In the West the sun of a Caliphate has risen that will shine with splendor in the two East. With these verses the brilliant poet al-Qarawi celebrated the self-proclamation of ′Abd ar-Rahman III as Caliphate.
Background
Abderramán III came to the world on January 7, 891. The name of ′Abd ar-Rahman, Servant of God, honors his famous ancestor who, a century and a half earlier, had been saved from the massacre of his relatives in Damascus to flee to the other end of the known world and establish himself as an independent emir, reinstating Umayyad power in the city of Córdoba. Al-Andalus thus reached one of the greatest splendors known in Islamic history and Córdoba became one of the most populous cities in the world, only comparable to Constantinople and Baghdad.
However, the youth of what was to be the first Cordovan Caliph passed in a very hostile environment, marked by intrigues and revolts. When the old emir Abd Allah died in the year 912, the succession took an unprecedented turn, since it did not fall to any of the sons of the deceased, but to his favorite grandson: Abderramán. Contrary to what could be expected, the succession was easy, there being no problem on the part of his uncles.
Abderramán III the Emir: 912-929
Thus, he inherited an emirate on the verge of dissolution, whose effective power did not go much beyond the suburbs of Córdoba. Since the middle of the 9th century, a series of ethnic-political conflicts had undermined the authority of the emirs, causing the political fragmentation of al-Andalus. Various factions of Arabs, Berbers and Muladíes, facing each other, divided up the territory, the cities and the border marks.
The pacification of al-Andalus
If the succession to the title was relatively simple, asserting its authority throughout the territory would be a real challenge that would involve literally reconquering the lost emirate at the hands of enemies and rebels, both Christians and Muslims, who had become strong in the different coras or provinces.
The first campaign of his mandate took place a month after ascending to the throne, when the emir’s forces defeated the Berbers of Campo de Calatrava. They would also take the important city of Écija, whose walls and defenses were demolished, after which the amman to all its inhabitants. The granting of haman, forgiveness, would be a constant resource in the pacification of al-Andalus.
In the spring of that same year, Abderramán III personally directed his first aceifa, that is, a military expedition to Elvira, Jaén and Granada, regions partially controlled by a dangerous enemy of the Omeyas from Córdoba, the Muladí rebel Umar ibn Hafsún, although in his last days he would call himself Samuel after converting to Christianity. Malaga was freed from the siege to which it was subjected by its supporters, who were mostly Mozarabs or even Berbers dissatisfied with the ruling Arab aristocracy.
After Elvira’s cora subdued, he marched northeast taking a series of fortresses on his way. Specifically, the spectacular siege of Juviles in the Alpujarras of Granada stands out. After razing the fields, cutting down their trees, cutting off the water, and destroying all the surrounding resources, he laid siege to the castle, which was effectively defended due to being out of catapult range. Then the emir of Córdoba had a platform built where he installed a great almajaneque that weakened the fortress until after two weeks it surrendered.
As he advanced, Abderramán pardoned those rebel lords who submitted to him without resistance, many of whom went on to join the ranks of the Emirate army. Though to ensure his loyalty, he garrisoned his alcazabas and held his families in Córdoba as hostages. In 913 the emir was able to return victorious to Córdoba. According to the chroniclers, during the course of the campaign, which lasted ninety-two days, some seventy fortresses and nearly three hundred minor fortifications or towers had been taken or destroyed.
Another great success of this first year of reign was the subjugation of Seville, achieved at the cost of skilfully exploiting the internal disputes that existed in the Arab clan that ruled it. The Banu Hayyay were divided after the recent death of the head of the family, who had pitted his son against his uncle, the Lord of Carmona, supported by the emirate, for control of the city. The lord of Carmona soon broke the alliance with Córdoba, unhappy that he had not got the city for himself, but was defeated the following year. Seville, for its part, continued to be a focus of rebellion until much later.
The rebellion of Umar ibn Hafsun
This rebel of Hispanic-Gothic origin was without a doubt the greatest threat to the integrity of the Cordovan state of all those that existed in the 9th century. A problem that the emirate had dragged on since the days of Muhammad I (879) without any of the responses from the power in Cordoba managing to get it out of its, apparently impregnable, fortress of Bobastro. At the time of his maximum power, he came to dominate the Rayya cora, which included the current provinces of Malaga and Granada, of which the emirate had to officially recognize him as governor.
His attitude was always upstart, characterized by the resort to looting and raids, although at certain times he also collected taxes, more or less usurped from the central power of Cordoba, with respect to which he had several moments of brief adherence to gradually return to his old attitude of rebellion.
He established alliances with other insurgents in Jaén, Badajoz and Zaragoza. He even had contacts with Ifriquiya (Africa) first with the Aghlabids and later with the Fatimids who replaced them. In the year 899 he took a decisive step by installing a diocese in Bobastro by converting to Christianity, also trying to have his status recognized by Alfonso III of Asturias, presenting himself as a descendant of Visigoths. Although his baptism reduced his supporters, he ended up championing the Mozarabic cause.
The emirate succeeded in largely isolating him by forming a coalition with the Banu Qasi of the Upper March. His loss to Abd Allah would weaken his position and, although he recovered from the setback, he would never again control such a wide area as before. In order to completely isolate him before delivering the final blow, Abderramán III began an intense campaign through eastern Andalusia that took him to Algeciras, where ibn Hafsún’s squadron was set on fire before the emir himself, thus cutting off his communications by sea.
The intense drought suffered by the territory prevented the deployment of large armies, favoring the rebel, but in the end he ended up being isolated in his Bobastro fortress where he died in 918 at the age of seventy-two, of which the last thirty had been spent secluded in it. His sons would continue the rebellion behind him, but they would be crushed one by one with excessive cruelty on the vanquished. In 929, when Abderramán III finally took Bobastro, ibn Hasfún’s body was unearthed and subjected to posthumous crucifixion at the gates of Córdoba as punishment for his long-suffering rebellion and apostasy from Islam. The mythical fortress was destroyed to such an extent that today its original location is unknown.
The containment of Christians in the north
The internal conflicts suffered by the Emirate of Cordoba at the end of the 9th century had made it possible to expand the Christian frontier to the south. In the western part, the Asturian kingdom had reached the Duero, occupying centers as important as Zamora, Simancas or León.
The sack of Évora by Ordoño II de León (913) in which the Christians took 4,000 Muslim captives, caused such an impact that it encouraged most cities in the western peninsula to repair their walls. In 915 he was close to taking over Merida, were it not for gifts from the city’s governor dissuading him from the assault. Meanwhile, Sancho Garcés I of Pamplona attacked the lands of Tudela, conquering several fortresses.
These facts influenced Abderramán III in the preparation of his first aceifa against the Christians the following year. The first campaigns were not very brilliant, but they would be repeated annually from then on, hoping thereby to contain his advance, but also to obtain the precious booty. In 918, Ordoño II of León and Sancho Garcés I of Pamplona carried out a joint raid through the upper and middle Ebro lands in which they took Nájera, Tudela and Valtierra. But this time the luck of the Cordovans and their enemies was equal, obtaining in Mitonia the first Muslim victory against the Leonese.
In 920, considering the territories near the capital to be well subdued thanks to the military activity of the first years of the reign, Abderramán III was able to lead the campaign that year in person. Trying to stop the Cordovan advance, the two Christian monarchs returned to face the Cordovan hosts together, suffering a serious defeat in the battle of Valdejunquera, southwest of Pamplona.
The survivors took refuge in the castle of Muez, which the emir’s forces took a few days later. The Cordobans put to death some 500 defenders, among them some leading figures from the Christian states. After this, he continued up the Aragon by the classic route of the invasions from the south to Pamplona. The abandoned city suffered looting by Cordoban troops, highlighting the demolition of its cathedral church. Shortly afterwards they returned home with a large number of captives, cattle and “so many heads of polytheists that the beasts could hardly carry them”.
Looking at North Africa. The fatimid danger
The second axis of Abderramán III’s foreign policy focused on stopping the expansion of the Fatimid Caliphate, present in North Africa since 910. Religiously, the Fatimids represented a dangerous heresy that undermined Sunni orthodoxy, in addition to vindicate the descendants of Fatima denying all the previous caliphs. Undoubtedly, the will to legitimize himself against this new enemy weighed heavily on his later decision to become caliph.
Shiism had successfully seized some Berber tribes that were clients of the Fatimids, such as the Zirids and the Sanhaya, while the Umayyads also supported the Zanata and Idrisid tribes among their own clients. But the emergence of this new power was not only a threat in terms of faith, but also endangered trans-Saharan trade, the caravan routes that ran from Timbuktu to Sitilmasa carrying essential goods for the Andalusian economy, such as gold. and African slaves.
To reinforce Andalusian control of the Strait of Gibraltar, the emir took Melilla (926) and Ceuta (932), built the castle of Tarifa and boosted the naval power of al-Andalus with the construction of shipyards. Since then he was a constant…