Ibn Muzayyin relates: First, ʿAmrūs advised the city’s leading men to build a fortress that would shield them, and they did so. He then sent the Caliph a memorandum of his, laced with insults and abuse. The Caliph, on reading it, sprang to his feet, sat back down, and let loose a torrent of the foulest curses. ʿAmrūs also dispatched his own son to join the Caliph’s campaign. Next, he laid a stratagem for the grandees: once they had come out to meet him, they urged him to enter their fortress. He ordered a banquet to be set, invited them in, and whoever passed through one gate was led out another where his neck was struck. The slaughter continued until the tally reached about five thousand souls; the steam of the blood rose and the stench became overpowering. Thereafter al-Ḥakam sent a guarantee of safety to the jurist Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Laythī.

Al-Ḥakam died at the end of the year 206 AH, aged fifty-three.

He was succeeded in al-Andalus by his son, Abū al-Muṭarrif ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Let us now speak of him.

58 – ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Hishām ibn al-Dākhil *
Ruler of al-Andalus, Abū al-Muṭarrif al-Marwānī.

He received the oath of allegiance after his father in the closing days of 206 AH, and his reign lasted many years. He was peaceable, of good conduct, gentle in manner, and undertook few military expeditions. During his rule the polytheists overran Seville, yet Allah spared the Muslims in the end.

The jurist ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb wrote to urge him to build a wall around Seville, saying, “Safeguarding Muslim blood—may Allah aid you and raise your hand by erecting the wall—is more pressing and more fitting.” He accepted the advice, combining it with an enlargement of the Great Mosque of Córdoba, and he also built the Great Mosque of Seville under the supervision of its judge, ʿAmr ibn ʿAdabbas, for Seville, on the river side, had hitherto been without a wall.