Seeing that the river had receded, Abder-Rahman pretended to accept Yusef's proposal, who sent him animals to feed his troops, but at nightfall, the Umayyad army crossed the river unseen. At that time the Umayyad troops numbered 2,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry. At dawn, both forces prepared for the battle of Al-Musara; for the decisive clash Abderramán ordered his infantry troops to position themselves in the center, despite the shortage of cavalry on the flanks. Armed only with a bow, the future emir was almost the only one riding a good war horse, and was surrounded by his most loyal men. He had no flag, so he improvised one with a green turban and spear (the turban and spear became the flag of the Spanish Umayyads). Likewise, Yusef ordered his men to prepare in the same way.The Umayyad Arab cavalry, made up of slaves and Berbers, attacked the center and right of Yusef's formation. The battle ensued in single combat between Khalid Sudi, Yusef's servant and head of his cavalry, and Habid ibn Adb al-Málik, head of the Umayyad cavalry. During the battle, the Yemenis feared Abd al-Rahman's escape. in case of a setback in combat, because he was mounted on horseback. Abd al-Rahman, hearing the rumours, summoned Abu Sabbah Yahya al-Yahsubi and asked for his mule, a gesture that calmed the Yemenis. Finally, the Umayyad horsemen and the Syrians launched an attack on the center of the host. enemy, killing three infantry commanders; two of them were sons of Yusef and the other of al-Sumayl ibn Hatim. Both escaped giving the battle for lost and left the left wing alone, which resisted until well into the day; however their chiefs perished.
After victory, Abd al-Rahman entered Córdoba and went to the fortress, from where he expelled some soldiers who had gone before him and were looting the palace. The Yemenis, angry that they had not achieved their goal, turned to Abu Sabbah Yahya al-Yahsubi, who proposed to assassinate Abd al-Rahman in order to regain power again, a proposal that the Yemenis rejected.
Emirate
After the victory, Abderramán proclaimed himself the independent emir of al-Andalus in Archidona on March 16 and the Abbasids of Baghdad lost this territory. Shortly after, he triumphantly entered Córdoba with his splendid white horse, on the day of 'Aid al-Kabir (commemoration of Abraham's sacrifice). Immediately afterwards he freed from slavery a Visigoth convert to Islam, whom he married and became the mother of Hisham I.
To ensure his supremacy over the other disputing factions, Abder-Rahman sought to create a professional army of 40,000 strong. In order to ensure the loyalty of his men, he trained them himself and chose their officers. It included Christians, Hispanics, Franks, Slavs, Berbers, Mamluks, and people from all social classes, including slaves, who received permanent pay. However, most of its troops were made up of mercenaries who were recruited in North Africa. These troops, especially former slaves, were considered more loyal as they were not involved in the internal power struggles within the emirate, as were their original units consisting of the unreliable Syrians, Yemenis, originally Arab and Berber settlers, and on whom at the beginning of his reign the emir relied excessively.
The long reign of 32 years was spent in a permanent struggle to bring order to his anarchic Arab and Berber subjects, who had never claimed to have a leader and resisted his rule, so Abderramán became increasingly strict. On the one hand, Yemenis and Qaysids allied with the Abbasids; on the other, the most dangerous revolt was that caused by the Berbers included by Kharijismo. The head of the Kharijismo, al-Wahid, also considered himself a descendant of the prophet and remained unsubmissive, using guerrilla tactics for ten years, coming to dominate the region located between the Tagus and Guadiana basins.
Yúsef escaped to Toledo, where he assembled a new army and attacked the capital in the company of his son, but they abandoned it when they learned of the emir's return. The other rebel leader, al-Sumayl, escaped to Jaén and relied on Yúsef but both were forced to ask for amnesty because of the last defeat. The emir agreed in exchange for keeping two of Yusef's sons as hostages. Both chiefs returned to Córdoba defeated between 756 and 757. Yúsuf, with an army of 20,000 men from Toledo, Alicante and Mérida, marched to Seville where he was rejected by the local governors. Later he returned to Toledo, where his cousin Hisham ibn Urwa ruled, who gave him refuge until Yusef was assassinated by his soldiers in the year 759.
In the same year of 759, the inhabitants of Narbonne murdered the Muslim garrison and handed over the city to the Franks, in exchange for preserving its traditional laws. At that time the Muslims lost control of all of Septimania, a dedicated military region mainly to control the Pyrenean peoples and that they had inherited from the Visigoths.
In the year 761, Abderramán besieged Toledo, in which Hisham's subjugation was located, where he reached a pact, but he rebelled again the following year for which one of his sons, who was delivered as a hostage, died beheaded and his head thrown over the city walls. In the year 764, Badr together with Tamman ibn Alqama ath-Thaqifi besieged the city, reaching an agreement in which a faction of the city handed over Hisham and his commanders, who were taken to Córdoba where they were publicly crucified.
In the year 763, the Abbasids sent an Arab chief named al-'Ala ibn Mugaith al-Yahsubi al-Hadrami (known as al-'Ala ibn Muguit) with men and instructions to stage a rebellion against of the emir In Beja (present-day Portugal), Abderramán prepared to resist the attack of al-‘Ala in the fortress of Carmona. He sent Badr to the entrance of the city to establish a camp with the support of the people. While the Abbasids were distracted and dispersed trying to enter the city, Abder-Rahman attacked the enemy chiefs with his hidden cavalry nearby, who ended up dead and their heads were sent (filled with salt and camphor) to the governor of Tunis with their heads. names tagged in their ears.
In the year 766, the revolt started from Niebla. The leader in charge on that occasion was a Yahsubi from the region, Sa'id al-Matari. The insurrection spread to Seville and most of the West Yemenis participated in it, but when the Umayyad emir marched on Seville, Sa'id was killed in the attack.
That same year, the governor of Seville, Abu Sabbah al-Yahsubi, was assassinated by the emir himself. The assassination of Abu Sabbah sparked hatred among his blood relatives, who were powerful throughout the western part of the peninsula, in Beja and Niebla.
During the constant rebellions, Abderramán cut off thousands of heads to impose his rule and his main enemies were the Berbers, who saw him as any other conquering Arab. which was the method of payment for Muslim soldiers until the introduction of the payment of a salary by Abderramán I. In the long run, this conflict caused many of them to emigrate to the Maghreb during the second half of the century VIII leaving several regions depopulated, but which were later repopulated by Christians who had previously migrated to the north of the Duero and Ebro valleys after the battle of Guadalete. The Berbers had participated in the conquest of the peninsula but received the worst blows lands, they were dedicated in mountainous areas to grazing in addition to the fact that they did not have the same rights as the Arabs. In the year 768, the chief of the Berbers, Shaqya ibn Abd al-Walid al-Fatimi (also known as Saqyà al-Miknasi), rebelled in the province of Cuenca and proclaimed himself Imam and a descendant of Fatima. From his refuge in the mountains he launched several attacks into the interior of present-day Spain until 777 when he was assassinated by his supporters and his head was sent to the Emir as proof of his submission. With this, the Umayyad expanded his domain to the north, subduing the Ebro valley, reaching the Pyrenees.
In 777 Tudmir of the Arab agitator al-Siqlabi, sent by the Baghdad court, landed on the Murcian coast. He immediately moved to Barcelona, made contact with the independent governor of Zaragoza, Suleymán ibn Yaqzan al-Arabi, and with Abu l-Aswad Muhammad, son of Yusuf, with whom he revolted the city.
That year the first attempt to subdue Zaragoza failed, the army dispersed and its commander was captured. Although the city's rulers were strongly independent, they expected a new offensive and sent an embassy to Paderborn, where they met with Charlemagne, the only monarch capable of confronting the emir and ensuring their independence from emir centralism compared to feudalism. of the Frankish king.
In 778, two Frankish armies crossed the Pyrenees, but Barcelona, which they had asked for help, refused to support them. When they reached their objective, they united and the battle of Roncesvalles took place. At the end of the year 779, Abderramán conquered Zaragoza and later the valley of the Ebro river. As for al-Siqlabi, he fled to Valencia where he was persecuted by an army of the Emir who ended up burning his ships. He was killed by one of his mercenaries and his head was sent to Abderrahman between 778 and 779.
Yemeni uprisings
Abderramán I also fought against the Yemeni or Kalbí Arabs. His allies, not seeing his support rewarded as they expected and without being able to exercise any command position over the sovereign, took part in conspiracies against his regime.
The Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad provided spiritual support for many of these revolts against the surviving prince of the outlawed dynasty, and sometimes fomented them with direct assistance. In the year 763, the Arab chief al-Ala ibn Muguit rose up against the emir in the district of Beja (southern Portugal), hoisting the black flag of the Abbasid caliphs. Provided with money and instructions by the caliph Abu Jáfar al-Mansur, he landed in al-Andalus with the promise of obtaining the government of the country if he managed to dethrone the Umayyad usurper. This attracted supporters, especially Yemenis; The Umayyad emir came to be under siege in Carmona, but a lucky exit gave him victory. Al-'Ala ibn Muguit perished in the combat, as well as prominent leaders of the insurrection. The heads of all of them were embalmed and put in a sack together with the investiture diploma and the black Abbasid flag.
The Yemenis also revolted in Niebla under the command of chief Sa'id al-Matari al-Yahsubi, who seized Seville and became strong again in Qalat Raawac (Alcalá de Guadaíra), where he was besieged by the emir. Sa'id al-Matari died in one of the sorties that the rebels made to try to break the siege. His troops had to call for surrender after bitter fighting. Abu Sabbah Yahya al-Yahsubi, the influential Yemeni chief, who proposed the death of the emir after the battle of Al-Musara, who is said to have been involved in the rebellion, he was invited to the capital as a form of reconciliation where he was assassinated in the year (766).
The next rebellion, between 772 and 774, lasted a little longer. While Abd al-Rahman I was besieging the castle of Xabatrán, where the Berber rebel Shaqya was taking refuge (December 772), he received a message of his son Suleymán, who was governor of Córdoba, in which he was announced the revolt of the Sevillians under the command of a certain Abd al-Gaffar al-Yahsubi, cousin of the murdered Abu Sabbah Yahya al-Yahsubi, and of Hayat ibn Mulatis with support from local Yemenis.
The Emir returned to his capital but when he saw the size of the rebel forces he sent his cousin, Abd al-Málik ibn Úmar al-Marwani, at the head of his troops, leaving himself in the rear ready to help him. -Marwani sent his son Umayya to explore the place, and the moment he found rebel troops he fled, for which he was punished and beheaded at the hands of his own father. After the assassination of Umayya, al-Marwani harangued his men and attacked the rebels destroying them. As a reward for his valor, Abder-Rahman married his son Hisham to the daughter of his cousin's and gave her hereditary lands and titles.
On November 20, 773, Abderramán entered Seville and ordered the execution of the supporters of the rebellion. This fact caused him such hatred among the Arabs that the emir had to buy slaves, that is, Mamluks, for his army, since they did not want to join his ranks as before.
The two Yemeni leaders of the rebellion were able to escape, but the emir pursued them to the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, where thanks to a stratagem by his cousin he defeated them at the wadi Qais (Bembézar river).) in the year 774.
The Arab civil wars and the Berber uprisings practically ended during the reign of Abd al-Rahmán I, but peace was disturbed by riots and revolts of a social nature among the population of the Arrabal de Córdoba and among the muladíes of the cities border crossings of Mérida, Toledo and Zaragoza.
Emirate Organization
Its territory was well organized thanks to the efficiency of its ministers and governors in the seven provinces of the emirate, made up of qadis, city judges and the Koranic council that sought the integration of the different religious groups under the laws of Muhammad, like that of the muladíes (Christian converts), the Mozarabs and the Jews, fully integrated. Abderramán always had four or five advisers who advised him in every difficult decision, among whom was his former vassal Badr, whom he appointed chief of the army, and with whom he kept a certain friendship.
He ordered that the Abbasids of Baghdad should never be prayed for and was proclaimed prince of believers. The coins did not mention Baghdad and only reflected the current year and the name of al-Andalus. He encouraged crops and introduced the palm tree to the Iberian Peninsula. According to tradition, all the palm trees in Spain descend from a palm tree that Abderramán I planted with his own hands in the garden of his palace in Córdoba.
Mosque of Cordoba
In the year 785, he used the material from a Visigothic basilica dedicated to San Vicente to start the construction of the Mosque of Córdoba, which would remain for posterity as a symbol of the splendor of Muslim Spain. During his last years, he began a process of massive construction to justify his power in the eyes of the community, since he was already assured by the defeat of Yusef's sons, Abu l-Aswad Muhammad and Qásim ibn Yusuf, who had rebelled in Toledo with 6,000 men under his command. Abderramán personally defeated them in battle on September 11 of that year.
Umayyad Dynasty
Between 779 and 780, the Umayyads Abd as-Salam ibn Yazid and the emir's nephew, Ubayd Allah ibn Aan, attempted to overthrow him from power and paid for the attempt with their lives.
Some time later, in the year 783, his nephew, al-Muguira, son of his brother Walid, along with a son of the famous al-Sumayl ibn Hatim named Hudhayl ibn As-Sumayl, hatched another conspiracy that they also paid for with their life.
His faithful freedman Badr was also insolent towards his lord and fell into disgrace, being temporarily banished to a border square in the year 772. Years later he reconciled with the emir and recovered the confiscated goods and past prerogatives.
He had three legitimate sons who claimed to succeed him, Suleiman, Hisham and Almóndzir. Abderramán made the decision to choose the successor following an ancient oriental tradition. He chose Hisham, as he was the most similar to him both in character and physically, to whom he left an immense legacy. The succession was not easy, as two of the new emir's brothers did not recognize his authority and rose up against him.
He never lost a battle, and in his later years, Abder-Rahman had to deal with a succession of conspiracies in the palace, which he vigorously suppressed. He established a unified Muslim state that managed to halt the Christian advance for several centuries and prevented the collapse of Islamic control on the peninsula. He founded the dynasty that ensured Umayyad control of Spain until 1031.
After putting down the rebellion of the Moors in the 16th century, it is possible that some of the remaining Umayyad descendants settled in the Valencia region and were forced to become Christians or were deported from the port of Alicante in 1609.
Filmography
The film Al-Ándalus, the path of the sun (1989) deals with the life of Abderramán I, the character being played by actor Luis Suárez.
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