Al-Hurr Ibn Abd Al-Rahman Al-Thaqafi - Governorship

Governorship

After the assassination of Abd al-Aziz in 716, and the six-month rule of his cousin Ayyub ibn Habib al-Lakhmi, al-Hurr ibn 'abd al-Rahman al-Thaqafi was assigned the post. Soon afterwards, he relocated the Andalusian administrative capital from Seville to Córdoba.

Al-Hurr was heavily involved in trying to suppress Christian Gothic resistance, and was largely successful in doing so. He's actually credited with the pacification of virtually all Visigothic Hispania, except for the northern mountain ranges of the Basque region, most of the Pyrenees and a pocket of resistance in the Asturian mountains, from which the Reconquista would emerge many years later. Some historians date the small Battle of Covadonga at the end of his term in office, in 718.

He laid the foundations of the future Umayyad administration by sending Umayyad officials to towns, setting up rules for the management of real estate and taxation imposed on them, returning property to Christian owners where applicable and checking looting and concealment of undeclared acquisition of goods. This job of establishing a civil administration was continued by his successor Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani and completed by the wali Yahya ibn Salama al-Kalbi.

Al-Hurr also turned his attention to the Aquitanians (referred in most chronicles as Franks) across the Pyrenees. Sources suggest he was enticed by the treasure horded in the convents and churches, or maybe chasing refugees, or taking advantage of the civil war going on between the chief officers of the Merovingian court with the involvement of Odo the Great, duke of Aquitaine. None of al-Hurr's predecessors had attempted to cross the Pyrenees, and in 717, he attempted to do just that. He led a small expedition across the range into Septimania, the first of which was likely to just reconnoiter the region. Several attempted raids later, all of which proved unsuccessful, al-Hurr was deposed by the caliph, who appointed Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani in 718 as his replacement. Al-Samh continued expeditions into France, reaching as far as the Rhône, but would be killed in the Battle of Toulouse in 721.