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Abo Hafs Omer Al-Baloty ( Arabic: أبو حفص عمر البلوطي ), was a Muslim Clergy ( Shaikh, Arabic: شيخ) and leader of group of Iberian Muslims, who were exiled by Al-Hakam I and settled first in Alexandria in Egypt and after that in Crete. He was Iberian origin and born in Campo de Calatrava ( Arabic: فحص البلوط ).

After Al-Hakam I crushed a rebellion led by clerics in a suburb called Al-Rabed ( Arabic: الربض ), on the south bank of the Guadalquivir river. Al-Hakam I punished the inhabitants by exiling them by ships out of Iberia. They divieded into two groups, the first settled in Fez, and the second group, of almost 15,000 men plus women and children, led by Abo Hafs Omer Al-Baloty, eventually reached Egypt and settled near Alexandria. In the beginning they (Iberian Muslims) allied with the strongest Arab tribe in the region, for protection, and after they felt their strength they attacked the tribe and beat the tribe in a battle in the desert near Alexandria, and attacked Alexandria itself, and dominated it. During their domination of Alexandria they resisted many attacks from Abbasid authorty in Egypt, until 826, after which they were expelled, they sailed on to Crete, where they founded an emirate that survived until Nicephorus Phocas reconquered Crete for the Byzantines in 961.

[edit] See also

• Almogavars
• Conquistador
• Cretan Muslims
• Marranos
• Moors
• Morisco
• Normans
• Reconquista

[edit] References

1- Reinhart Dozy: Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne, jusqu'à la conquéte de l'Andalousie par les Almoravides, 711-1110 (Leiden, 1861; 2nd ed., ibid., 1881).