b. ʿAbd al-Rāḥmān b. Zayd al-Lak̲h̲mī (or al-Bakrī ) Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān , conqueror of the western Mag̲h̲rib and of Spain. He was born in 19/640; his father had been in the immediate entourage of Muʿāwiya [ q.v.]. Mūsā was at first appointed by the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik to collect the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ at al-Baṣra, but having been suspected of embezzlement, he fled and took refuge with the caliph’s brother, the governor of Egypt ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Marwān; the latter took Mūsā to Syria to the caliph, who fined him 100,000 dīnārs. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz provided half of this sum for Mūsā and brought him…

, first governor of al-Andalus, after the departure to the East of his father Mūsā b. Nuṣayr, the famous conqueror of the Iberian peninsula, in 95/714. Mūsā, on leaving, gave him instructions to pursue the Muslim advance and to pacify the regions which had come under Muslim control. According to certain traditions, it was under his government that part of what is now Portugal, including the towns of Evora, Santarem and Coimbra, and the subpyrenean regions from Pamplona to Narbonne were conquered…

b. Nuṣayr , eldest son of Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.] the conqueror of the Mag̲h̲rib and Spain. When his father left for Spain, he was charged with the administration of Ifrīḳiya (93/711). When Mūsā, denounced to the caliph al-Walīd by Ṭārīḳ, left for the East, whence he never returned, he again left ʿAbd Allāh as his lieutenant. Involved in his family’s disgrace by the caliph Sulaymān, who saw not without disquiet Ifrīḳiya governed by one son of Mūsā (ʿAbd Allāh), Spain by a second (ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz) and the Mag…

, Berber commander of the Muslim troops who undertook the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in 92/711; his birth and death dates are uncertain. At this time, he was ¶ residing in Tangier, exercising the role of governor on behalf of the wālī of Ifrīḳiya Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.]. As in all issues concerning the early stages of the Muslim presence in al-Andalus, it is no simple matter, considering the mass of contradictory data supplied by the Arab sources, either to draw conclusions regarding the personality of Ṭāriḳ, or to determine with any prec…

, Ḳaysī notable [see ḳays ] whom the Umayyad caliph His̲h̲ām b. ʿAbd al-Malik sent to the Mag̲h̲rib, in D̲j̲umādā II 123/April-May 741, to avenge the bloody defeat which the Berbers, commanded by the successor of Maysara [ q.v.], K̲h̲ālid b. Ḥamīd/Ḥumayd al-Zanātī, had inflicted on the Arabs in the “battle of the nobles” ( g̲h̲azwat al-as̲h̲rāf ). Kult̲h̲ūm left at the head of an army of 30,000 men, to which there were added contingents raised along the way, and he joined up with Ḥabīb b. Abī ʿUbayda al-Fihrī, the former companion of Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.], who was endeavouring to halt the …

, nephew of Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.] and cousin of his son ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. He was appointed governor of al-Andalus by the Arab wālī of Ḳayrawān, Muḥammad b. Yazīd, in 97/716. He arrived in the Peninsula accompanied by 400 noblemen of Ifrīḳiya, among whom were the first men of eminence to enter al-Andalus. One of his first measures was to transfer the capital of his government to Cordova, considering that the position of Seville was now too remote in view of the extension which the conquest of the cou…

( ca. 72-142/691-759), last governor of al-Andalus before the accession to power of the Umayyad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I. Great grandson of the conqueror of the Mag̲h̲rib, ¶ ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ [ q.v.], he also belonged to one of the most prestigious Arab families to have settled in the Muslim West, renowned on account of its aristocratic Ḳuras̲h̲ī lineage and the participation of several of its members in the conquest of both shores of the Strait. Two brothers, Ḥabīb and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, sons of Abū ʿUbayda ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ, accompanied the troops of Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.] at the time of the first crossi…

b. al-ḥakam , Abū Marwān, an Umayyad prince, son of the Caliph, Marwān [ q.v.] and of Ḳuṭayya bint Bis̲h̲r (of the Banū D̲j̲aʿfar b. Kilāb, thus a Ḳaysite). He took part in the battle of Mard̲j̲ Rāhiṭ (65/684) and there killed a Kilāb chief. After his father’s accession to the Caliphate he followed him at the time of his expedition to Egypt, for the sources tell us that when in 65/684 Marwān had regained this province for the Umayyads, taking it from Ibn al-Zubayr [ q.v.] who had seized it in S̲h̲aʿbān 64/March-April 684, and had put his son, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz [ q.v.] in charge of the Prayer and the …

, an Umayyad general who played a decisive part in the consolidation of the conquest of Ifrīḳiya by storming Carthage and finally defeating al-Kāhina [ q.v.]. It is difficult, however, to trace the course of his actions on account of the uncertainty of the chronology and a host of discrepancies. The dates given for his arrival in Ifrīḳiya are Muḥarram 68/July-August 687, 69/688-9, 73/692-3, 74/693-4, 78/697-8; and for his fall 76/695-6, 77/696-7, 78/697-8, 79/698-9, 82/701-2, 84/703-4 and 89/707-8. The chronology given by the earliest chroniclers, i.e. by Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and t…

, seventh caliph of the Umayyad dynasty [ q.v.], r. 96-9/715-17, born probably in Medina about 55/675, son of the subsequent caliph ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān [ q.v.] and of Wallāda bt. al-ʿAbbās b. D̲j̲azʾ from the Banū ʿAbs, a tribe considered part of the Northern Arabian confederation of the G̲h̲aṭafān [ q.v.]. There is almost no substantial information on the first three decades of Sulaymān’s life. It is likely that he came to Syria during the initial stage of the Second Civil War (60-73/680-92) in the company of other members of the Marwānid branch [ q.v.] of the Umayyads emigrating thit…

, the ancestor of the Banū Kalb, the strongest group of the Ḳuḍāʿa [ q.v.]. His mother, Umm al-Asbuʿ, was so called because all her sons were named after wild animals (T. Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge , 75 ff.). The Kalb were, according to the genealogical system (Ibn al-Kalbī, Ḏj̲amharat al-nasab etc.), of Yemenite descent, but sometimes they claimed for political reasons to belong to the Northern Arabs or even to Ḳurays̲h̲. I.—Pre-Islamic period Their greatest chieftain was Zuhayr b. Ḏj̲anāb. who had great authority among the northern tribes; so he was sent by Abraha [ q.v.] to control the Bak…

(or Afrāg̲h̲a ), the Arabic form of Fraga, name of a small town (pop. ca. 9000) in NE Spain 30 kms WSW of Lérida. The old part of the town is situated on the steep left bank of the R. Cinca some 18 kms above its confluence with the Ebro. Practically no traces of Muslim rule survive. Fraga fell into Arab hands presumably when Mūsā ¶ b. Nuṣayr took Saragossa in 96/714. Thereafter it may be assumed to have shared the fortunes of Saragossa, being rarely mentioned by name in the histories. At the beginning of the 6th/12th century it was still…

, a place in the south of the Iberian peninsula, now in the province of Cadiz, and the most southerly point of Europe, only 13 km/8 miles from the African coast. Its name appears to come from that of Ṭarīf Abū Zurʿa, a client of Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.], the master of Ifrīḳiya, who decided on 91/709-10 to explore the territory on the other side of the straits before embarking on its conquest. According to the Ak̲h̲bār mad̲j̲mūʿa , ed. and tr. Lafuente y Alcántara, 506/18-20, and ʿArīb b. Saʿd, Mūsā accordingly sent Ṭarīf with 100 cavalry and 400 infantr…

, the name by which the Arab historians designated the town of Narbonne. Reached by the early Muslim expeditions, it was taken in 96/715 under ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Mūsā b. Nuṣayr, was probably then lost or abandoned, and was retaken in 100/719 by al-Samḥ b. Mālik al-Ḵh̲awlānī. In 116/734, two years after the battle of Poitiers [see balāṭ al-s̲h̲uhadāʾ], the Duke of Provence concluded a treaty with the governor of Narbonne, Yūsuf b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, whereby the latter was allowed to occupy a certain number of places in the valley of the Rhône, in order to pr…

, the Basques, a people of uncertain origin inhabiting the W. end of the Pyrenees and the adjacent part of the Cantabrian Mountains, with the Atlantic coast to the N. ‘Bas̲h̲kunis̲h̲’ is evidently from Latin ‘Vascŏnes’, with the phonetic change v < b as elsewhere. The Basque language is called al-bas̲h̲ḳiyya ( Al-Rawḍ al-Miʿṭār , ed. Lévi-Provençal, 56). The principal centre of the Bas̲h̲kunis̲h̲ was Pampeluna (Arabic Banbalūna, from an original Pompeiopolis), which became eventually the capital of Navarre. Their territory was invaded by Mūsā b. Nuṣayr…

, Spanish Mérida, from the Latin Emerita, ¶ a town in the south-west of Spain, in the modern province of Badajoz, where it is the capital of a partido , on the right bank of the Guadiana. Now somewhat decayed, it has only about 35,000 inhabitants. It is on the Madrid-Badajoz railway and is also connected by rail with Cáceres in the north and Seville in the south. The ancient capital of Lusitania, Augusta Emerita, was founded in 23 B.C., and under the Roman empire attained remarkable importance and prosperity. Numerous remains of Roman buildings still testify to …

, grandson of the Prophet and son of Fāṭima [ q.v.], famous because of his revolt which ended tragically at Karbalāʾ on 10 Muḥarram 61/October 680. Childhood and youth. (Al-)Ḥusayn was born at Medina, according to the majority of the sources in the beginning of S̲h̲aʿbān 4/January 626. He was thus still a child when the Prophet died and could therefore have very few memories of his grandfather. A number of ḥadīt̲h̲s mention the affectionate phrases which Muḥammad is said to have used of his grandsons, e.g., “whoever loves them loves me and whoever hates them hates me” and “al-Ḥas…

(in Leo Africanus Vignones , in Marmol Valdeviñones ), Portuguese Bulhões, Spanish Bullones, site of a once-important ḳarya 8 km. W.N.W. of Ceuta, beneath Sierra Bullones (D̲j̲abal Mūsā). Its name is from the Spanish Romance bunyólex “vineyards”, not Bū or Benī Yūnus/-as̲h̲, etc. Surrounded on land by mountains, Balyūnas̲h̲ lies in a small valley dropping sharply to a creek in a bay set in a narrow part ¶ of the Straits of Gibraltar. Bérard thought it the home of the Homeric Calypso’s cave. Its Roman precursor has been named as Exilissa. In Islam the area’s history may well have begun…

, Spanish Barcelona, the old Iberian town of Barcino (compare Ruscino, from which Roussillon is derived), which incidentally has no connexion with Hamilcar Barca. Barcelona, once the home of the Laeetians, gradually supplanted Tarraco-Tarragona, situated to the south-west of it, as the capital of north-eastern Roman Spain (Hispania-Tarraconensis). From the fragments of the works of al-Idrīsī and al-Bakrī compiled by Ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Himyarī, it is clear that Barcelona in their day was alrea…

, a river of the Iberian peninsula, on the banks of which the decisive encounter took place between Ṭāriḳ b. Ziyād [ q.v.], the first Muslim conqueror of the Iberian peninsula, and Roderic, the last Visigothic king, on 28 Ramaḍān 92/19 July 711. Identification of the toponym is difficult on account of the lack of clarity of the Arabic language sources. On the one hand, all do not give the same variant of the name: Wādī Lakku, or perhaps Wādī Lagu (the hard g sound being conventionally represented in mediaeval script by a kāf , surmounted by a s̲h̲adda , which can be pronounced kku or gu), Wādī Lakka…