The proposal of the sheikh was received with unanimous applause. Accompanied by Teman ben Al-Kama, he was instantly deputed by the assembly to pass over into Mauretania, and offer the crown to the princely descendant of Moawiyah. The prince immediately accepted the proposal. The youth of the whole tribe were eager to accompany him, but he selected 750 well-armed horsemen for this arduous expedition. Abd ar-Rahman landed on the coast of Andalusia in the early part of the year 755. The inhabitants of that province, sheikhs and people, received him with open arms, and made the air ring with their acclamations. His appearance, his station, his majestic mien, his open countenance, won upon the multitude even more perhaps than the prospect of the blessings which he was believed to have in store for them. His march to Seville was one continued triumph; twenty thousand voices cheered his progress; twenty thousand scimitars, wielded by vigorous hands, were at his disposal. The surrounding towns immediately sent deputies with their submission and the offer of their services. After a series of unsuccessful manœuvres, Yusuf fell in a battle near Lorca, and his head was sent by the victorious general to the king. According to the barbarous custom of the times, it was suspended from an iron hook over one of the public gates of Cordova. The very same year Narbonne fell into the power of the Christians, after a siege of six years. Gothic Gaul was now lost to the Moslems.
[756-796 A.D.]
The peace which the monarch enjoyed was destined to prove of short duration. While he continued at Seville, indulging alike in poetry and friendship, he received intelligence of an insurrection at Toledo, by Hisham ben Adri al-Fehri, a relative of Yusuf. Hisham with some other generals fell into the hands of Bedra, who, in the fear of their being saved by the clemency of Abd ar-Rahman, immediately struck off their heads. But he was now menaced by an enemy more powerful than any which had yet assailed him; and one of the last perhaps he would ever have dreamed of opposing. This was no other than Charlemagne, who poured his legions over the Pyrenees into the valleys of Catalonia. He himself headed the division which passed into Navarre through Gascony, and his first conquest was the Christian city of Pamplona. The walls he levelled with the ground; and thence proceeded to Saragossa. That city quickly owned his supremacy; and so also, we are told, did Gerona, Huesca, and Barcelona, the government of which he confided to the sheikhs who had invited him into the peninsula, and had aided him with their influence. The whole country, from the Ebro to the Pyrenees, in like manner owned his authority. How far he might have carried his arms, had not the revolt of the Saxons summoned him to a more urgent scene, it would be useless to conjecture.
While in the defiles of the Pyrenees, between Roncesvalles and Valcarlos, his rear was furiously assailed by some thousands of Navarrese in ambush, who were justly indignant at the wanton destruction of their capital. That the injury inflicted on the emperor was serious, is apparent from the words of his own secretary, who tells us that the whole rearguard was cut to pieces, including many of his generals and chief nobles; and that not only the riches amassed in the expedition, but the whole baggage of the army, fell into the hands of the victors. Scarcely had Charlemagne passed the Pyrenees, when Abd ar-Rahman recovered Saragossa and the other places, of which that monarch had received the submission, and which he had, probably, been sanguine enough to hope would continue to acknowledge his supremacy. But if Abd ar-Rahman was thus freed from so formidable an invader, he was still subject to the curse of domestic sedition.
During his long reign, Abd ar-Rahman had several transactions with the Christians of the Asturias. Under the viceroys his predecessors, the Mussulman arms had failed against both Pelayo and Alfonso I; but he was more successful. By Froila or Fruela I, indeed, one if not two of his generals were successively and signally defeated (760 and 761); but from the tenor of a treaty between the two kings, a treaty on which the early Christian writers preserve a deep silence, we may infer either that the Asturian ruler had sustained some reverse, or that he turned aside the storm of threatening vengeance by concessions.
Abd ar-Rahman died in 787. The chief features of his character were honour, generosity, and intrepidity, with a deeply rooted regard for the interests of justice and religion. His views, for a Mussulman, were enlightened, and his sentiments liberal. Misfortune had been his schoolmaster, and he profited by its lessons. He was an encourager of literature, as appears from the number of schools he founded and endowed; of poetry in particular he must have been fond, or he would not have cultivated it himself. In short, his highest praise is to be found in the fact that Mohammedan Spain wanted a hero and legislator to lay the first stone of her prosperity, and that she found both in him.
Hisham ben Abd ar-Rahman, surnamed Alhadi Radhi, the Just and the Good, was immediately proclaimed at Merida, whither he had accompanied his dying father; and his elevation was hailed by the acclamations of all Spain. The success with which Hisham crushed formidable insurrections of his two brothers roused within him the latent sparks of ambition. He now aspired to conquests not only in the Asturias, but in Gothic Gaul. He proclaimed the al-jihed, or holy war, which every Mussulman was bound to aid, if young, by personal service, if rich and advanced in years, by the contribution of horses, arms, or money. Two formidable armies were immediately put in motion; one thirty-nine thousand strong, which was headed by the hajib or prime minister, marched into the Asturias; the other, which was still more numerous, advanced towards the Pyrenees. The hajib laid waste all Galicia as far as Lugo, and obtained immense plunder; but Alfonso, surnamed the Chaste, had the glory of freeing the infant kingdom from the invaders. A second expedition, under the hajib’s son, was still more unfortunate. From this time may be dated the real independence of the Christians.
[796-815 A.D.]
The success of the other army was not very signal; it made no conquests, but shortly returned across the Pyrenees laden with immense plunder. In the seventh year of his reign Hisham caused his son Al-Hakem to be recognised as his successor, and died a few months afterwards, in 796, universally lamented by his subjects. The reign of Al-Hakem was one of extreme agitation. Barcelona, and many other fortresses of Catalonia, acknowledged the supremacy of Charlemagne.
Whilst these transactions were passing in Catalonia, Alfonso the Chaste was naturally eager to profit by the division in his favour. To punish his revolt in 801, Al-Hakem ravaged his eastern territories. But on the return of the Mohammedan king, who left Yusuf ben Amru to prosecute the war, the Asturian entirely routed the forces of that general, whom he took prisoner, and for whose ransom he exacted a heavy sum. This very fact proves that the two kings were now placed on an equal footing—that the ties of vassalage had been burst asunder by the Christian hero. In 808, Alfonso crossed the Duero, invaded Lusitania, and took Lisbon. Al-Hakem hastened to the theatre of war, and obtained some successes. Abd ar-Rahman, Al-Hakem’s son, defeated Alfonso on the banks of the Duero, took Zamora, and compelled that king to sue for peace. However, hostilities soon recommenced, but with little advantage to either party.