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The Command of the Faithful in al-Andalus: A Study in the Articulation of Caliphal Legitimacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2009

Janina Safran
Janina Safran
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor, Department of History, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Penn. 16802–5500, U.S.A.
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Extract

In 929, the eighth Umayyad ruler of al-Andalus, ʿAbd al-Rahman III (r. 912–61) formally assumed the exclusive caliphal prerogatives of khuṭba and sikka. After nearly two centuries of independent Umayyad rule in the Iberian peninsula, ʿAbd al-Rahman III issued a circular to his governors directing them to address him forthwith as amīr al-muʾminīn, or Commander of the Faithful, and to ensure that the khuṭba, or Friday sermon, in every congregational mosque invoked his name with this designation. With this he reclaimed the Umayyad dynasty's rights to the caliphal title: “We have understood that to continue not to use this title, which is incumbent upon us, is to allow one of our rights to decay and a firm designation to become lost.” Later the same year, he established a mint in Cordoba and ordered the striking of gold dinars in his name (sikka), resuming the minting of gold coins in al-Andalus, which had been suspended since the overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate in Syria.

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Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , May 1998 , pp. 183 - 198
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

NOTES

Authors note: I thank the anonymous referees for their useful comments.

1 As Bernard Lewis notes, although there are a number of insignia of sovereignty in the Islamic world, “[t]he two most basic tokens of sovereign power in Islamic history are practical and direct, rather than symbols or metaphors. They are the right to be named on the coinage (sikka) and in the bidding to prayer recited at public worship in the mosques on Friday (khuṭba)” Lewis, Bernard, The Political Language of Islam (Chicago, 1988), 127, n. 51Google Scholar.

2 The Umayyad rulers of al-Andalus did not adopt caliphal titles or insignia until ʿAbd al-Rahman III did so in 929, but they asserted their independence from Abbasid rule by refusing to pronounce the Abbasid caliph's name in the khuṭba or otherwise formally recognize the Abbasid caliphate. For discussion of this subject and whether, or how, conditions changed by ʿAbd al-Rahman III's reign, see Lévi-Provençal, Evariste, Histoire de l'Espagne musulmane (Paris and Leiden, 1950), 1:132–33, 2:113–14Google Scholar; Gabrieli, Francesco, “Omayyades d'Espagne et Abbasides,” Studia Islamica 31 (1970): 93–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Epalza, Mikel de, “Problemas y reflexiones sobre el califato en al-Andalus,” Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español (1983), 569–81Google Scholar; Fierro, M. Isabel, “Sobre la adopción del título califal por ʿAbd al-Rahman III,” Sharq al-Andalus 6 (1989): 33–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wasserstein, David, The Caliphate in the West (Oxford, 1993), 8–10Google Scholar.

3 Una crónica anónima de ʿAbd al-Rahmān III al-Ṇāṣir, ed. and trans. Lévi-Provençal, E. and García-Gómez, Emilio (Madrid and Granada, 1950), Arabic 79/Spanish 152–53Google Scholar; ʿAbd al-Rahman III's notice is cited in a number of sources.

4 %Ibid. See Miles, George C., The Coinage of the Umayyads of Spain (New York, 1950), 22, 235 ffGoogle Scholar.; Bates, Michael L., “The Islamic Coinage of Islamic Spain,” Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic Spain, ed. Dodds, Jerrilynn (New York, 1992), 384–91Google Scholar; and Wasserstein, , Caliphate of the West, 9–10Google Scholar, for a discussion of the numismatic evidence. On the economic context, see Barceló, Miquel, “El hiato en las acuñaciones de oro en al-Andalus, 127–316/744(5)–929,” Moneda y Crédito 132 (1975): 33–71Google Scholar.

5 Crónica anónima, Arabic 79/Spanish 152–53Google Scholar.

6 This correspondence is described and recorded, in part, by the 11th-century Andalusian historian Ibn Ḥayyān al-Qurṭubī in the extant portion of his history of the reign of al-Rahman, ʿAbd III (Al Muqtabas [V] de Ibn Ḥayyān, ed. Chalmeta, P., Corriente, F., and Subh, M. [Madrid, 1976]Google Scholar; Spanish trans., Crónica del califa ʿAbdarraḥmān III an-Nāṣir entre los años 912 y 942 [al-Muqtabis V], trans. Viguera, M. J. and Corriente, F. [Saragossa, 1981])Google Scholar. All citations of Ibn Ḥayyān's Muqtabas V will also cite the Spanish translation.

7 Halm, Heinz, The Empire of the Mahdi, trans. Bonner, Michael (Leiden, 1996), 147Google Scholar.

8 %Ibid., 159; see also Dachraoui, Farhat, Le califat Fatimide au Maghreb (296–365 H/909–75 JC) (Tunis, 1981), 139–60Google Scholar.

9 Bello, M. Isabel Fierro, La Heterodoxia en al-Andalus durante el período Omeya (Madrid, 1987), 118–24Google Scholar; Makki, M. A., “Al-tashayyuʿ fi-l-Andalus,” Revista del Instituto Egipcio de Estudios Islámicos 2 (1954): 111–16Google Scholar.

10 Ibn Hayyan notes that some of the Berber chiefs were won over by genuine loyalty to ʿAbd al-Rahman III's dynasty and his cause, while benefiting from his gifts and support against the Shiʿis, but others were simply hypocrites who played one power against the other (Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 256–57/Spanish 194–95Google Scholar).

11 %Ibid., 210/Spanish 235, 302/Spanish 228. See Halm, , Empire, 203–4, 272Google Scholar, for boasts by the Fatimid heir-designate, al-Qaʾim, of his intention to march to “Egypt and Syria, to Khurasan and the two Iraqs” (citing al-Haytham's, IbnSīrat al-Mahdi in ʿImād al-Dīn Idrīs, ʿUyūn al-akhbār, ed. Ghālib, M. [Beirut, 1975], 5:128, 139–51)Google Scholar.

12 Fierro makes similar observations in her article “Sobre la adopción,” 39–42, although she approaches the correspondence with a different question.

13 For examples of ʿAbd al-Rahman III's self-representation in these terms, see Ḥayyān, Ibn, al-Muqtabas V, 312/Spanish 235, 327–30/Spanish 246–48, 350–51/Spanish 263–64Google Scholar. For similar references by his correspondents, see al-Muqtabas V, 259–60/Spanish 197, 263/Spanish 199–200, 300–305/Spanish 227–30, 310/Spanish 234, 373/Spanish 279Google Scholar. As a traitor to the faith and community (al-mubaddil li-dīn, al-khārij ʿan millat al-muslimīn), the Fatimid imam is often referred to as “the Jew” (e.g., 263/Spanish 199–200, 302/Spanish 227, 303/Spanish 228, 304/Spanish 229, 329/Spanish 248, 350/Spanish 263, 385/Spanish 288, 415/Spanish 311).

14 %Ibid., 306/Spanish 231, 310–12/Spanish 234–35, 328–29/Spanish 247–48.

15 %Ibid., 311/Spanish 235.

16 %Ibid., 312/Spanish 235. Fierro remarks on this in “Sobre la adopción,” 39–40.

17 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 312/Spanish 235Google Scholar. In another letter to his Berber allies, ʿAbd al-Rahman III identifies the Fatimid imam as the enemy of God, an imposter and unbeliever who intends to introduce error and doubt into the faith of the Berber tribes and break up the community (%Ibid., 327–30/Spanish 246–48)

18 Ḥayyān's, Ibn summary, Muqtabas V, 257/Spanish 195Google Scholar; ʿAbd al-Rahman III's letter to Berber allies in 933 (%Ibid., 327/Spanish 246–47); Ibn Khazar's response to ʿAbd al-Rahman III's appeal (%Ibid., 266–67/Spanish 202–3); and praise for ʿAbd al-Rahman III's ancestors, “whose faces will shine on the Day of Resurrection” (%Ibid., 302–3/Spanish 227–28).

19 %Ibid., 305/Spanish 230, 306/Spanish 231, 311/Spanish 235, 371/Spanish 277.

20 %Ibid., 266/Spanish 202.

21 %Ibid., 302/Spanish 228.

22 Fierro's “Sobre la adopción” argues that Abbasid weakness afforded ʿAbd al-Rahman III the opportunity to assert his dynastic claims to the caliphate because, unlike his predecessors, he could hope to establish his authority over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

23 In a letter to Ibn Khazar, ʿAbd al-Rahman III expressed his hope that God would honor him with the protection of His sacred house, referring to its recent violation (Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 306/Spanish 231Google Scholar).

24 Although ʿAbd al-Rahman III explicitly challenged Abbasid legitimacy in asserting his caliphal authority, it is perhaps not surprising that contemporary writers in the Mashriq did not pay much attention to his self-stylization as Commander of the Faithful. His activities were at a geographical remove, to the west of the more immediate dangers posed by the Fatimid daʿwa and expansionary state (see Lévi-Provençal, , H.E.M., 2:113Google Scholar; and Pellat, Charles, “La España musulmana en las obras de al-Masʿūdī,” Actas del primer congreso de estudios árabes e islámicos [Madrid, 1964], 257–64Google Scholar; reprinted in Pellat, Charles, Études sur l'histoire socio-culturelle de l'Islam (VIIe-XVes) [London, 1976])Google Scholar. In contrast, the Fatimids kept abreast of Andalusi politics and the activities and claims of the Andalusi-Umayyad caliph. Writers who supported the Fatimid dynasty directed propaganda against the revived Umayyad caliphate—for example, lambasting the illegitimacy of the dynasty that murdered the Prophet's grandson, Husayn. See Canard, Marius, “L'Impérialisme des Fatimides et leur propagande,” Annales de l'Institut d'Études Orientales de la Faculté des Lettres d'Alger 6 (1942–1947): 162–69Google Scholar (reprinted in Canard, , Miscellanea Orientalia [London, 1973])Google Scholar; Yalaoui, M., “Controverse entre le fatimide al-Muʿizz et l'omeyyade al-Nāṣir, d'après le ʿKitāb al-majālis w-al-musāyarāt' du cadi Nuʿmān,” Cahiers de Tunisie 26 (1978): 7–33Google Scholar; Wasserstein, , Caliphate in the West, 13–15Google Scholar.

25 As ʿAbd al-Rahman III wrote to Ibn Khazar, “The caliph is now free from his preoccupations in al-Andalus, after achieving all his objectives against his enemies.… He now concentrates his resolve and dedicates the struggle for his cause to the east” (Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 306/Spanish 231Google Scholar).

26 %Ibid., 301/Spanish 227.

27 Historians of his reign followed suit. Ibn Ḥayyān devotes considerable attention to ʿAbd al-Rahman III's campaigns against, and conquest of, Bobastro, including excerpts from Aḥmad al-Rāzī's account of these events and ʿAbd al-Rahman III's circulars (Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 209–37/Spanish 161–81Google Scholar). Contemporary historians such as Aḥmad al-Rāzī (d. 955) and his son ʿĪsā (d. 989), and ʿArib ibn Saʿīd (d. 980), whose work is extant in fragments, commemorated all of ʿAbd al-Rahman III's campaigns and confirmed the significance of the fall of Bobastro in terms that echoed ʿAbd al-Rahman III's own. See %Ibid., 222–26/Spanish 170–73, 231–32/Spanish 177–78; and La crónica de ʿArīb sobre al-Andalus, ed. Brazales, Juan Castilla (Granada, 1992), 197–98, 201–3Google Scholar.

28 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 227/Spanish 174Google Scholar.

29 Crónica anónima, 79/Spanish 152–53Google Scholar.

30 See Marín-Guzmán, Roberto, “The Causes of the Revolt of ʿUmar Ibn Ḥafṣūn in al-Andalus (880–928),” Arabica 42 (1995): 180–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a discussion of the socio-economic background and causes of the revolt; and Almansa, Manuel Acíen, Entre el feudalismo y el Islam, ʿUmar Ibn Ḥafṣūn en los historiadores, en las fuentes, y en la hisloria (Jaén, 1994)Google Scholar.

31 Saʿid, ʿArīb ibn, Crónica, 202Google Scholar; Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 216–17/Spanish 166Google Scholar.

32 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 219–20/Spanish 168, 234/Spanish 179Google Scholar.

33 %Ibid., 228/Spanish 175, 230/Spanish 176, 233/Spanish 178.

34 %Ibid., 226–31/Spanish 173–77.

35 %Ibid., 233/Spanish 178.

36 %Ibid., 59/Spanish 55–56, 89/Spanish 78; also Rabbīhi, Ibn ʿAbd, al-ʿIqd al-farīd, ed. al-Bustānī, Karam (Beirut, 1952), 19:49–51Google Scholar.

37 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 137/Spanish 112Google Scholar.

38 %Ibid., 221/Spanish 170.

39 %Ibid., 226–28/Spanish 173–74.

40 %Ibid., 174–77/Spanish 136–39.

41 Halm, , Empire, 20–21, 159Google Scholar.

42 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 27/Spanish 32Google Scholar.

43 See, for example, verses in Rabbīhi, Ibn ʿAbd, ʿIqd, 19:49–51Google Scholar, and Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 45–46/Spanish 47, 48–49/Spanish 49, 57/Spanish 54Google Scholar.

44 See Rabbīhi's, Ibn ʿAbdurjūza celebrating ʿAbd al-Rahman III's campaigns in ʿIqd, 19:53–113Google Scholar (trans. Monroe, James T., Hispano Arabic Poetry [Berkeley, 1974], 74–128)Google Scholar, verses 26, 163, 238, 244; 18, 29, 199. Poets typically described ʿAbd al-Rahman III as a moon or a sun or other source of light; for example, Rabbīhi, Ibn ʿAbd, ʿIqd, 19:48, 51, 53Google Scholar; Hayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 41/Spanish 44,43/Spanish 45,44/Spanish 46, 46–47/Spanish 48, 57/Spanish 54–55, 59/Spanish 55–56, 89/Spanish 78, 102/Spanish 87, 114/Spanish 138, 337/Spanish 253, 365/Spanish 273Google Scholar.

45 Rabbīni, Ibn ʿAbd, Urjūza, verses 36, 81–82Google Scholar.

46 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 64/Spanish 59, 89/Spanish 78Google Scholar.

47 %Ibid.. 277/Spanish 210, 89/Spanish 78.

48 On the image of the sun rising in the west as a sign of the eschaton, see Smith, Jane Idleman and Haddad, Yvonne, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection (Albany, 1981), 69Google Scholar. See also Halm, , Empire, 159Google Scholar, and for an example of the Fatimid caliph al-Mahdi's representation as the sun risen in the west, see Ivanow's, W. excerpt of Zahr al-maʿāni by Idrīs, ʿImād al-Dīn in Ismaili Tradition Concerning the Rise of the Fatimids (London, Calcutta, Bombay, 1942), Arabic 51/English 238Google Scholar. The court poet to al-Hakam II, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Qarawī, celebrated the Andalusi–Umayyad caliphate as “a sun risen in the west which will shine with splendor in the two easts,” cited by Ḥayyān, Ibn, al-Muqtabis fī akhbār balad al-Andalus, ed. Ḥajjī, ʿA. ʿ. (Beirut, 1965), 163–64Google Scholar; in Spanish, Anales palatinos del califa de Córdoba de al-Ḥakam II, por ʿİsā Ibn Aḥmad al-Rāzī, trans. Gómez, Emilio Garcīa (Madrid, 1967), 203Google Scholar.

49 Fierro, Maribel, “Mahdisme et eschatologie en al-Andalus,” Mahdisme, Crise et changement dans l'Histoire de Maroc, ed. Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines de Rabat, (Casablanca, 1994), 47–51Google Scholar.

50 Ḥabīb, ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn, Kitāb al-tarʾīkh (Kitāb al-Tarīj), ed. Aguadé, Jorge (Madrid, 1991)Google Scholar. Report no. 403 predicts twenty-five rulers for al-Andalus between its conquest and its destruction; report no. 442 lists the amir ʿAbd Allah as the twenty-fifth.

51 Crone, Patricia and Hinds, Martin, God's Caliph (Cambridge, 1986), 34–38Google Scholar.

52 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 226–28/Spanish 173–74Google Scholar.

53 %Ibid., 20–24/Spanish 25–30 (attribution to al-Rāzī in the Spanish edition, probably Aḥmad but possibly ʿİsā; Ibn Ḥayyān cites both in his history, but occasionally simply cites “al-Rāzī” or reports “qāla”). Some of Ibn Masarra's writings are extant and have been published; see Min qaḍāyā-l-fikr al-islāmī, ed. Jaʿfar, Muḥammad Kamāl Ibrāhīm (Cairo, 1978), 310–60Google Scholar (for a description, see Tornero, Emilio, “Noticia sobre la publicación de obras inéditas de Ibn Masarra,” al-Qantara 14 (1993): 47–64)Google Scholar. For a discussion of Ibn Masarra's thought and a critique of the scholarship on him, see Addas, Claude, “Andalusī Mysticism and the Rise of Ibn ʿArabī,” The Legacy of Muslim Spain, ed. al-Jayyusi, Salma Khadra (Leiden, 1994), 2:912–19Google Scholar. On ʿAbd al-Rahmān III's persecution of the sect, see Hernandez, M. Cruz, “La persecución antimassarī durante el reinado de ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allah, según Ibn Ḥayyān,” al-Qantara 2 (1981): 51–67Google Scholar, and Fierro, , Heterodoxia, 113–18, 132–40Google Scholar.

54 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 24–25/Spanish 30–31, 30/Spanish 35Google Scholar.

55 %Ibid., 25–30/Spanish 31–35.

56 In the Bobastro circular, ʿAbd al-Rahman III cites sura 59:2 and sura 11:102 to represent himself as God's scourge (Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 227/Spanish 174Google Scholar). In his circular on Ibn Masarra's firqa, he cites the following verses on the same theme: 43:13, 12:87, 40:69–70, 22:8–9, 3:7, 3:118, 11:76 (%Ibid., 25–30/Spanish 31–35). Translation of sura 40:69–70 is from Dawood, N. J., The Koran with a Parallel Arabic Text (London, 1990Google Scholar).

57 Fierro, Marīa Isabel, “Heresy in al-Andalus,” Legacy, 2:897Google Scholar, associates ʿAbd al-Rahman III's proclamation of Malikism as the official doctrine of his reign with the execution of his traitorous son ʿAbd Allah, a Shafiʿi, in 950. The important point is that the caliph not only declared an official doctrine, but demonstrated his intention to enforce compliance (see also Fierro, , Heterodoxia, 145–47Google Scholar).

58 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 25/Spanish 30–31Google Scholar.

59 %Ibid., 22/Spanish 28.

60 %Ibid., 22–23/Spanish 28–29. Al-Razi thus charged the Abbasids with the very neglect they originally condemned the Umayyads for in the 8th century and upheld the Umayyads as, after all, the true upholders of the principles of the faith. On Abbasid propaganda against the Syrian Umayyads, see Sharon, Moshe, Black Banners of the East (Jerusalem and Leiden, 1983), 19–27, 83–84Google Scholar.

61 Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 23/Spanish 29Google Scholar.

62 %Ibid., 23–24/Spanish 29–30.

63 ʿİsā al-Rāzī reports that ʿAbd al-Rahman III stopped leading campaigns personally after the battle of al-Khandaq (Alhandega) in the kingdom of Leon in 939, but that he continued to send annual campaigns north (Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 437–38/Spanish 327–28Google Scholar). The caliph also continued his involvement in North Africa.

64 Mikel de Epalza also emphasizes the importance of ʿAbd al-Rahman III's military strength to the definition of his caliphate in “Problemas y reflexiones.” He argues that the ability to mount an “effective defense” of the community against the Fatimids explains ʿAbd al-Rahman III's assumption of the caliphal title, and that military strength came to define the office of the caliphate in al-Andalus. He tends to dismiss the importance of dynastic legitimacy and does not investigate this dimension of ʿAbd al-Rahman III's caliphate.

65 See Blankinship, Khalid Yahya, The End of the Jihad State (Albany, 1994Google Scholar), for this characterization of the Syrian Umayyad state and a discussion of its expansionary policy.

66 See al-Qadi, Wadad, “The Religious Foundation of Late Umayyad Ideology and Practice,” Saber religioso y poder politico en el Islam: Actas de simposio internacional (Granada, 15–18 Octubre, 1991) (Madrid, 1994), 241–42, 252–73Google Scholar; Watt, W. Montgomery, The Formative Period of Islamic Thought (Edinburgh, 1973), 83–84Google Scholar.

67 Crone, and Hinds, , God's Caliph, 30–42Google Scholar.

68 For more discussion of the Syrian Umayyad conception of the caliphate, see Qadi, “Late Umayyad Ideology and Practice”; Crone, and Hinds, , God's Caliph, 4–42Google Scholar.

69 See Crone, and Hinds, , God's Caliph, 80–83, 99–105Google Scholar, for a discussion of how the Abbasids and Fatimids shared a vocabulary of caliphal representation with the Umayyads and some idea of the caliph as deputy of God.

70 On the introduction of Maliki teachings in al-Andalus, see Makki, M. A., Ensayo sobre las aportaciones orientales en la España musulmana (Madrid, 1968), 134–40Google Scholar. Aguadé, Jorge, “Some Remarks about Sectarian Movements in al-Andalus,” Studia Islamica 64 (1986): 53–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses the predominance of the madhhab in al-Andalus; Fierro, M. Isabel, “El derecho Mālikī en al-Andalus: siglos II/VIII–V/XI,” al-Qantara 12 (1991): 119–32Google Scholar, traces its development on the peninsula; Monès, H., “Le role des hommes de religion dans l'histoire de l'Espagne musulmane jusqu'a la fin du califat,” Studia Islamica 20 (1964): 63–83Google Scholar, and Urvoy, Dominique, “The ʿUlamāʾ of al-Andalus,” Legacy, 2:849–77Google Scholar, discuss the relationship between the ʿulamāʾ and the state and the impact of the caliph's policy.

71 Verses attributed to Abu Hasan Jaʿfar ibn ʿUthmān al-Muṣḥafī; Ḥayyān, Ibn, Muqtabas V, 48/Spanish 49Google Scholar.