Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
The Great Arab Conquests (58 page)
Only then did the two conquerors decide to obey the caliph’s orders. Mūsā appointed his son Abd al-Azīz as governor of al-Andalus; other sons were appointed to Sūs and Qayrawān. This had the makings of a dynastic state and in other circumstances, in late Merovingian France, for example, the Muslim west might have developed as an independent lordship ruled by the family of Mūsā b. Nusayr. In the early Islamic empire, the ties that linked the most distant provinces to the centre were too strong. Muhammad b. al-Qāsim in Sind and Mūsā b. Nusayr in al-Andalus both accepted their fate, obeyed their orders and returned to the central Islamic lands. In both cases the conquering heroes were humiliated, dispossessed of their gains and imprisoned. Mūsā died in 716-17, probably still in confinement. Of the fate of Tāriq we know nothing at all, but he must have died in the Middle East in complete obscurity.
The work of consolidating the conquest of al-Andalus was continued by Mūsā’s son, Abd al-Azīz. It was probably during his tenure of office (714-16) that most of modern Portugal and Catalonia were brought under Muslim rule, but information about the nature and circumstances of this occupation is very scarce.
We are better informed about the conquest of the area around Murcia in south-east Spain. This was ruled by a Visigothic noble called Theodemir (Tudmīr). He negotiated a treaty with Abd al-Azīz, of which the text, dated April 713, is recorded in several Arabic sources.
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In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This text was written by Abd al-Azīz b. Mūsā b. Nusayr for Tudmīr b. Ghabdush, establishing a treaty of peace and the promise and protection of God and His Prophet (may God bless him and grant him His peace). We [Abd al-Azīz] will not set any special conditions for him or for any among his men, nor harass him, nor remove him from power. His followers will not be killed or taken prisoner, nor will they be separated from their women and children. They will not be coerced in matters of religion, their churches will not be burned, nor will sacred objects be taken from the realm as long as Theodemir remains sincere and fulfils the following conditions we have set for him:He has reached a settlement concerning seven towns: Orihuela, Valentilla, Alicante, Mula, Bigastro, Ello and Lorca.He will not give shelter to fugitives, nor to our enemies, nor encourage any protected person to fear us, nor conceal news of our enemies.He and each of his men shall also pay one dinar every year, together with four measures of wheat, four measures of barley, four liquid measures of concentrated fruit juice, four liquid measures of vinegar, four of honey and four of olive oil. Slaves much each pay half of this.
The treaty is a classic example of the sort of local agreements that were the reality of Arab ‘conquest’ in many areas of the caliphate. It is clear that rather than embark on a difficult and costly campaign, the Muslims preferred to make an agreement that would grant them security from hostile activities and some tribute. It is a pattern we can observe in many areas of Iran and Transoxania. It is interesting to note that much of this tribute was taken in kind (wheat, barley vinegar, oil, but of course no wine). In exchange for this, the local people were allowed almost complete autonomy. Theodemir was clearly expected to continue to rule his seven towns and the rural areas attached to them. There is no indication that any Muslim garrison was established, nor that any mosques were built. Theodemir and many of his followers may have imagined that the Muslim conquest would be fairly short lived and that it was worth paying up to preserve their possessions until such time as the Visigothic kingdom was restored. In fact it was to be five centuries before Christian powers re-established control over this area. We do not know how long the agreement was in force: Theodemir himself died, full of years and distinction, in 744. It is likely that it was never formally abolished but rather that as Muslim immigration and the conversion of local people to Islam increased in the late eighth and ninth centuries, its provisions became increasingly irrelevant.
The governorate of Abd al-Azīz was brought to an abrupt and unfortunate end. According to Ibn Abd al-Hakam,
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he had married the daughter of Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king, who brought him vast wealth and an exalted idea of royal prestige. She was dismayed by the modest state he kept and the informality with which his Arab followers approached him, not prostrating themselves before him. According to the story, she persuaded him to have a low door constructed in his audience hall so that they all had to bow before him as they came in. The Arabs resented this strongly and some even alleged that she had converted him to Christianity. A murder plot was hatched and the governor put to the sword. Clearly the story belongs to the genre that contrasts the simple, even democratic nature of Arab government with the hierarchy and pomp of the empires and kingdoms it replaced. It may also reflect a tension between those Arabs who had married rich heiresses from among the local people and the rank and file of the invading army.
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he had married the daughter of Rodrigo, the last Visigothic king, who brought him vast wealth and an exalted idea of royal prestige. She was dismayed by the modest state he kept and the informality with which his Arab followers approached him, not prostrating themselves before him. According to the story, she persuaded him to have a low door constructed in his audience hall so that they all had to bow before him as they came in. The Arabs resented this strongly and some even alleged that she had converted him to Christianity. A murder plot was hatched and the governor put to the sword. Clearly the story belongs to the genre that contrasts the simple, even democratic nature of Arab government with the hierarchy and pomp of the empires and kingdoms it replaced. It may also reflect a tension between those Arabs who had married rich heiresses from among the local people and the rank and file of the invading army.
The new rulers of Spain began to make their mark on the administration almost immediately. We can see this most clearly in the case of the coinage. The arrival of Mūsā b. Nusayr was marked by the minting of a new gold coinage, based not on Visigothic but on North African models. The earliest of these coins have the Latin legend ‘
In Nomine Domini non Deus nisi Deus Solus’
, a direct translation of the Muslim formula ‘There is no god but God’, an unusual mingling of Muslim and Latin traditions. This was probably produced in mobile mints that accompanied the army to recycle booty, perhaps valuables taken from churches, into cash money which could be more easily divided among and spent by the military.
In Nomine Domini non Deus nisi Deus Solus’
, a direct translation of the Muslim formula ‘There is no god but God’, an unusual mingling of Muslim and Latin traditions. This was probably produced in mobile mints that accompanied the army to recycle booty, perhaps valuables taken from churches, into cash money which could be more easily divided among and spent by the military.
The Muslim conquerors of Spain were not settled in military towns: there was no Iberian equivalent of Fustāt or Qayrawān. It seems rather that there was a much more dispersed pattern of settlement, in some ways more similar to the ways in which the Germanic invaders of the western Roman Empire in the fifth century settled in Gaul and Hispania. It looks as if the Arabs, who must mostly have come from urban backgrounds in Fustāt or Qayrawān, chose to settle in the cities and villages of the Guadalquivir and Ebro valleys, around Cordoba, Seville and Zaragoza, while the Berbers, who came from more pastoral backgrounds, established themselves on the high plains of the Meseta in the centre and the southern mountains.
The conquest had been astonishingly successful. Within five years of the initial invasion, almost the whole of the Iberian peninsula had been brought under the control of the Muslim armies. There was, however, an important and, as it turned out, fatal exception to this rule. In the north of Spain, as in some areas of the Middle East, the 1,000-metre contour line represented the limit of the territory held by the Muslims. This meant that in the high southern valleys of the Pyrenees and the Picos de Europa further west in the Asturias, small groups of refugees and indigenous inhabitants gathered to protect their independence from Arab rule. In the Picos de Europa, the movement is said to have been led by one Pelayo, who may have been a Visigothic noble and member of Rodrigo’s court. We know nothing about the history of this rebellion from the Arabic sources, but for the Christians of the Kingdom of the Asturias, the story of the rebellion was the foundation myth of their realm. As recounted in the Chronicle of Alfonso III,
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probably composed soon after 900, Pelayo was about to be arrested by the Arabs but was warned by a friend and fled in the Picos de Europa. The landscape of the Picos is rugged, with steep gorges and rocky outcrops. Frequent rains mean that it is astonishingly green, with well-watered fields and forests and swift-flowing rivers. It was a very different landscape from the open plains of the Meseta to the south and a world away from the deserts of North Africa and Egypt. It had never been really part of Roman Spain, no big cities were established there and no Roman roads led through it.
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probably composed soon after 900, Pelayo was about to be arrested by the Arabs but was warned by a friend and fled in the Picos de Europa. The landscape of the Picos is rugged, with steep gorges and rocky outcrops. Frequent rains mean that it is astonishingly green, with well-watered fields and forests and swift-flowing rivers. It was a very different landscape from the open plains of the Meseta to the south and a world away from the deserts of North Africa and Egypt. It had never been really part of Roman Spain, no big cities were established there and no Roman roads led through it.
Pelayo, according to the Chronicle, was able to escape when he came to the bank of a swiftly flowing river and swam across on his horse; his enemies were unable to follow. He fled into the mountains and established a headquarters at a cave which became the centre of resistance for people from all over the Asturias. The Arab governor was furious and sent an army of 187,000 men, a wholly fantastical figure, to put down the rebellion. They were led by an Arab commander, whom the source calls Alqama, and a mysterious bishop called Oppa, who is presented as a collaborator. The Muslims confronted Pelayo at a place called Covadonga, high in the mountains. The bishop addressed Pelayo and asked him how he thought he could withstand the Arabs (Ishmaelites) when they had defeated the entire Gothic army shortly before. Pelayo responded with a pious little homily, saying that ‘Christ is our hope and through this little mountain which you see, the well-being of Spain and the army of the Gothic people will be restored’.
After the breakdown of negotiations, the Muslim army attacked. Huge numbers of them were slain and the rest fled. The battle of Covadonga, usually dated to 717, has acquired mythical status as the beginning of Christian resistance. The failure of the Muslim forces to suppress the revolt led immediately to the loss of control of northern settlements like Gijon and the foundation of a small, independent Christian kingdom. It was this kingdom, and similar small entities in the Pyrenean valleys and the Basque country, which was the foundation of the later Christian reconquest.
There were other areas of the early Muslim world where independent principalities coexisted with the Muslim authorities, moderately peacefully - in the mountains of northern Iran, for example. The Christian principalities of mountainous Armenia were in a position not entirely dissimilar from that of the Christians of northern Spain. None of these, however, seriously threatened Muslim rule in the areas to the south. When Daylamite mountaineers from northern Iran conquered much of Iran and Iraq in the tenth century, they did so as Muslims, and they soon lost their identity among the wider Muslim populations. The Armenians maintained their independence but they never sought to make conquests beyond their traditional homelands. What distinguished the principalities of northern Spain was that they maintained, if only just, their Latin Christian high culture. At the same time they kept alive the memory of the Visigothic kingdom and the idea that the whole peninsula had once belonged to the Christians and should do so again. They also had access to and links with a much wider Christian polity to the north. These factors meant that, unlike the northern Iranian or Armenian principalities, the Christians of Spain came to be a serious long-term threat to Muslim control, until eventually, 800 years later, they finally drove them out.
The ambitions of the Arabs did not end with the Pyrenees. Muslim forces were soon raiding up the Rhône valley and through the fertile lands of Aquitaine. Unfortunately we have only the briefest accounts of these adventurous campaigns. The course of the raids is often quite unclear. The Arabic sources are frequently just one-line reports and we have brief notes in some Latin monastic chronicles. This first encounter between the peoples of north-west Europe and the Muslims is shrouded in obscurity. The first raids are said to have been directed by Tāriq b. Ziyād and to have reached Avignon and Lyon before being defeated by Charles Martel.
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The Muslim raiding parties always went around the eastern end of the Pyrenees: Barcelona, Girona and Narbonne all came under their control, though Muslim rule in Narbonne was shortlived and ephemeral. Later Arabic sources allege that Mūsā b. Nusayr had conceived the massively daring and ambitious plan of marching his armies through the whole of Europe and the Byzantine Empire back to Syria.
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Sometimes they must have felt that they were unstoppable.
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The Muslim raiding parties always went around the eastern end of the Pyrenees: Barcelona, Girona and Narbonne all came under their control, though Muslim rule in Narbonne was shortlived and ephemeral. Later Arabic sources allege that Mūsā b. Nusayr had conceived the massively daring and ambitious plan of marching his armies through the whole of Europe and the Byzantine Empire back to Syria.
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Sometimes they must have felt that they were unstoppable.
They were not always successful. In the summer of 721 the governor
p
of Andalus led a raid into Aquitaine but the duke, Eudes, fortified himself in Toulouse. In a sharp conflict on 9 June, the Arabs were driven back and the governor himself killed. In 725 the Arabs launched the most ambitious raid so far. They began with the Roman and Visigothic fortress of Carcassonne, which they took by storm. They then moved east through the Midi. Nimes surrendered peacefully, giving up hostages who were sent behind the lines to Barcelona. The governor
q
then led his men on a lightning raid up the Rhône valley, encountering little serious resistance. The army reached deep into the heart of Burgundy, taking Autun, which they pillaged thoroughly before returning to the south.
p
of Andalus led a raid into Aquitaine but the duke, Eudes, fortified himself in Toulouse. In a sharp conflict on 9 June, the Arabs were driven back and the governor himself killed. In 725 the Arabs launched the most ambitious raid so far. They began with the Roman and Visigothic fortress of Carcassonne, which they took by storm. They then moved east through the Midi. Nimes surrendered peacefully, giving up hostages who were sent behind the lines to Barcelona. The governor
q
then led his men on a lightning raid up the Rhône valley, encountering little serious resistance. The army reached deep into the heart of Burgundy, taking Autun, which they pillaged thoroughly before returning to the south.
The climax of the Arab invasions of France came with the conflict generally known as the battle of Poitiers.
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Since the late eighth century this battle has acquired a symbolic fame, marking the point when the Arab advance into western Europe was finally brought to an end by the Carolingian warlord Charles Martel. Within a couple of years Bede, in distant Northumbria, had heard of it and felt able to say with confidence that ‘the Saracens who had devastated Gaul were punished for their perfidy’. Gibbon, in one of his more elegant flights of fantasy, allowed himself to speculate about what might have happened if the fortunes of battle had been different.
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Since the late eighth century this battle has acquired a symbolic fame, marking the point when the Arab advance into western Europe was finally brought to an end by the Carolingian warlord Charles Martel. Within a couple of years Bede, in distant Northumbria, had heard of it and felt able to say with confidence that ‘the Saracens who had devastated Gaul were punished for their perfidy’. Gibbon, in one of his more elegant flights of fantasy, allowed himself to speculate about what might have happened if the fortunes of battle had been different.
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