Entry extracted from the book From Covadonga to Tamarón.
The history of the Arab conquest and domination of the Iberian Peninsula and the process of birth and growth of the different Christian kingdoms and counties that ended up expelling the Muslims spans almost eight centuries and, therefore, it is full of characters, episodes and stories worthy of being reviewed. Today we are going to focus on the Muslim domain of al-Andalus and on a period that we can set between the years 929 and 1031. Although first we have to go back a little in time to situate ourselves.
Abderramán I, belonging to the dethroned caliphal dynasty of the Umayyads, had arrived in the Peninsula in the year 755 and established an emirate based in Córdoba. During the following decades, the emirate not only faced the nascent Christian kingdoms and counties that emerged in the northern part of the peninsula, but also had to face numerous internal revolts that meant that at the end of the 9th century and the beginning of the 10th practically alone the area near Córdoba effectively remained under the rule of the emirate. Cities such as Toledo and Zaragoza had repeatedly rebelled against Córdoba until they became practically independent and names such as Ibn Marwan, known as el Gallego, in the Mérida and Badajoz area or Ibn Hafsun in the Málaga area and in its Bobastro fortress, were a permanent headache for the emirs of Cordoba.
But in 912 the emirate was taken over by a man destined to radically change the situation, both within the caliphate and its relationship with the Christian kingdoms. His name was Abderramán III. The new emir was the grandson of the previous one (Abdullah) and it is surprising that he succeeded his grandfather passing in front of several of his sons. It is true that Abderramán's father was the eldest son of the emir, but he had been executed at his behest, which adds another strange factor to this succession.
As if this were not enough to make the figure of Abderramán III extraordinary, it so happened that the new emir's grandmother was a Christian, specifically from the kingdom of Pamplona. Her name was íñiga and before joining Abdalá I she had been married to a Navarrese nobleman:among the descendants of this union was Toda, wife of the monarch Sancho Garcés. So Abderramán III was a cousin of the kings of Pamplona. That did not prevent him from facing them on several occasions.
The new emir first undertook the task of consolidating the lost domain of the emirate in al-Andalus. In the year 928 he conquered the fortress of Bobastro, from which Ibn-Hafsun, and his sons after his death in 918, had been putting the Cordovan government in check for years
In the year 929 Abderramán III sent a letter to all the governors of al-Andalus in which he informed them that he had decided to recover the old title of caliph that his ancestors had held in Damascus before having to flee to the Peninsula Iberian. The need to confront the new emerging power of the Fatimids in North Africa, who had also been called caliphs, was one of the main reasons for this decision, although he also intended to consolidate their rule in al-Andalus
Badajoz, in the hands of Marwan's descendants, submitted to the new caliph in 930. For its part, Toledo capitulated before him in 932 after a siege of almost two years and did not rise up again against the caliphate. The people of Toledo had asked the new Leonese king, Ramiro II, for help, but he had to face an internal rebellion, so he could only send a small force that, after looting the town of Magerit (Madrid), verified that nothing could be done against the army. caliphal and turned around without coming to the defense of the ancient Visigothic capital.
The Lower and Middle Marches of al-Andalus were thus dominated; The Superior Mark remained, personalized in Zaragoza, which had been the seat of one of the best-known powers of the first centuries of Arab rule:the Banu Qasi. As its name indicates, this family was a descendant of Cassius, one of the Visigoth nobles who had relented to the Arab conquest in exchange for keeping their lands. We talk in detail about this family in the entry dedicated to the battle of Albelda. Although the Banu Qasi had lost their power, the subjugation of Zaragoza was complicated and did not take place until the year 937, through a pact of submission by the governor of the square, Muhammad ben Hassim.
The cause of this final imposition on the different enclaves that had rebelled on numerous occasions against the power of Córdoba is explained by Eduardo Manzano Moreno referring to two of them:«The emirs had the support of populations that made common cause with the central authority . […] Given the choice between falling into the orbit of any of those entrenched rebels or being, instead, governed by governors appointed and deposed from Córdoba, the inhabitants of both cities (Tortosa and Pechina) do not seem to have had many doubts. […] The victory of the Umayyads at the beginning of the 10th century was favored, therefore, by the culmination of a process of social homogenization of al-Andalus. The complex mosaic of situations with which the first emirs had faced had given way to a uniformity sponsored by the Umayyad authority».
A last focus of internal resistance, Santarem, was conquered by the caliph in the year 939, with which his rule over al-Andalus was total. He was thus able to worry about the Christian kingdoms with a more serious and forceful objective than the traditional annual olive oil companies in search of booty and slaves.
The caliph called his subjects to holy war and set out from his capital on June 29, 939. A huge Muslim army headed towards León, but stopped on its way before the fortress of Simancas, which would be a military risk to leave behind without conquering. Aware of the importance of this campaign, Ramiro II himself awaited the enemy in Simancas, along with his ally García Sánchez I of Pamplona and the Count of Castile Fernán González.
After several days of battle with uncertain results and without being able to break the Christians despite their numerical superiority, the Muslim army began to withdraw towards the Duero, being harassed in the retreat by the Leonese and suffering, now, a heavy defeat in the Alhándega ravine, in addition to the defection of some of the leaders of its border forces. The caliph himself was about to be captured and lost a very valuable Koran that Ramiro delivered in parts as loot to his faithful and that in the following years Abderramán managed to recover at an astronomical price.
In what the Christian and Muslim sources agree is in recognizing the harsh caliphal defeat. The Akhbar Machmud, In an unusual acknowledgment of what happened, he describes that Abderramán “was defeated in the most disastrous way. The enemies persecuted the Muslims everywhere for a few days, killing them or taking them prisoner, but only a small part of the army escaped, which the chiefs were able to gather under their banners and lead to the cities. Abderramán ordered that some of his generals, whom he accused of cowardice, be crucified at the gates of his palace.
This battle, due to the importance of its result in the survival and consolidation of the kingdom of León and due to the alliance of Christian forces that fought in it (all the counties and future kingdoms derived from that of León, including the Castilians of Fernán González and a force Pamplonesa), can be compared in its significance with the one that took place almost three centuries later in Las Navas de Tolosa.
But Abderramán III learned from the harsh defeat he suffered and in the following years he would change his way of attacking the Christian kingdoms. And he would do it with great success, as we will see in the second part of this article (see link).
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Daniel Fernandez deLis. From Covadonga to Tamarón.
Eduardo Manzano Moreno. History of Spain-. Medieval Times, Volume 2 . Criticism. Editorial Marcial Pons. First edition. Madrid 2015.
Vicente Ángel Álvarez Palenzuela (Coord). History of Spain in the Middle Ages . Ariel. 1st edition, 7th printing. February 2017
Ricardo Chao Prieto. History of the kings of León. Editorial rimpego.
Monarchy and society in the kingdom of León from Alfonso III to Alfonso VII . Center for Studies and Research «San Isidoro». Leon 2007.