Abd ar-Rahman I.

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Statue of Abd ar-Rahman I.

Abd ar-Rahman I. ( Arabic عبد الرحمن الداخِل, DMG ʿAbd ar-Raḥman , Spanish Abderramán I , * 731 in Damascus ; † September 30, 788 in Córdoba ) was the first emir of Córdoba in Andalusia (756–788).

Life

After Abd ar-Rahman I, grandson of the caliph Hisham (724-743), had escaped the fall of the Umayyads (750) and the Abbasid massacre of the Umayyads, he fled via Palestine and Egypt to the Maghreb . There he found help from the Berber tribe from which his mother came. With the support of the Berbers, he landed between Málaga and Almería in Andalusia in August 755 and defeated the governor Yusuf al-Fihri in May 756 . In the same year he rose to the Emir and separated Andalusia as the Caliphate of the Abbasids. Until 760, however, the resistance of supporters of the Abbasids had to be fought.

Abd ar-Rahman I started organizing the emirate. While Andalusia proper was divided into provinces, the margravates of Mérida , Toledo and Saragossa emerged in central Spain under the command of military commanders. They had to defend the border in the north against the Christian empires (including Asturias ). Powerful families ruled the margravates, some of which ruled quite independently from Córdoba. Zaragoza and the Ebro Basin were largely ruled autonomously by the Banu Qasi until 907 . 778 there was a first clash with the Franks when the revolting Fihri clan allied with Charlemagne . However, the siege of Saragossa by the Franks failed. Several Berber uprisings (766-776) had to be put down. Nevertheless, Abd al-Rahman I was able to leave his successor a solid empire.

Under Abd ar-Rahman an increased immigration of Arabs from Syria began , which accelerated the cultural Arabization of Andalusia considerably. Abd ar-Rahman began extensive construction work. In addition to fortifying Cordoba , he built the palace ar-Ruzafa and began building the Great Mosque in his residence. The development of agriculture was also promoted by new irrigation and canal construction techniques. This led to the upswing of small and medium-sized farmers and became the basis for the upswing in agriculture in later times.

After the death of Abd ar-Rahman I in 788, his son Hisham I succeeded the throne.

Domination

Abd ar-Rahman I (reign 756–788) was the founder of a Muslim dynasty that ruled Spain for almost three hundred years. At the age of around twenty, he saw how the Umayyads in the east were ousted from power by the Abbasids and fled with his brother Yahya to Bedouin tribes in the desert. The Abbasids persecuted their opponents mercilessly. Their captors caught up with the brothers. Yahya was killed, Abd-ar-Rahman fled to Syria and then to the Maghreb , where all who wanted to escape the Abbasid's grip found refuge.

In the general confusion caused by the change of caliphs, the Maghreb fell into the hands of local rulers who were previously emirs or vicarious agents of the Umayyad caliphs, but who now sought independence. Since Abd-ar-Rahman's life was still threatened, he fled further west, to the Berber tribes in Mauritania . Here he drew hope from a prophecy of his great-uncle Maslama that he would restore the position of his family. During his wandering he was accompanied by a few followers loyal to the Umayyads.

In 755 he went into hiding near Ceuta and sent a representative to Spain to seek support from other followers of the family. These were descendants of the conquerors of Spain, and many of them lived in the province of Elvira, today's Granada . The country was in a state of turmoil under the weak hand of the emir Yusuf al-Fihri, a puppet in the hands of a faction. It was also distracted by tribal disputes among the Arabs and ethnic conflicts between Arabs and Berbers. This offered Abd-ar-Rahman an opportunity that was denied to him in Africa. At the invitation of his supporters, he landed in Almuñécar , east of Málaga, in September 755 .

For a time, Abd-ar-Rahman was forced to submit to the advice of his supporters, who were aware of the risk of their venture. Yusuf opened negotiations and offered Abd-ar-Rahman one of his daughters as a wife, as well as some land. This was far less than the prince would have liked, but he would have been forced to accept this offer for lack of something better had it not been for the impudence of a messenger upset one of the main supporters of the Umayyad cause. He insulted this gentleman, whose name was Obeidullah, because he was unable to write good Arabic. Under subsequent provocation, Obeidullah drew his sword.

Then there was a campaign by Abd ar-Rahmans in the valley of the Guadalquivir in 756 , which ended on May 16 in the defeat of Yusuf outside Córdoba. His army was so poorly equipped that he almost owned the only good warhorse; he did not have a banner, so a banner was improvised by unwinding a green turban and attaching it to a spear. Thus the turban and the spear became the banner of the Spanish Umayyads .

The long reign of Abd al-Rahman I was marked by an ongoing struggle to control his anarchic subjects of Arabs and Berbers. These had never intended to give themselves a master, and so they twisted under his hand, which was getting heavier and heavier. Therefore, Abd al-Rahman I was forced to fight a battle with insurgents supported by the Abbasids at the gates of his own capital in 763. The emir achieved a signal-laden victory here. He cut off the leaders' hands, filled them with salt and camphor , and sent them to the Eastern Caliph in an act of challenge.

In his final years, Abd ar-Rahman had to deal with a succession of palace conspiracies that he brutally suppressed. The Berber problem was also latent. Around the year 777, another army, led by Prince Shakija, moved against the emir. In this battle, too, he was victorious. Despite all this, the dynasty he founded secured Umayyad control over Spain until 1031.

As a poet

Abd ar-Rahman I .: Far in the west, far from the palm land / I planted a palm tree. / Far from the beach at home / We live in a new space. // May you and I always prosper well / in the last corner of this world. / May the cloud lend us enough rain, / to be joined by warm sunshine.
O palm tree, you are orphaned like me / in a country where you are far from your own kind. / You cry, and your leaves rustle to each other / the complaints that soften my mind. // You also speak, if language were yours, / from the Euphrates and the palm grove at home. / We can't go back. The hatred of the Abbasids / drove my race out into the whole world.

literature

notes

  1. ^ A b Janheinz Jahn (transfer): Diwan from Al-Andalus. Adaptations of Hispano-Arabic poetry. Harriet Schleber, Kassel 1949, p. 11
predecessor Office successor
Yusuf ibn Abd ar-Rahman al-Fihri (last governor of Al-Andalus ) Emir of Cordoba
756–788 		Hisham I.
personal data
SURNAME Abd ar-Rahman I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abderramán I (Spanish)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION first emir of Cordoba in Andalusia
DATE OF BIRTH 731
PLACE OF BIRTH Damascus
DATE OF DEATH September 30, 788
Place of death Cordoba