Umar ibn Hafsun

Umar ibn Hafsun ibn Ja'far ibn Salim (Arabic: عمر بن حَفْصُون بن جَعْفَ بن سالم) (c. 850 – 917), known in Spanish history as Omar ben Hafsun, was a 9th-century political and military leader who contested Umayyad power in Iberia.

Ruins of the Bobastro Church.

Ancestry

The background of Ibn Hafsun has been the subject of conflicting claims. A contemporary poet, Ibn Abd Rabbih (860-940), referred to him as a Sawada, a descendant of black Africans.[1] Writing a century later, Ibn Hayyan recorded a pedigree for Ibn Hafsun by tracing his descent to a great-grandfather, Ja'far ibn Salim, who had converted to Islam and settled in the Ronda area of the Province of Málaga in southern Spain. The pedigree then traces back several additional generations to one Count Marcellus (or perhaps Frugelo), son of Alfonso, apparently a Christian Visigoth. This pedigree was copied by later historians, including Ibn Idhari, Ibn Khatib, and Ibn Khaldun, as well as the A'lam Malaga (History of Malaga) begun by Ibn 'Askar and completed by Ibn Khamis, and more recent authors such as Reinhart Dozy, in his Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne (History of the Muslims of Spain).[2] However, historian David J. Wasserstein has concluded that the pre-conversion portion of this pedigree was probably invented by Umar himself. José Antonio Conde in 1820 indicated that Ibn Hafsun was "a man of pagan origin, of obscure and unknown ancestry."[3] Regardless, there is evidence his family owned lands in Iznate, Málaga, where he grew up.[4]

Life

Ibn Hafsun was born around 850 in the mountains near Parauta in what is now Málaga. In his wild youth, he had a very violent temper and was involved in a number of disputes, including a homicide around the year 879. He joined a group of brigands and was captured by the Vali of Málaga, who merely imposed a fine since he had not been informed of the homicide. The governor subsequently lost his post. Ibn Hafsun fled the jurisdiction to Morocco[5] where he worked briefly as an apprentice tailor[6] or stonemason.

He soon returned to al-Andalus as an outlaw and joined bandits who were in rebellion against Andalusian rule and soon rose to a leadership position.[7] Originally he settled in the ruins of the old castle of Bobastro (Arabic: بُبَشْتَر bubastar).[8] He rebuilt the castle, and fortified the nearby town of Ardales. He rallied disaffected Muwallads and Mozarabs to the cause by playing off resentment towards the unfair heavy taxation and the humiliating treatment they were receiving at the hands of Abd ar-Rahman and his successors.[9] He acquired castles and lands in a wide area not only in Malaga but also in portions of the Provinces of Cádiz, Granada (known then as "Elvira"), Jaén, and Seville.

By 883, he had become the leader of the rebels in the provinces to the south and the west of the Emirate of Córdoba. The year before, in 882, he is said to have fought the Emir in a battle in which his ally, García Íñiguez of Pamplona, was killed. Around 885, to be more centrally located so that he could more quickly respond to external threats, Ibn Hafsun moved his headquarters to the town of Poley, which is now Aguilar de la Frontera.

After Ibn Hafsun’s defeat by the forces of Abdullah ibn Muhammad al-Umawi at the Battle of Poley in 891, he moved his headquarters back to Bobastro. In 898, Lubb ibn Muhammad, of the Banu Qasi, was marching an army to support Umar when the death of his father at Zaragoza forced Lubb to abandon the campaign. In 899, Ibn Hafsun renounced Islam and converted to Christianity. He was baptised as Samuel.[4] His motivations seems to have been opportunistic in the hope of obtaining military support from Alfonso III of Asturias, who had met with indifference overtures by Ibn Hafsun on behalf of Ibn Marwan. The conversion attracted him significant Mozarab support but cost him the support of most of his Mullawad followers.[10] He also built the Iglesia Mozárabe ("Mozarab Church") at the Bobastro.

Ibn Hafsun continued to be a serious threat to Córdoba. In 910, he offered allegiance to the newly established Fatimid Caliphate of North Africa,[11] and when Abd-ar-Rahman III became Emir of Cordoba in 912, he instigated a policy of annual spring offensives against Ibn Hafsun by using mercenary troops. In 913 Rahman captured the city of Seville, and by the end of 914, had captured 70 of Ibn Hafsun’s castles. In 916, he joined forces with the Umayyads in a campaign against northern Christian kingdoms for an as of yet unknown reason, whether in contrition or merely as an expedient compromise.[4] For a while, even taxes were paid to the Umayyads.[4]

Ibn Hafsun died in 917 and was buried in the Iglesia Mozarabe. His coalition then crumbled; while his sons Ja'far, 'Abd-ar-Rahman and Hafs tried to continue the resistance, they eventually fell to 'Abd-ar-Rahman III. Hafs surrendered Bobastro in 928 and fought with the Umayyad army in Galicia.[4] With Bobastro's fall, the mortal remains of Ibn Hafsun and his slain sons were exhumed by the emir and posthumously crucified outside the Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba.[12]

Notes
  1. Antonio Olliz-Boyd; Gabriel Asoanab Abudu (1993). "Afro-Iberian identity in the Early Literature of Spain: Precursors of the Afro hispanic Identity". In Helen Ryan-Ransom (ed.). Imagination, Emplems, and Expressions: Essays on Latin American, Caribbean and Continental Culture and Identity. Bowling Green University Popular Press. pp. 283-300 at 290-291.
  2. Ryan-Ranson, p. 291; Wasserstein, pp. 272-274; Christys, Christians in Al-Andalus, pp. 102.
  3. Un hombre de orígen pagano, de oscura y desconocida prosapia, llamado Omar ben Hafs, José Antonio Conde, Historia de la dominación de los Arabes en España, Madrid: Garcia, 1820, p. 295
  4. Houtsma, M. Th. et al. (eds.) (1913-1936) Encyclopaedia of Islam, pp. 981-982
  5. Safran, Janina M. (2000). The Second Umayyad Caliphate: The Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy in Al-Andalus. Harvard CMES. p. 114. ISBN 978-0-932885-24-1.
  6. Chejne, Anwar G., Muslim Spain, Its History and Culture, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1974, p. 24
  7. Some sources suggest that he received significant help from his uncle Mohadir. "Omar Ben Hafsun"
  8. The exact site of Bobastro is debated by modern archaeologists although the claim has been made that it is Las Mesas de Villaverde, in the Sierra de la Pizarra mountain range near Ronda in the northern part of the province of Malaga (Ann Christys, Christians in al-Andalus, p. 103).
  9. Ye'or, Bat; Kochan, Miriam and Littman, David (2002) Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison, NJ, p. 63 ISBN 0-8386-3942-9
  10. Lévi-Provençal, Histoire de l'Espagne Musulmane, Paris, 1950, vol. 1, p. 377, speaks of his "instability of character and opportunistic tendencies", and Wasserstein, p. 293, suggests his actions speak of "hasty opportunism, if not, necessarily, of instability". According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, his conversion to Christianity is "far from being historically proved" and that he never sought to ally himself with the Christian north.
  11. Wasserstein, p. 293
  12. Noble, John; Forsyth, Susan; Maric, Vesna (2007). Andalucia. Ediz. Inglese. Lonely Planet Publications. p. 288. ISBN 978-1-74059-973-3.

References
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  • Barthel, Günter and Kristina Stock (eds.) (1994) Lexikon Arabische Welt, Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-88226-783-6
  • Bosworth, C.E.; Donzel, E. van; Heinrichs, W.P.; Pellat, Ch., eds. (1998). Encyclopaedia of Islam, Volume VII (Mif-Naz). BRILL. p. 248. ISBN 9789004094192.
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