Abd ar-Rahman (military)

Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abdallah al-Ghafiqi ( Arabic عبد الرحمن بن عبد الله الغافقي, DMG ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd Allaah al-Ġāfiqī ; † October 732 ) was a Moorish military leader.

Life

Abd ar-Rahman came from the Yemeni clan of the Ghafiqi and moved to the North African province of Ifrīqiya as part of the Islamic expansion . In Morocco he came into contact with Musa ibn Nusayr , the governor of Al-Andalus , which was conquered in 711 , and with his son and successor Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa . After the fourth Andalusian governor as-Samh ibn Malik al-Chawlani had died in a campaign against Toulouse in June 721 , Abd al-Rahman succeeded him, but after about two months he was recalled from this post and replaced by Anbasa ibn Suhaym al -Calbi relieved. In 722 Abd ar-Rahman came up with the plan to invade the Frankish Empire . After Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi died in the Franconian Empire in 726, five governors followed in a row over the next four years before Abd al-Rahman was reinstated as governor of Al-Andalus in 730 by the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik .

A dispute between ar-Rahman and a commander named Uthman ibn Naissa (“Munuza”), who is said to have administered Cerdanya , is historically unsecured . Different historians give different motives for the conflict, but all have in common the motif of an alliance between Naissa and Duke Eudo of Aquitaine . After ar-Rahman led an army against Cerdanya and killed Naissa, he is said to have laid a hand on Eudo. Uthman ibn Naissa is not tangible, nor is a bishop Nambad von Urgell mentioned in some versions of the legend.

What is certain is that ar-Rahman advanced north with an army via Navarre and devastated the city of Bordeaux in 732 . Duke Eudo of Aquitaine opposed the Moorish troops on the Dordogne and was defeated. Ar-Rahman's troops marched further north, towards the rich city of Tours . However, in October his army was placed halfway between Poitiers and Tours near Châtellerault by the troops of Karl Martell , who had allied himself with Liutprand , king of the Lombards . There was a fierce battle ( Battle of Tours and Poitiers ) in October 732 , which the Muslim troops lost. Abd ar-Rahman was killed in the battle.

literature

• Évariste Lévi-Provençal : Abd al-Rahman b. Abd Allah al-Ghafiki , in: Encyclopaedia of Islam , 2nd edition, Vol. 1 (1960), p. 87.

Individual evidence

1. ^ List of the Bishops of Urgell , bisbaturgell.org
2. ↑ Friedrich von Kerz: History of the religion of Jesus Christ: Volume 23 . Mainz 1832, p. 77-78 .

predecessor	Office	successor
As-Samh ibn Malik al-Chawlani	Governor of Al-Andalus 721	Anbasa ibn Suhaym al-Kalbi
Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Ashja'i	Governor of Al-Andalus 730-732	Abd al-Malik ibn Qatan al-Fihri