El sol andaluz #3: Omeya of Spain

After the revelation of the Qur'an to Mohammad and the four caliphs "rachidun" (well-guided successors of the Prophet), the Omeya dynasty ruled Arabia from Damascus for ninety years before it was dethroned by the Abassid. The whole royal family was massacred by the Abbasid rulers, except the young Abd-al-Rahman I, who escaped to the Iberia peninsula and established anew the Omeya rule there.

That is how I have learnt from my classes and books. But some pieces of the puzzles had been staying in my head for some time – how such a kid could have spared himself from the massacre? Even more amazing to me was how this kid could have brought back the Omeya to live and led the "Arab invasion" of Spain, as was claimed by the official discourse?

I still do not pretend to know a lot about this history, but I got some clues recently in Granada.

Firstly, this kid was indeed smart. While seeing his family being massacre, he hid himself under the dead bodies pretending to be dead as well. So when people disposed of the dead bodies out of the palace, he managed to escape. Afterwards, he led a bump’s life wondering from Damascus to North Africa.

At that time, the whole Andalusia was in big chaos inflicted by man-made and natural disasters under the rule of the Visigoths. After the death of the last Visigoth king, there were severe power struggles among his sons and the nobles. His sons then asked for military help from the Arab governor in Tunis. The Arab troops took over control easily and established the first Muslim empire called "Al-Andaluz", with a territory covering two-third of what is now Spain and Portugal.

There were a lot of Syrians living in the area around Sevilla and Cordoba then. Upon knowing that Abd-al-Rahman I was wondering around in North Africa, they actively search for this legitimate successor of the prophet from the Omeya lineage. It should be understood that at that time for the Muslims, blood lineage as descendants of the Prophet meant spiritual and political legitimacy to rule. This feeling of loyalty of the Syrians to Adu-al-Rahman was even more obvious because Damascus was the capital of the Omeya dynasty, thus Syria had always been a stronghold of the original Omeya dynasty (When the Abbasid came into power, they moved the capital to Baghdad). With the help of the Syrians, Abd-al-Rahman crossed the Mediterranean Sea and landed at Almuñeca along the coast of Andalucia. Very quickly, the Syrians rallied around him, who established the independent Emirat in Spain.

Categories: Culture, Europe, Islam, History