From Internet collection.
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Full name Kunya: Abu al-Mutarrif[8] (أبو المطرف)
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Abd-ar-Rahman III (Abd al-Rahmān ibn Muhammad ibn Abd Allāh; Arabic: عبد الرحمن الثالث; 11 January 889/91[14] – 15 October 961) was the Emir and Caliph of Córdoba (912–961) of the Ummayad dynasty in al-Andalus. Called al-Nasir (“the Defender of the Faith”), he ascended the throne when he was twenty-two years of age and reigned for half a century as the most powerful prince of Iberia.[15] Although under his rule, people of all creeds enjoyed tolerance andfreedom of religion, he repelled the Fatimids, partly by supporting their enemies in Ifriqiya, and partly by claiming the title Caliph (ruler of the Islamic world) for himself.
Life
Early years
Abd ar-Rahman was born in Córdoba, the grandson of Abdullah, seventh independent Umayyademir of Al-Andalus, and the son of Muhammad and Muzna or Muzayna, a Christian concubine.[16] His paternal grandmother was also a Christian, the royal infanta Onneca Fortúnez, daughter of captive king Fortún Garcés of Pamplona, and he was thus nephew in the half-blood of queen Toda of Navarre. He is described as having:
.. white skin, blue eyes and attractive face; good looking, although somewhat sturdy and stout. His legs were short, at the point that the stirrups of his saddle were mounted just one palm under it. When mounting, he looked tall, but once at feet he was quite short. He dyed his beard black.[17]
Muhammad was assassinated by his brother Al-Mutarrif, who had allegedly grown jealous of the favour Abdallah had gained by his merits, and had accused Muhammad of plotting with the rebelUmar ibn Hafsun. Al-Mutarrif had thus spent a spell in prison. According to some sources, the emir himself was behind Muhammad’s fall, as well as Al-Mutarrif’s death in 895. Abd ar-Rahman spent his youth in his mother’s harem. Al-Mutarrif’s sister, known as al-Sayyida (“the Lady”) was entrusted with his education, which she carried out with some rigidity.[18]
Accession to throne
Emir Abdallah died at seventy-two. Despite his having four sons alive at the time of his death (Aban, Abd al Rahman, Muhammad and Ahmad), all of them were surpassed for succession, instead Abdallah chose as his successor the son of his first son, Abd al-Rahman III. This came as no surprise, since he had demonstrated his affection for his grandson in many ways already, namely by allowing him to live in his own tower (something he did not allow for any of his sons), allowing him to sit on the throne on some festive occasions, and most importantly by giving him his ring, symbol of power when he fell ill prior to his death. He succeeded him the very next day after his death, 16 October 912. Historiographers of his time, such as al-Bayan l’Mogrib and the Cronica anonima de Abd-ar-Rahman III, state that his succession was “without incidents”. At the time he was twenty-one years old. He inherited an emirate on the verge of dissolution, his power extending not far beyond the vicinity of Córdoba. To the north, the Christian Kingdom of Asturias was continuing its program of Reconquista in the Duero valley. To the south, in Ifriqiya, the Fatimids had created an independent caliphate, which could attract the allegiance of the Muslim population suffering the harsh rule of Abdullah. On the internal front the discontented Muladi families (Muslims of Iberian origin) constituted a constant danger for the Córdoban emir. The most powerful of the latter was the aforementioned Umar ibn Hafsun, who, from his impregnable fortress ofBobastro, controlled much of the eastern Al-Andalus.
Since the very early stages of his reign, Abd ar-Rahman showed a firm resolve to quash the rebels of Al-Andalus, consolidate the central power and reestablish the internal order in the emirate. To accomplish his aims he introduced into the court the saqalibah, slaves of East European origin and a third ethnic group that could neutralize the endless strife between his Muslim subjects of Arab and Berber heritage.
Early rule
In the first twenty years of his rule of forty-nine, Abd ar-Rahman avoided military action against the northern Christian kingdoms, AsturiasandNavarre. The Muladi rebels were the first problem he confronted. Those powerful families were supported by Iberians who were openly or secretly Christians and had acted with the rebels. These elements, which formed the bulk of the population, were not averse to supporting a strong ruler who would protect them against the Arab aristocracy. Abd ar-Rahman moved to subdue them by means of a mercenary army that included Christians.
He first had to suppress the rebel Umar ibn Hafsun. On 1 January 913 an army, led by the eunuch Badr, conquered the fortress of Écija, at some 50 km from the capital. All the city’s fortifications were destroyed, aside from the citadel, which was left as residence of the governor and a garrison for the emiral troops. In the following spring, after sixty-five days of meticulous preparations, Abd ar-Rahman personally led an expedition to the south of his realm. His troops were able to recover the coras (provinces) of Jaén and Elvira, while a cavalry detachment was sent to free Málaga from ibn Hafsun’s siege. He also obtained the capitulation of Fiñana (in the modern province of Almería), after setting fire to its suburbs. Subsequently he moved against the castle of Juviles in the Alpujarras. After devastating its countryside to deprive it of any resource, he encircled it. Finding it difficult to bombard with catapults, he ordered the construction of a platform where his siege weapons could be mounted to greater effect, and cut the water supply. The Muladi defenders surrendered after a few days: their lives, apart from fifty-five die-hards who were beheaded, were spared in exchange of their allegiance to the emir. The campaign continued in a similar vein, lasting for a total of ninety days. Abd ar-Rahman forced the defeated Muladi to send hostages and treasures to Córdoba, in order to secure their continued submission.
In the first year of his reign, Abd ar-Rahman took advantage of the rivalries between the Banu Hayyay lords of Seville and Carmona to force them to submit. He initially sent a special corps (hasam) under Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hudayr, governor of Écija, to Seville, to obtain their submission. This attempt failed, but gained him the support of Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Hayyay, lord of Carmona, and a cousin of the Sevillan lord, Ahmad ibn Maslama. When the latter was surrounded by Umayyad troops, he sued for help to Ibn Hafsun, but the latter was defeated by the besiegers and returned to Bobastro. Seville finally capitulated on 20 December 913. Ibn al-Mundir al-Qurays, a member of the royal family, was named governor of the city, while the Lord of Carmona obtained the title of vizier. Muhammad ibn Ibrahim enjoyed his office for only a single day, for Abd ar-Rahman soon discovered his collusion with the rebel governor of Carmona. Muhammad was sent to prison, where he later met his death.
The region of Valencia submitted peacefully in 915.
Ibn Hafsun and other rebels
Abd ar-Rahman’s next objective was to squash the longstanding rebellion of Ibn Hafsun.
His troops left Córdoba on 7 May 914 and, after a few days, encamped before the walls of Balda (identified with today’s Cuevas de San Marcos). His cavalry ravaged the nearby woods and the countryside, while the rest of the troopes moved to Turrus, a castle located in the present municipality of Algarinejo, which was surrounded within five days, while its environs were also devastated.
The Umayyad army then moved to Bobastro, while the cavalry was sent to the castleof Sant Batir, which was abandoned by the defenders, allowing Abd ar-Rahman’s troops to secure a large booty. Then it was the turn of the castles of Olías and Reina. The latter fell after a violent fight, leaving the road open to the major city and provincial capital of Málaga, which he captured after one day. Abd ar-Rahman then turned and followed the coast by Montemayor, near Benahavís, Suhayl (Fuengirola) and another castle called Turrus or Turrus Jusayn (identified byÉvariste Lévi-Provençal as Ojén). He finally arrived at Algeciras on 1 June 914. He ordered a patrol of the coast to destroy the boats that supplied Ibn Hafsun fromNorth Africa. Many of them were captured and set afire in front of the emir. The rebellious castles nearAlgeciras surrendered as soon as the Cordoban army manifested itself.
Abd ar-Rahman launched three different campaigns against Ibn Hafsun (who died in 917) and his sons. Among them, Jafar ibn Hafsun held the stronghold ofToledo. Abd ar-Rahman ordered ravaged the city’s countryside. Jafar, after two years of siege, escaped the city to ask for help in the northern Christian kingdoms. In the meantime Abd ar-Rahman obtained the surrender of the city from its population, after promising them immunity, although 4,000 rebel men escaped in a night sally. The city surrendered on 2 August 932, after a siege of two years.
In 921 the Banu Muhallab of Guadix submitted, followed by those of Jerez and Cádiz, as well as the trading republic of Pechina (922). In 927, Abd-ar-Rahman also launched a campaign against the rebel Banu Qasi clan, but was forced to break it off by the intervention of King Jimeno Garcés of Pamplona.
The last of Ibn Hafsun to fall was Hafs, who stood in his powerful fortress of Bobastro. Surrounded by the vizier Said ibn al-Mundhir who had ordered the construction of bastions around the city, he resisted the siege for six months, until he surrendered, having his life spared (928).[19]
The Levente and Algarve rebels
The continued expeditions against the Hafsunids did not distract Abd ad-Rahman III from the situation of other regions in al-Andalus, which recognized him only nominally, if not being in open revolt. Most of the loyal governors of the cities were in a tottering position, such as the one of Évora, who could not prevent the attack of the king of Galicia (future king of León), Ordoño II, who captured the city in the summer of 913, taking back a sizable booty and 4,000 prisoners.
In much of the eastern and western province, Abd ar-Rahman’s authority was completely unrecognized. The lord of Badajoz, Abd Allah ibn Muhammad, grandson of Abd-ar-Rahman ibn Marwan al-Yilliqi, not only fortified his city against a possible attack of Ordoño, but also acted in complete independence from Córdoba. To avoid the fall of Évora into the hands of Berber groups of the region, he ordered the destruction of its defensive towers and to lowered the walls, though a year later he decided to reconstruct it, giving it its Masud ally ibn Sa’ dun al-Surunbaqi. The Algarvewas dominated completely by a muladí coalition led by Sa’id ibn Mal, who had expelled the Arabs from Beja, and the lords of Ocsónoba, Yahya ibn Bakr, and of Niebla, Ibn Ufayr.
The absence of royal authority enabled Ordoño II to easily campaign in this area, his main objective begin the city of Mérida, in the summer of 915. Abd ar-Rahman III did not send an army and only several local Berber jefes offered a pointless resistance.
Assumption of the Caliphate
Letter proclaiming Abd-ar-Rahman III’s assumption of the Caliph title
We are the most worthy to fulfil our right, and the most entitled to complete our good fortune, and to put on the clothing granted by the nobility of God, because of the favour which He has shown us, and the renown which He has given us, and the power to which He has raised us, because of what He has enabled us to acquire, and because of what He has made easy for us and for our state [? dynasty; Arabic: dawla] to achieve; He has made our name and the greatness of our power celebrated everywhere; and He has made the hopes of the worlds depend on us [Arabic: a‘laqa], and made their errings turn again to us and their rejoicing at good news be (rejoicing at good news) about our dynasty [Arabic: dawla]. And praise be to God, possessed of grace and kindness, for the grace which He has shown, [God] most worthy of superiority for the superiority which He has granted us. We have decided that the da‘wa should be to us as Commander of the Faithful and that letters emanating from us or coming to us should be [headed] in the same manner. Everyone who calls himself by this name apart from ourselves is arrogating it to himself [unlawfully] and trespassing upon it and is branded with something to which he has no right. We know that if we were to continue [allowing] the neglect of this duty which is owed to us in this matter then we should be forfeiting our right and neglecting our title, which is certain. So order the khaṭīb in your place to pronounce [the khuṭba] using [this title] and address your communications to us accordingly, if God will. Written on Thursday, 2 Dhū al-Ḥijja 316 [16 January 929].
Translated by David Wasserstein[3]
In the next year, despite having quenched only the majority of the rebels, Abd ar-Rahman III found himself powerful enough to he declared himself as the Caliph of Córdoba (16 January 929), effectively breaking all allegiance to, and ties with, the Fatimid and Abbasid caliphs.[20] The caliphate was thought only to belong to the prince who ruled over the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina, and his ancestors had so far contended of the title of emir. But the force of this tradition had weakened over time; and the title increased Abd-ar-Rahman’s prestige with his subjects, both inIberia andAfrica. He based his claim to the caliphate on his Umayyad ancestors who had held undisputed control of the caliphate until they were overthrown by the Abbasids.
Abd ar-Rhaman’s move made him both the political and the religious leader of all the Muslims in al-Andalus, as well as the protector of his Christian and Jew subjects. The symbols of his new caliphal power were a sceptre (jayzuran) and the throne (sarir). In the mint he had founded in November 928, Abd ar-Rahman started to coin golden dinars[21] and silver dirhams, replacing the “al-Andalus” specification with his name.
In his new role of caliph, he obtained the surrender of Ibn Marwan of Badajoz in 930. On the southern front, to counter the increasing Fatimid power in North Africa, abd ar-Rahmad ordered the construction of a fleet based in Almeria: the caliph helped the Maghrawa Berbers conquerMelilla (927), Ceuta (931) and Tangiers (951), which accepted his suzerainty. In 951 he signed a peace with the new king of León, Ordoño III, in order to have free hand against the Fatimids whose ships were hararssing the caliphal ones in the Mediterranean and had even launched an assault against Almeria. Abd ar-Rahman’s force, led by prime minister Ahmad ibn Said, besieged the Fatimid port of Tunis, which bought its safety through a huge sum.[22]
In the end he was able to create a sort of protectorate on the northern and central Maghreb, supporting the Idrisid dynasty; the caliphal influence in the area disappeared after a Fatimid offensive in 958, after which abd ar-Rahman kept only the strongholds ofCeuta and Tangiers.
War with the Christian kingdoms of the north
Even before having al-Andalus firmly under his rule, he restarted the war against King Ordoño II of León, who had taken advantage of the previous troublesome situation to capture some boundary areas and menace the Umayyad territory. In 917 the then-emir had sent a large army under his general Ahmad ibn Abi Abda against León, but this was destroyed near San Esteban de Gormaz in September of that year.
Recognizing to have underestimated the power of Ordoño II, in 920 he mustered another powerful army to reclaim the territories lost after the previous campaign. After defeating, on 26 July, king Sancho Garcés I of Navarre at Junquera, he penetrated in Navarre overcoming the Aragon by the classic route of the invasions from the south. Abd ar-Rahman reached the Basque city of Pamplona, which was sacked, its cathedral church being demolished.
The succession crisis which struck León after Ordoño II’s death in 924 caused hostilities to cease until Ramiro II obtained the throne in 932; a first attempt from him to assist the besieged rebels in Toledo was repelled in 932, despite the Christian king was able to capture Madrid and to score a victory at Osma.
In 934, after reasserting supremacy over Pamplona and Álava, he forced Ramiro to retreat to Burgos, and forced the Navarrese queen Toda, his aunt, to submit to him as a vassal and withdraw from direct rule as regent for her son García Sánchez I. In 937 he conquered some thirty castles in León. Next he turned to Muhammad ibn Hashim at-Tugib, governor of Zaragoza, who had allied with Ramiro but was pardoned after the capture of his city.
Despite early defeats, Ramiro and García were able to crush the caliphate army in 939 at the Battle of Simancas, most likely, in part, to treason from Arabic elements in the caliph’s army. After this defeat, Abd-ar-Rahman stopped taking personal command of his military campaigns. His cause was however helped by Fernán González of Castile, one of the Christian leaders at Simancas, who subsequently launched a sustained rebellion against Ramiro. The victory of Simancas enabled the Christian kingdom to maintain the military initiative in the peninsula until the defeat of Ramiro’s successor, Ordoño III of León, in 956.
Until 961, the caliphate played an active role in the dynastic strife which characterized the Christian kingdom in the period. Ordoño III’s half-brother and successor, Sancho the Fat, had been deposed by his cousin Ordoño IV. Together with his grandmother Toda of Navarre, Sancho sued for an alliance with Córdoba. In exchange for some castles, Abd-ar-Rahman helped them to take back Zamora (959) and Oviedo (960) and to overthrow Ordoño IV.
In 950 abd ar-Rahman received in Córdoba an embassy from count Borrell II of Barcelona, by which the northern county recognized the caliphal supremacy in exchange of peace and mutual support.
Later years
Abd-ar-Rahman was accused of having sunk in his later years into the self-indulgent habits of the harem.[23] He is known to have openly kept a male as well as female harem.[24]
This likely influenced the polemical story of falling in love with a thirteen-year old boy (later enshrined as a Christian martyr and canonised asSaint Pelagius of Córdoba) who refused the Caliph’s advances. However, the love story may have been a construct on top of an original tale, in which he ordered the boy-slave to convert to Islam. Either way, enraged, he had the boy tortured and dismembered, thus serving asChristian polemic demonising Muslims.[25][26]
Abd-ar-Rahman spent the rest of his years in his new palace outside Córdoba. He died in October 961, and was succeeded by his son al-Hakam II.
Legacy
Abd-ar-Rahman was a patron of arts, and especially architecture. A third of his revenue sufficed for the ordinary expenses of government, a third was hoarded and a third spent on buildings.[23] After declaring the caliphate, he had a massive palace complex, known as the Medina Azahara, built some 5 kilometers north of Córdoba. The Medina Azahara was modelled after the old Umayyad palace in Damascus and served as a symbolic tie between the new caliph and his ancestors.
Under his reign, Córdoba became the most important intellectual centre ofWestern Europe. He expanded the city’s library, which would be further enriched by his successors.
I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen: – O man! place not thy confidence in this present world!
He also reinforced the Iberian fleet, which became the most powerful in the Mediterranean Europe. Iberian raiders moved up to Galicia, Asturias and North Africa. The colonizers of Fraxinetum came from al-Andalus as well.
Ancestry
Abd-ar-Rahman III’s mother Muzna was a Christian captive, possibly from the Pyrenean region. His paternal grandmother Onneca Fortúnezwas a Christian princess from the Kingdom of Pamplona. In his immediate ancestry, Abd-ar-Rahman III was thus three-quartersHispano–Basque, and only one-quarter Arab. This gave him European facial features, with blue eyes, light skin and reddish hair.[1]
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