At a glance
Era 4- Dates
- 731-788 CE; ruled 756-788 CE
- Who
- Umayyad prince who escaped the Abbasids and founded the Emirate of Cordoba
- Era
- Al-Andalus
ProfileAbd al-Rahman I
Abd al-Rahman was a grandson of the Umayyad caliph Hisham. When the Abbasids overthrew his family in 750 and hunted down its princes, he escaped, swimming the Euphrates while his young brother was caught and killed. For five years he travelled west through Palestine, Egypt and North Africa, sheltered by his mother's Berber kin.
In 755 he crossed to al-Andalus, where many supporters of the Umayyads lived, and in 756 he took Cordoba and was proclaimed emir. He spent the rest of his life putting down revolts and building a state. In 785 he began the Great Mosque of Cordoba. He is called al-Dakhil, "the one who entered".
His Abbasid rival al-Mansur is said to have called him the Falcon of Quraysh, for crossing deserts and seas alone to found a kingdom. His family ruled al-Andalus for more than two and a half centuries.
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