Task 2. Dependent Emirate and Independent Emirate

After the conquest of the Iberian peninsula by Musa and Tariq the caliph ousted them from their power and created a new emirate ( province ) ruled by a person appointed by himself. The new province was called Al- Andalus ( land of vandals) and its capital was Cordova ( Córdoba into Spanish).

There were two main groups into the conquerers :

Arabs: they came from Arabia and they were the landowners of the best areas in the Ebro and Guadalquivir valleys. They also held major charges of the administration.

Berbers: they came from the North of Africa ( former  Roman province of Mauritania)  and settled in the Central Plateau, in the mountain ranges around it and in the Duero valley. These were the worse lands of the Iberian peninsula.  Berbers uprose against the Arabs  in 740 because  they were considered as Muslims of second level since they thought Arabs had the best land and owned the whole power. Berbers were defeated thanks the incoming Syrian troops that supported the Emir against Berbers.

Most of  the Visigothic population converted to Islam. And the most of the Iberian peninsula was controlled by Arabs except a little areas in the North : one called Asturias  around Cantabrian Mountains  and the other one dependent on Carolingian Empire around the Pyrenees .

Afterwards the rebellion of the Abbasid family in Damascus, the last Umayyad, Abd al-Rahman I, came to Iberian peninsula and established a independent Emirate from the Caliph ( Bagdad was the new capital of the Empire ) .

The new Emirate was politically independent from Baghdad but it recognised the religious authority of the Caliph ( you must remember, a Caliph was considered a Muhammad´s heir and the Islamic highest authority).

The new Emir had several problems:

Some areas tried to get their independence from Cordova: Zaragoza, Tudela and specially the North-East  of the peninsula conquered by Charlemagne ( Barcelona and Gerona were the most important cities conquered ) who formed the Hispanic March with these territories.

However Abd al -Rahman I defeated to the rebellions and established a centralised emirate divided into provinces called Koras.