The Berber Revolt
Before describing the events of the Berber Revolt it is worth explaining the intentions and nature of early Islamic rule. Islam was originally envisioned as an exclusively Arab religion, though there were exceptions of small groups of converts, such as captured Persian soldiers, who could easily fit into Islamic Arab society. The early Islamic state was supposed to be a two-tier system of a tribal military Islamic Arab elite ruling over a subject but protected non-Muslim population. This however was clearly unfeasible. The Arabs required the expertise of native power structures to govern a large, rapidly expanding and multicultural empire. Many administrators converted to enhance their career prospects while native nobility sought to maintain their status by escaping the burdens of the
jizya and
kharaj taxes on non-Muslims. The common folk, the rural peasantry and the urban poor, also wished to escape yet more taxes. On the other hand genuine religious conversion must not be discounted. The rapid victory of Islamic armies suggested that perhaps the divine was on their side, and the suspension of traditional state support for religious elites and hierarchies produced a vacuum of authority. To Jews and Christians, the Muslims claimed to be the latest (and correct) interpretation of God’s revelation. The Islamic Caliphate’s response to non-Arab conversion was inconsistent and confused; some governors were lenient in accepting converts, while others required strict overt displays of conversion. The problem however was that a large proportion of revenue was derived from
dhimmi-related taxes. Solutions to this potential loss of income included the creation of new taxes, the assignment of
mawla (client) status to new converts, or just the outright refusal to accept converts. Consequently, non-Arab Muslims were to a varying extent discriminated against.
The Berber tribes and states of North Africa initially proved to be a strong obstacle to Islamic expansion and were only really subjugated just prior to the beginning of the invasion of Hispania in 711 CE. Many tribes converted to Islam, for the reasons already enumerated, though notable Christian and Jewish communities remained. The recent Berber converts played a major role in the conquest of Hispania:
Musa ibn Nusayr, the Arab governor of Ifriqiya [Africa], appointed his Berber
mawla Tariq ibn Ziyad as governor of the nascent al-Andalus and ordered him to conquer the Visigothic kingdom. Most, if not all, of
Tariq’s army were Berbers; the second army, commanded by
Musa, was a considerably more mixed composition of Berbers and Arabs. Berber armies, usually organised on a traditional tribal basis, were garrisoned throughout al-Andalus and Gaul. Echoing the problems across the Caliphate, the Muslim Berbers in the Maghreb, al-Andalus, and Ifriqiya were subject to conditions akin to the
dhimmi. In response to the government’s mistreatment of non-Arab Muslims a number of religious movements appeared or grew in popularity. The most important in the west were the Kharijites; they were established after the
khalifah Ali’s apparent betrayal when he agreed to negotiate the caliphal succession with
Muawiyah. The founding belief of the Kharijites was that only God could judge one’s rule, and this was demonstrated through victory in battle. This belief led them to the conclusion that any pious Muslim could be the leader of the Islamic community, the Imam, and therefore all Muslims were equal. Such a belief system was, for obvious reasons, attractive to the downtrodden Berbers of the west.
The Berber Revolt began in the Maghreb in 739 CE when its governor
Umar ibn al-Muradi declared the Berbers in his province to be a “conquered people”. The tribes had had enough; they waited until
Habib ibn Abu Ubayda al-Fihri[1] departed on his expedition to Roman Sicily before gathering their strength under the leadership of
Maysara al-Matghari.
Maysara, as leader of the prominent Matghari/Imteghren tribe, had previously conducted delegations to Dimashq [Damascus] to present the caliph with complaints about discrimination against the Berbers, though to no avail. Governor
al-Muradi was killed and
Maysara proclaimed as the
amir al-mu’minin (commander of the faithful), a title that was exclusively held by the caliphs. The Berbers were therefore issuing a direct challenge to Umayyad authority. After seizing control of Tanja [Tangier], the Berber rebels marched east towards al-Qayrawan [Kairouan] collecting more soldiers along the way. Ifriqiyan governor
Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab al-Mawsili, surprised though he was, recalled the Sicilian expedition and dispatched a small army of noble Arab cavalry to intercept the Berbers before they reached Tilimsan [Tlemcen]. The Arabs succeeded in intercepting the Berbers and attacked them near Tanja in 740 CE;
Maysara momentarily hesitated but held firm and rallied his troops to respond in kind.[2] Even though the skilled Arab cavalry inflicted a serious number of casualties, the superior numbers and local knowledge of the Berbers gave them the advantage and resulted in a massacre of almost the entire Arab army. The returning Sicilian expedition arrived too late after the battle and so retreated to Tilimsan. There they found the city’s Berber population in open revolt after the governor began to round up Kharijite agitators. With the city’s Arab garrison in tow,
al-Fihri’s army retreated to Tahert and sent a request for reinforcements.
The situation in al-Andalus took a different direction. Upon hearing the news of the Arab defeat near Tanja the Berbers, who comprised most of the Muslim Andalusian soldiers, began leaving their posts and converging near Tulaytula [Toledo]. Fearing the confrontation with the Berbers, the Andalusian Arab nobility deposed governor
Uqba ibn al-Hajjaj al-Sululi and raised in his place his predecessor
Abd al-Malik ibn Katan al-Fihri, who had a more even-handed reputation. In the confusion a number of north-western forts and cities abandoned by the Berbers were conquered by
King Alfonso I of Asturias, third in a line of Visigothic noblemen who had so far proven to be nothing more than a nuisance. At the far edge of Umayyad control in Burgundy, the Berber garrisons were also growing mutinous.
Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri, effectively governor of all of Islamic-ruled Gaul, recognised that the Berber Revolt had the potential to threaten all of the gains he had made over the previous years. Yet he recognised that he also had an opportunity; he was popular among his men, both Arab and Berber, and he had cultivated connections among the Christian vassal lords. With this in mind, he forwarded messages to his Berber garrison commanders promising the end of discrimination if they supported his accession to governor of al-Andalus. After a tense period of waiting, replies arrived from his subordinates; they agreed to his plan. Leaving a garrison in Lyon,
Yusuf marched south at the head of a Berber army.
A depiction of Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri's Berber cavalry, along with their attendants
Meanwhile,
Habib ibn Abu Ubayda al-Fihri’s plea to Dimashq for reinforcements had been heeded.
Caliph Hisham raised a large army of Arabs from al-Sham [Syria] and Misr [Egypt], commanded by
Kulthum ibn Iyadh al-Qushayri who was to take governorship of Ifriqiya, the Maghreb, and al-Andalus when he arrived. The advance party of the Umayyad army reached al-Qayrawan in 741 CE. Its commander
Balj ibn Bishr al-Qushayri clashed with the city’s garrison commanders and billeted his troops without the city’s permission. The tension was partly caused by the old conflict between the “northern” Qays Aylan tribal confederation, to which the arriving reinforcements belonged to, and the “southern” Qahtan tribal confederation, to which the original Islamic Arab conquerors of the west belonged.
Kulthum ibn Iyadh arrived before the conflict turned serious, and collected his vanguard and marched to meet
Habib ibn Abu Ubayda al-Fihri near Tahert.
Habib ibn Abu Ubayda however had heard of
Balj ibn Bishr’s provocations in al-Qayrawan and the two, along with their troops, would have started a new civil war if not for the mediation of the new governor. The larger, but fractious, army marched west to force the Berbers into battle; the two armies met at Baqdura, near the modern city of Fes. The eastern reinforcements ignored the advice of those they had allegedly come to save, leading to their cavalry being isolated and massacred by the Berbers, while the Arab infantry were overwhelmed by the substantially larger enemy army.
Kulthum ibn Iyadh and
Habib ibn Abu Ubayda were among the dead.
Balj ibn Bishr gathered the paltry remains of the army and marched north to Sabtah [Ceuta], where they fortified themselves and begged the Andalusians for safe passage.
The army of
Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al Fihri took ship from Provence to Balansiyya [Valencia] and from there marched to Tulaytula, which the Berber rebels were besieging. The ambitious commander presented the rebels with the same proposal as the one to his own troops. Though they were more sceptical, the Berber rebels eventually agreed. With the city’s Berber population near revolt, the garrison accepted
Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman’s offer to surrender. After reinstating Tulaytula’s Berber garrison, the rebels marched south to the provincial capital of Qurtuba [Cordoba]. Before beginning the siege,
Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman implored his relative, the governor
Abd al-Malik ibn Katan, to resign voluntarily and join him in establishing responsible government. The governor considered the situation; the Umayyad reinforcements were too far away and also were mostly comprised of the hated Qays,[3] while he himself could only rely on a small and still dispersed Arab army.
Abd al-Malik reluctantly agreed to his kinsman’s terms and surrendered the city to his command.
Yusuf had little time to rest on his laurels however, as news reached them of the Umayyad defeat at Baqdura and
Balj ibn Bishr’s flight to Sabtah. The new governor faced a dilemma: giving refuge to the rival Qays would seriously aggrieve his Berber soldiers and thus threaten his newfound power; on the other hand, this early in his tenure
Yusuf was keen to receive caliphal recognition of his governorship. On a more personal note his father
Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib was serving with the trapped army. The solution was a risky one: he would transport the Umayyad army from Sabtah to Tunis in Ifriqiya. Though this would weaken the Berber Revolt in Ifriqiya and displease some of
Yusuf’s own Berber troops, it would at least appear to the central government that he was fighting the rebels.
After the Battle of Baqdura, the revolt began to spread further east. A Kharijite preacher named
Uqasha ibn Ayub al-Fezari assembled a Berber army and conquered Gabis and Gafsa in southern Ifriqiya. At the end of 741 CE
Caliph Hisham ordered Misri governor
Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi to take his army west and restore order. Even though
al-Fezari’s army was defeated by the Ifriqiyan garrison, the latter were too small to pursue and decisively end the threat the rebels posed. The Misri reinforcements arrived at al-Qayrawan in 742 CE at approximately the same time as
Balj ibn Bishr’s army. This was just as well, as a large army commanded by the Berber chief
Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari marched east toward al-Qayrawan.
Al-Fezari met the incoming rebels and the two commanders agreed to come at the provincial capital from two directions.
Al-Kalbi dispatched his cavalry to harass the larger army under
al-Hawwari while he led most of his forces against
al-Fezari; the latter’s army was defeated and the Kharijite preacher was captured. The Umayyad army retreated to al-Qayrawan and conscripted most of the city’s able-bodied population. The enlarged army marched out to meet the rebels and a battle of epic proportions followed. Even with the reinforcements the Umayyad army only just defeated the rebels, both sides suffering grievous losses.
Al-Hawwari was killed in battle and the survivors of his army retreated west. Ifriqiya had been saved and the Berber Revolt ended, but the Maghreb was forever lost to the Umayyad Caliphate.
[1] Grandfather of Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri.
[2] OTL, Maysara retreated from the battle which led to him being overthrown and killed by the other Berbers.
[3] The Battle of Baqdura had not yet happened.
