and marched on Zamora, killing and carrying off as captives everyone he encountered. He besieged the city for two months; after a hard-fought struggle they forced their way in, wielding the sword until nightfall. The Muslims then withdrew and spent the night on its ramparts, only to storm it again at dawn, sparing no adult male.

Al-Razi (1) states in Maghāzī al-Andalus: “The number that could be tallied of those slain in Zamora reached 300,000 souls.”

When the news reached the Byzantine emperor, he wrote to al-Ḥakam seeking a guarantee of safety. Al-Ḥakam reinstated upon the Byzantines the tribute his grandfather had imposed and added another stipulation: they were to bring soil from the city of Rome itself, from which two small mounds would be raised to the east of Córdoba—an abasement for them and an exaltation of the banner of Islam. Those two heaps of red earth still stand out against the black plain of its fields.

I say: Scholars increased greatly in al-Andalus during his reign, so much so that it was said there were in Córdoba four thousand turbaned men clad in the dress of the learned. Yet when Allah willed their downfall, al-Ḥakam’s violation of sacred limits became intolerable to them. They conspired to depose him, mustered troops to fight him, and a grave turmoil swept across al-Andalus, to the detriment of Islam and its people—there is no power except with Allah.

Ibn Muzayan relates in his History that Ṭālūt ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Maʿāfiri was among those devout, activist scholars—martyrs—who resolved to remove al-Ḥakam. They proclaimed him unjust, turned the common folk against him, and maintained that it was unlawful to remain or show patience in the face of such reprehensible conduct. They set their sights on advancing one of the members of the consultative council in Córdoba, namely Abū al-Shamās Aḥmad ibn