Yet she was seized by bewilderment and left me bewildered in turn—my hatred for the Abbasids has torn me from my own kin. (1)

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ghāfiqī governed al-Andalus during the reign of ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. He built the celebrated arches of Córdoba to the south of the palace and the congregational mosque: eighteen spans in all, eight hundred arm-spans in length, twenty arm-spans wide not counting the parapets, and sixty cubits high—truly one of the marvels of the world.

When the Umayyad state collapsed, the people unanimously advanced Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī ʿUbayda ibn ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ al-Fihrī, under whom the land prospered and expanded. But when God willed the resurgence of Umayyad rule in al-Andalus, the Arab tribes yielded to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; authority passed to him, and Yūsuf al-Fihrī was slain in Wādī al-Zaytūn. The Friday sermon was thereafter delivered in ʿAbd al-Raḥmān’s name throughout all the provinces. He strengthened Córdoba and undertook numerous campaigns.

Among these was the expedition against Castile. Crossing from the Toledo River, he advanced while the Romans fled before him and clung to the mountain passes. He continued until he reached the city of Barniqa in the Kingdom of Castile, where he dismounted, ordered the tents struck, and set about building; the troops followed suit. When the inhabitants lost all hope of relief, they surrendered under a pledge of safety, leaving with nothing but the clothes on their backs and whatever provisions he allowed them. He then issued to the people of Castile the same guarantee of security already mentioned, written in the hand of the vizier Bishr ibn Saʿīd al-Ghāfiqī.

When affairs were settled for ʿAbd al-Raḥmān after the killing of ʿUthmān ibn Ḥamzah, a descendant of ʿUmar