the first raid on al-Andalus (27 AH)

All stops in this story

1. the first raid on al-Andalus (27 AH) — 647 CE · 27 AH

   The first raid on al-Andalus: after Ifriqiya's conquest 'Uthman ordered 'Abdallah ibn Nafi' ibn al-Husayn and 'Abdallah ibn Nafi' ibn 'Abd al-Qays across the sea, writing to the volunteers: «Constantinople shall only be opened from the side of al-Andalus.« They went out with Berbers in their ranks and God granted them victory .

2. Conquest of Cordoba — c. 711 CE · c. 92 AH

   Tariq's lieutenant Mughith al-Rumi took Cordoba in 92 by a wall-breach a shepherd showed him — a fig tree for scaling and a heaven-sent drizzle masking the hooves — and captured its fleeing lord near Tatlira .

3. The Entry of Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil into al-Andalus — c. 756 CE · 138 AH

   In year 138 Abd al-Rahman ibn Muawiya ibn Hisham the Umayyad entered al-Andalus and seized it; his days extended and al-Andalus remained in his descendants' hands past the year 400. A man of learning and justice whose mother was Berber, they said: 'The world is ruled by two sons of Berber women — al-Mansur and Abd al-Rahman ibn Muawiya.' By year 148 nothing lay outside al-Mansur's sway but al-Andalus, held by Abd al-Rahman, who did not take the title Commander of the Faithful but only amir — as did his sons .

4. The battle of al-Rabad — c. 818 CE · c. 202 AH

   The Rabad revolt: Cordoba's learned and pious rose against al-Hakam I in his dissolute early years; he crushed the western suburb, razed its houses and mosques and scattered its people to Fez and Alexandria — whence Abdallah b. Tahir expelled them to Crete, where they held the island until the Franks took it .

5. The Rabad fitna in Cordoba — c. 818 CE · c. 202 AH

   The famous revolt of the Rabbaḍ of Cordoba under al-Hakam ibn Hisham: the scholars of learning and piety — Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi, Malik's companion and Muwatta transmitter, the faqih Talut and others — rose against him, deposed him and gave bay'a to a kinsman; al-Hakam crushed them, demolished their houses and mosques, and the exiles went to Fez and Alexandria — where they revolted again until Abdallah ibn Tahir expelled them to Crete, which they held until the Franks took it .

6. Majus landing at Seville, 230 AH — c. 844 CE · 230 AH

   The great Majus raid of AH 230: the northern sea-raiders entered Seville itself; Córdoba's army fought them 'after a hard stand,' burnt some of their ships, and the raiders withdrew down the coast through Sidonia, Niebla, Beja and Lisbon before vanishing — Abd al-Rahman II then repaired what they had wrecked and reinforced the garrisons .

7. The Battle of Wadi Salit (c. 240 AH) — c. 854 CE · c. 240 AH

   The Wadi Salit (Guazalete) massacre: when rebel Toledo sought the kings of Galicia and the Basques against the emir Muhammad I, he ambushed their host on the river south of Toledo and left twenty thousand dead .

8. The Cordoba Strife and the Rising of Ibn Abd al-Jabbar — 1009 CE · 399 AH

   The Cordoba fitna of 399–400: the Umayyad Muhammad ibn Hisham rose as 'al-Mahdi', hid the caliph Hisham al-Mu'ayyad and buried a Christian lookalike in his name; his uncle Hisham's counter-revolt failed, then Sulayman al-Musta'in marched in with Christian allies, won the great battle (35,000 dead), and took the bay'a while Berbers and Christians sacked the city .

9. The Berbers enter Cordoba by storm — c. 1013 CE · 403 AH

   In 403 Sulayman al-Musta'in and the Berbers stormed Cordoba after a siege that starved its villages; Hisham al-Mu'ayyad was secretly killed, the city's households violated, and the Berbers and Saqaliba scattered to found taifa states .

10. The Franks' taking of Toledo — 1085 CE · 478 AH

    The first of al-Andalus's great cities retaken by the Franks: Toledo, from al-Qadir ibn Dhi-l-Nun in 478 — Tuesday 1 Safar in Ibn Khallikan, Wednesday 10 Muharram in Ibn Alqama — after a siege some stretched to seven years. Ibn Bassam records the fifty-year stored wheat spoiling that very year; Ibn Dhi-l-Nun left astrolabe in hand; the mosque became a church in Rabi I 496; Alfonso refused the crown 'until we take their Cordoba' — a vow unfulfilled; Ibn al-Asal's lament 'hasten your mounts, people of al-Andalus' — and Zallaqa followed the next year .

11. The Almoravid seizure of Seville — 1091 CE · 484 AH

    In 484 the Almoravids entered Seville; al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad charged them at the palace square, then yielded 'by my hand, not Amr's' — dragged to captivity and exiled to Aghmat, ending the sixty-year Abbadid kingdom, Andalus's most celebrated taifa .

12. Capture of Valencia by al-Qanbiyatur (the Campeador) — c. 1094 CE · c. 488 AH

    Valencia's fall to Rodrigo el Campeador in 488 (some say 487): raised by Ibn Hud of Zaragoza, he took the city after a twenty-month siege, burned the qadi Ibn Jahhaf over the concealed treasury, and destroyed it — the poet Ibn al-Banna among the burned — until the Almoravid amir Mazdali retook it for Yusuf ibn Tashfin in 495 .

13. death of Ibn Mardanīsh — Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin takes his lands — c. 1172 CE · 568 AH

    Ibn Mardanīsh, lord of the Spanish east, died and the Almohad Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin took his lands — the eastern provinces and Qafsa fell to him, joined to his Maghreb realm .

14. Tahāfut al-Tahāfut written — c. 1179 CE · c. 575 AH†

    In 1179–80 Ibn Rushd composed his three connected treatises in defence of philosophy: Faṣl al-Maqāl, Kashf al-Manāhij, and Tahāfut al-Tahāfut answering al-Ghazali .