About the Reconquista

 

I have been reading a very interesting book lately about the reconquista and Arab/muslim adventures in Europe. I knew that Arabs raids reach Switzerland but was surprised to find that the great St Bernard pass was under their control for some 40 years and that they controlled some parts of Switzerland for nearly 100 years especially st moritz and its surroundings. But what really interested me in this book is that it revealed several previously obscure facts about the conquest of Spain and Southern France and how the reconquista really started. The author, a well known scholar and historian, dug up several old manuscripts and provided some interesting things about that period.

 

The first interesting thing is that both Caliphs Al-Walid and Omar ibn Abdulaziz wanted to evacuate muslims from Europe altogether including recently conquered Islands. This explains why Crete and Corsica were abandoned after they were taken during the former reign. On his orders, the muslims halted after taking Leon and built Valladolid (Balad Al-Walid) and Musa ibn Nusair the military governor and commander of the forces their was recalled to Damascus. He reached their only to find Al-Walid dead and his brother Sulaiman, who was thirsty for conquest so that his name would enter history, relieving him from command and putting a subordinate of his lead the conquest. The guy Ayub Al-Lukhami and his predecessor Al-Hurr Al-Thaqafi completed, by the meaning of the word completed, the conquest of Iberia and not a single part was not conquered. Omar who came after Sulaiman also halted the conquist and was even more enthusiastic to leave Iberia. Some of troops were already withrdrawn, Arabs were not permitted to settle there and niether the Berber. His early death, most likely by poisoning, ended his policies including the overall halt in conquist and given much more power to minorities. This lead for the first great Berber revolt, the first in 20 years and the massacre of Arabs in southern France and in Spain. Arab troops from the mainland ended the rebellion despite being outnumbered and by the heyday of Arab presence in Iberia there were 80 thousand soldiers registered with the Andalusia military command. The civil wars between Arabs and Arabs and Arabs and Berbers erupted violently in the 730s, sources say as much as 100 thousand combatants died and things got even worse, Galicia rebelled in the 740s along with southern France and parts of Iberia as well as the other great Berber revolt which literally cut ties between Arabs, who formed the majority of muslim settlers, and Ummayad strongholds. Berbers were completely dealt with by 745  but the civil war against the Abbasids and a severe drought that lasted for ten years, Arabs evacuated all but very little parts of Spain. Spain above the Druro river wasn't "reconquisted", it was left. When Abdurrahman Al-Dakhil, the Hawk of Quraish, entered Spain, he only managed to gather 7000 men, and most were converts, compared with the 80 thousand soldiers earlier stated. It seems from these sources that because of the lack of security, fromer nobles were actually allowed to create their own armies to protect the lands they were in charge of and that when their several rebellions failed they went to the north which was beyond the capability of Al-Dakhil's small army to conquere.

 

So, what do you think, was the conquesta a remarkable thing done by a small band of fugitives who distroyed a bit by bit a powerful nation or was it really the other way around?

 

Al-Jassas

 

 

 

P.S. "To make raids" is not equal to "to conquer"

 

First of all, Arabs did conquere France, the problem was that they were defeated. Septimania was ruled for some 50 years. It was organized into civil administration on the Ummayyad style and had their own mayors and governor of the province. They still lived in parts of Southern France till 800 AD. Al-Andalus military command had a network of posts on the regions that bordered those conquered territoy and established outposts as far as Autun in Burgundy. Anbasa's death after Autun ushered a civil war between Berbers and Arabs in it the Arab population of Septimania were massacred and Arabs retreated to the lower parts of Al-Andalus. Abdurrahman Al-Ghafiqi distroyed the Berber revolt in 731 but died the next year in Tours. Abdul Malik Al-Fihri had another much bigger Berber revolt on his hand, a revolt that declared Septimania, Catalonia and Northern Spain independent. Not only this but Franks were gaining land quickly. These rebellions helped the Visigoth declare rebellion. Extremadura, Algarev, Seville, Catalonia Asturias and Galicia all rebelled. After securing all the first three, the great Berber revolt of 740 happened. In those years, the Governor of Al-Andalus had with him registered some 80 thousand men other than volunteers. But just ten years later, Yusuf Al-Fahri, the first and only Abbasid governor had only 10000 men to fight Abdurrahman I. When the Abbasids withdrew, all Qahtani tribes and many Berbers withdrew also. Berbers again rebelled.

 

My point here is the reconquista isn't what some have portrayed as a group of renegade rebells living in the mountains and defeated larger and much stronger armies. It was the other way around, they were defeated and chased to the mountains and when those armies withdrew the took their chance in the power vacuum that resulted from that evacuation and built their powerbase.

 

Anyway Leo, here is an article proving that early caliphs really wanted to withdraw from Iberia desite the continuous strain of victories:

 

Also, I never said that Arabs conquered Switzerland, I said they raided it and controlled it for a very long time.

 

Finally, whats wrong with a 19th century book written by a professional historian who knew Arabic very well and was a scholar in the language as well as Latin and French? Last time I checked Gibbon didn't have even half the credentials this guy has and yet his much older book is still a masterpiece of Roman history?

 

Al-Jassas