ABDURRAHMAN I: HIS PERSONALITY AND HIS REIGN AT A GLANCE
Abdurrahman was the son of the Umayyad prince Muawiyah bn Hisham and he was given birth to by his father’s concubine Ra’ha who was a Berber woman from the tribe of Nafza in North Africa. He had golden hair, he was a tall man and he possessed super human courage and a high enduring spirit, he was a very shrewd and wise man like Caliph Muawiyyah bn Abi sufyan who founded the Umayyad caliphate.
After the series of rebellion he has suppressed, he was still not able to satisfy his grudge against the Abbasids who ruined his family although he respected their caliphate authority and styled himself as Amir of Cordova and not Amirul mu’mineen out of respect for his opponent, the Caliphs’ of Baghdad. Nevertheless, the second Abbasid caliph also held him in high regard although they were enemies.
One day, the second Abbasid caliph, Al-mansur asked his courtiers that who is supposed to be known as “Saqr Quraysh” (the falcon of Quraysh). They replied that he was the one, but he declined, then they suggested Muawiyyah bn Abi sufyan who founded the Umayyad dynasty but he declined, then he told them that the most eligible for the title of ‘falcon of Quraysh’ is Abdurrahman I and he started recounting the struggles Abdurrahman went through from escaping hunting blades moving in all directions to take his life to travelling alone in deserts to seeking his fortune without an army till when he reached the status of exterminating rebels, establishing an empire ,preventing Christians incursion into Spain and reuniting a people who have been disunited for years, he(caliph mansur) then continued by giving other excuse why he deserved the title because he achieved it alone without anyone’s help.
After Abdurrahman solved the various internal problems he was facing, he focused on developmental affairs. He raised the first congregational mosque which was the famous Great mosque of Cordova; he also rebuilt the Gothic residence of governors in Cordova to serve as his own residence according to the Syrian taste and named it Rusafa. He also founded a very strong army of about 40,000 soldiers.
He had a high forgiven spirit. Once, one of his most influential supporters was accused of treason, when he was told, he said; “I will impose on him the severest punishment, I will simply ignore him”. Abdurrahman had a lot of good qualities, he was a deep religious man who had no attraction for women, and he also speaks a very quality Arabic with a commanding voice. A large percentage of both Jews and Christians of Spain accepted Islam during his reign and even a Gothic noble accepted Islam and married an Arab who gave birth to descendants who were very influential in the later generations.
The later part of Abdurrahman life was spent in Rusafa, he had a garden designed with the Syrian taste, It was said that Abdurrahman once saw a plant in his garden at Rusafa which was very common in the East, he became very emotional as it reminded him of his stay at Damascus, it reminded him of the date palm trees and the peaceful atmosphere of the Umayyad palace and the Arab lands in general, he would sometimes develop the strong urge to travel over there. He also often remembered of how he was forced to flee his homeland westward by the Abbasids and how his family were massacred, it was also recorded that he even once tried to raise an army to fight against the Abbasids.
Abdurrahman was later married to a Spanish woman named Hulal who later became the mother of Abdurrahman’s successor. Upon the death of Abdurrahman in 788A.D, his preference for successor fell on Hisham I who later took over the reign from his father even though Abdurrahman’s first child was sulayman and one of his children, Umar was killed in a battle before 758A.D he also had another son called Abdullah.
He was given two famous names in his lifetime, ‘Saqr Quraysh’ (the falcon of Quraysh) which was given to him as mentioned before by Caliph Mansur and ‘Ad-daakhil’ (The Enterer) because of his heroic entry into Spain which changed the course of its future.
