There were almost 40,000 or more berbers in his army.
Abd al-Rahman I, more fully Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya ibn Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (731–788), was the founder of a Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries (including the succeeding Caliphate of Córdoba). Abd al-Rahman was a member of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus, and his establishment of a government in Iberia represented a break with the Abbasids, who had overthrown the Umayyads in 750.
He was also known by the surnames al-Dakhil ("the Entrant"), Saqr Quraish ("the Falcon of the Quraysh")[1] and the "Falcon of Andalus". Variations of the spelling of his name include Abd ar-Rahman I, Abdul Rahman I, Abdar Rahman I, and Abderraman I.
Biography
Flight from Damascus
Born near Damascus in Syria, Abd al-Rahman was the son of the Umayyad prince Mu'awiya ibn Hisham and his concubine Ra'ha, a Berber woman from Nefzaoua,[2] and thus the grandson of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, caliph from 724 to 743.[3][4] He was twenty when his family, the ruling Umayyads, were overthrown by the Abbasid Revolution in 748–750. Abd al-Rahman and a small part of his family fled Damascus, where the center of Umayyad power had been; people moving with him include his brother Yahya, his four-year-old son Sulayman, and some of his sisters, as well as his Greek freedman, Bedr. The family fled from Damascus to the River Euphrates. All along the way the path was filled with danger, as the Abbasids had dispatched horsemen across the region to try to find the Umayyad prince and kill him. The Abbasids were merciless with all Umayyads that they found. Abbasid agents closed in on Abd al-Rahman and his family while they were hiding in a small village. He left his young son with his sisters and fled with Yahya. Accounts vary, but Bedr likely escaped with Abd ar-Rahman. Some histories indicate that Bedr met up with Abd al-Rahman at a later date.[5]
Abd al-Rahman, Yahya, and Bedr quit the village, narrowly escaping the Abbasid assassins. On the way south, Abbasid horsemen again caught up with the trio. Abd al-Rahman and his companions then threw themselves into the River Euphrates. The horsemen urged them to return, promising that no harm would come to them; and Yahya, perhaps from fear of drowning, turned back. The 17th-century historian Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari poignantly described Abd al-Rahman's reaction as he implored Yahya to keep going: "O brother! Come to me, come to me!"[6] Yahya returned to the near shore, and was quickly dispatched by the horsemen. They cut off his head and left his body to rot. Al-Maqqari quotes earlier historians reporting that Abd al-Rahman was so overcome with fear that from the far shore he ran until exhaustion overcame him.[7] Only he and Bedr were left to face the unknown.