Abd ar-Rahman will avoid military action against…
December 912 CE
Abd ar-Rahman will avoid military action against the northern Christian kingdoms, Asturias and Navarre, for the first twenty years of his rule.
The Muladi rebels are the first problem he confronts.
These powerful families—Spanish converts to Islam—are supported by Iberians who are openly or secretly Christians and act with the rebels.
These elements, which form the bulk of the population, are not averse to supporting a strong ruler who will protect them against the Arab aristocracy.
The Muladi are in almost constant revolt against the Arab and Berber immigrants who had carved out large estates for themselves, farmed by Christian serfs or slaves.
The most famous of these revolts is led by a Muladi rebel named Umar ibn Hafsun in the region of Málaga and Ronda.
Residing in the castle Bobastro, Ibn Hafsun, ruling over several mountain valleys since the early 880s, had rallied disaffected Muladi and Mozárabs to his cause.
He had eventually renounced Islam with his sons and become a Christian in 889, taking the name Samuel and proclaiming himself not only the leader of the Christian nationalist movement, but also the champion at the same time of a regular crusade against Islam.
His motivations seems to have been opportunistic, as he had hoped to obtain military support from Alfonso III of Leon, who had met with indifferent overtures by ibn Hafsun on behalf of the late Ibn Marwan, a Muladi Sufi who eventually ruled the whole of Al-Garb Al-Andalus.
However, ibn Hafsun’s conversion, although helping to attract significant Mozarab support, had soon cost him the support of most of his Muladi supporters who had no intention of ever becoming Christians, and has led to the gradual erosion of his power.
Ibn Hafsun remains a serious threat to Córdoba, even though in 910 he had offered allegiance to the Fatimid rulers of north Africa.
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