Ibn Ḥazm said: His accession to the caliphate was something extraordinary, for he was still a young man while several of his uncles and great-uncles were present, yet not a single one of them opposed him. His authority endured, and he proved gallant and resolute.

None of his forebears had ever adopted the title “Commander of the Faithful”; they were addressed simply as “emir.” ʿAbd al-Raḥmān followed their example until the twenty-seventh year of his reign. When news reached him of the weakening of the caliphate in Iraq and of the rise of the ʿUbaydid (Fatimid) Shiʿites in Qayrawan, he judged himself more entitled to the designation “Commander of the Faithful.” From the moment he took charge of al-Andalus he kept reducing the power of the local usurpers until the entire kingdom—together with most of the lands across the strait—was brought under his obedience, and the petty kings around him were overawed (1).

He began building the city of al-Zahraʾ at the start of 325 AH. He would divide the revenue of his dominion into three parts: one third he earmarked for the army, one third he stored in the Bayt al-Māl (public treasury), and one third he spent on al-Zahraʾ.

At that time the annual income of al-Andalus amounted to 5,480,000 dinars, together with a further 765,000 dinars from market levies and other surpluses.

Ibn Abī al-Fayyāḍ states in his History: “I was informed that a note was found in al-Nāṣir’s own chronicle listing the days of unmixed happiness that came to him. They were counted and found to be fourteen days—although he reigned for fifty and a half years.”

Alyasaʿ ibn Ḥazm said: The men vested with authority and decision considered who could assume the affairs of Islam