Pelayo's Uprising in Asturias

al-Maqqari reports, on the authority of more than one historian, that the first man to gather the remnant of the Christians in al-Andalus after the Arab conquest was a man called Belay, from Asturias in Galicia. ²

He had been a hostage for the obedience of his people. He fled from Cordoba in the days of al-Hurr ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Thaqafi, in the sixth year after the opening of al-Andalus, which is 98 AH. The Christians rose with him against al-Hurr's deputy, drove him out, and took control of the land. The source counts twenty-two kings from among them, from his time until the last days of al-Nasir. ²

According to al-Razi, Belay took refuge in a rock with three hundred men. The Muslims fought him until his companions died of hunger, and thirty men and ten women were left, who lived on honey they extracted from the crevices of the rock. The Muslims said: "Thirty; what could come of them?" Then their affair grew in strength beyond any doubt. ³

In 133 AH Belay died, and his son Fafila ruled in his place, then Alfonso son of Peter. ³

Salabi says that Christian resistance revived in the north-west under Belay's leadership, which compelled al-Hurr to return and suppress it. ⁴