Abd al-Rahman I

Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu'awiya was born into the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus on 7 March 731, when his family ruled the Islamic world. That ended in 750 when the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads and hunted down the remnants. Abd al-Rahman escaped, made his way across North Africa, and landed in Iberia in 755. Within a year he had seized Córdoba and declared himself emir, founding the Emirate of Córdoba in 756 in open defiance of the Abbasid caliphate. He ruled for thirty-two years until his death on 30 September 788, and the state he built endured nearly three centuries. His surnames recorded the fa…