Córdoba, whose inhabitants likewise joined him. When Yūsuf al-Fihri saw the armies looming over him, he fled to Dar al-Shirk (the “House of Polytheism”) and fortified himself there. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān later marched against him, but dissension broke out within Yūsuf’s ranks; they scattered, and he was routed, whereupon ʿAbd al-Raḥmān withdrew without a battle. He proclaimed a reward for whoever would bring him Yūsuf’s head, and one of Yūsuf’s own followers brought it to him.

Al-Ḥumaydī states: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān entered al-Andalus; the Yemenite faction rallied to him, and he fought Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Fihri, the governor of al-Andalus, defeating him. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was a man of learning, noted for a fine record of justice. (1)

Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Abīwardī, in Reports on the Umayyads, wrote: “People used to say, ‘The world has been ruled by two sons of Berber women’—meaning ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and al-Manṣūr.”

Al-Manṣūr would remark of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muʿāwiya, “That man is the Falcon of Quraysh: he entered the Maghrib after his kinsmen had been slain, and he kept setting the ʿAdnānite tribes against the Qaḥṭānite until he became king.”

Saʿīd ibn ʿUthmān al-Lughawī (d. 400 AH) said: “In Córdoba there was a garden that ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muʿāwiya had planted; a single palm-tree from it was still standing in my time. Concerning it ʿAbd al-Raḥmān composed these lines:

O palm-tree, you are a stranger just like me—
in the West, far away from your kin;
So weep—yet can a mute, unfeeling trunk
that was not fashioned for sorrow, weep? (2)
Had it been able to weep, it would have shed
tears for the Euphrates and the land where palms begin.”