Biography of Abd al-Rahman I: – First independent emir of al-Andalus (755-788). Grandchild of the tenth Umayyad caliph of Damascus, he managed to escape the slaughter that his family decimated during the revolution that brought the Abbasids to power in 750.
Biography of Abd al-Rahman I
- Born:- 731 AD, Palmyra, Syria
- Died:- 30 September 788 AD, Córdoba, Spain
- Parents:- Mu’awiya ibn Hisham
- House:- Umayyad Caliphate
- Children:- Hisham I of Córdoba, Soliman ibn Abdulrahman
- Successor:- Hisham I of Córdoba
During the following years it lived like a fugitive, until in 755 arrived at the lands of Berber tribe of Nafza, in the Mediterranean coast of Morocco.
See Also: Biography of Charles Greeley Abbot
Thanks to the family ties that united to this tribe to him, since its mother belonged to her, gained its support and protection, after which it began to maneuver to also ensure the fidelity of the Syrian troops that his grandfather Hisham had deployed in the Iberian Peninsula.
Once achieved this, landed in Almunecar and led a revolt against the governor Yusuf al-Fihri, to which it defeated in the outskirts of Cordova. He proclaimed himself emir of al-Andalus, and began a reign of thirty-three years that would lead to consolidate a Muslim entity independent of the caliphate.
To achieve this, it was necessary to overcome great difficulties, since the Abbasids of Baghdad did not resign themselves to giving up the territories of al-Andalus and sponsored multiple conspiracies and rebellions that were repressed with great effort.
It also had to overcome the internal tensions resulting from the disparity of peoples and cultures that, within Islam, lived in their emirate peninsular: Arabs, Syrians, Berbers, and Mozarabs.
The most dangerous uprisings were those carried out by the former governor, the rebellion of the Berbers settled in the area of Cuenca and, above all, the rebellion in 777 of several Arab leaders of the northeast peninsular, who had the support of Charlemagne, Ally of the Abbasids.
Fortunately for Abd al-Rahman, Zaragoza did not fall into the hands of the Frankish troops, so the Christians had to return through the Pyrenees. In the course of this retreat, his rearguard was annihilated in an ambush of the vascones in Roncesvalles.
