At a glance
Era 4- Dates
- 891-961 CE; ruled 912-961 CE
- Who
- Umayyad ruler who took the title of caliph in 929 and made Cordoba a great city
- Era
- Al-Andalus
ProfileAbd al-Rahman III
Abd al-Rahman III became emir in 912, at about twenty-one, when al-Andalus was torn by rebellions. In about twenty years he brought the whole country back under Cordoba.
In 929 he took the title of caliph, with the name al-Nasir li-Din Allah. He did so partly in answer to the Fatimids, who had declared a caliphate in North Africa, and partly to show that al-Andalus was a power in its own right. Under him Cordoba became one of the largest and richest cities in Europe, with libraries, markets, baths and paved streets. From 936 he built a palace-city outside it, Madinat al-Zahra.
Envoys came to his court from Byzantium and the German emperor. He ruled for almost fifty years. A well-known account says that at the end of his life he counted only fourteen days of true happiness.
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