ABDURRAHMAN IN SPAIN AND THE FIGHT FOR SOVEREIGNTY

On August 14, 755, Abdurrahman landed in Spain and hundreds of people trooped out to welcome him and to assure him that they will fight under his banner. His supporters increased daily as his sought refuge in Malaga, he was smart enough to know that if both al-fihri and sumayl would see him as a threat to their shaky power, so he took advantage of the feuds in the peninsula.
On march 746, he took over Seville and gained support of the people. At this time,Yusuf was being controlled by sumayl. Abdurrahman marched to take over Cordova which was the capital, his army suffered from hunger due to the long drought which was just leaving the area but the army of al-fihri was well fed. Other unrest broke out in Abdurrahman army but he was wise to quench it well enough. The two armies met on the opposite side of the River Guadalquivir just outside Cordova.
On may 15,756A.D, Abdurrahman defeated the army of al-fihri and took over Cordova. It was said that his army did not even have a banner before the war but improvision was done with a green turban binded roung to the edge of a spear. This later became the banner for the Andalusian Umayyad. After the battle, al-fihri and sumayl escaped and the latter planned a counter attack but later turned in for negotiation. The terms were that al-fihri will not leave Cordova and must see Abdurrahman daily with some of his children as hostages.
After sometime, al-fihri escaped and gathered an army but was defeated by Abdurrahman’s governor of Sevilla who defeated him. Al-fihri escaped to Toledo, the capital of the former Visigoths were he was killed. His head was sent to Abdurrahman who nailed it to a bridge, with this, he proclaimed himself the Amir of Andalusia. He was barely 26 years of age then. In order to take over southern Andalusia,he snet Sumayl to Cordovas’s jail while most of central and northern Spain remained in the hands of al-fihri’s followers till 779A.D when Saragossa was subjugated.
By 763A.D, the second caliph of the Abbasid Al-mansur wished to add Andalus to his territory after inheriting the whole land owned by the Umayyads. He wanted to wage a war against Abdurrahman who termed himself as the Amir of Spain,so he sent one of his commander A’la bn Mugith to be the governor of Africa and to capture Andalus from Abdurrahman. A’la set out to attack Abdurrahman with a far more superior force. Abdurrahman set out with his army and was besieged in a place called Carmona for two months. When Abdurrahman was running out of food, he set out with few of his soldiers and they made an attempt of a breakthrough for the siege, they litted up fire and caught the Abbasid army unaware. They attacked with the army and killed most of the Abbasid soldiers and the head of ibn Mugith was cutr off and sent to the caliph who was on oilgrimage at Makkah. Upon receiving news of his defeat and the head of his commander, he exclaimed; “Glory be to Allah who has placed the sea between us”.