Musa bin Nusair

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Musa bin Nusair also Musa ben Nusair or Musa Ibn Nusayr(Arabic: موسى بن نصير‎; 640—716) was a Yemeni Muslim who served as a governor and general under the Wise Ummayad caliph Al-Walid I. He had ruled over the Muslim provinces of North Africa (Ifriqiya), and directed the conquest of the Visigothic kingdom in Hispania.

Musa's father was an Arab of either Syria or Western Iraq (there are several different opinions[1]) who was captured during the first Muslim expansion and made a slave. After being given his freedom he returned to Syria to a town called Kafarma, where Musa was born. Apparently, Musa was lame[1]. Musa ( ie Moses) according to the most reliable reports ( similar to Hadith) that he was the son of a Jewish Rabbi Convert to Islam. This convert had preferred relation with Muawiya ( first Muslim Governor of Syria and first Umayyad Dynasty Khalif). He advised Muawiyah that the only way to capture Constantipole is from both sides, His son Musa was groomed to be the leader of the army to start the western invasion starting from Spain. However this plan was delayed because the outbreak of civil war among Muslims. A later Umayyad Khalif renewed the plan and brought Musa ibn Nusair back from his retirement in his farm near Damascus ( He was 75 years old).

Musa sent Tariq ibn-Ziyad a berber in an expedition to the place we now call Gibraltar (a corruption of Jebel-al-Tariq) where the expedition unexpectedly discovered that a large Gothic army was marching in the neighbouring country. Tariq ibn-Ziyad burned the ships and told the expedition they have no choice but to fight . The battle was very successful and the Gothic king Roderic was lost presumably dead. Envious of his underling Tariq, Musa decided to land his army in Spain to lead the Muslim army, and he too was very successful in his battles, crisscrossing Spain and Portugal and winning battles against the "Franks" who were really Goths.

A report from the time that Musa bin Nusair while sailing in the Dark Sea ( Atlantic Ocean) came upon cage like bottles floating and a voice screaming "No Prophet of God, Not again". Musa brought a bottle on deck and to his surprise to the crew a man suddenly appeared on ship who said in astonishment "By God , You are them!!, If it wasn't for a favour you ( meaning Solomon in the past) done to me I would have drawnwd your ships" and disappeared. The report continues to state that Musa said to his crew that that man was a Jinn who was enslaved by King Solomon (a prophet in Islam) and was given a favor-release by the king Solomon. The report continues to state that since Musa's campaign was so extraordinarily successful that the jinn of Solomon might have hand in it.

Few years earlier in 698 he had been made the governor of Ifriqiya and was responsible for completing the Umayyad re-conquest of North Africa and reconquest of Cyprus, conquest of Sicily and the Majorka Islands and Sardinia. He was the first governor of Ifriqiya not to be subordinate to the governor of Egypt. He was the first Muslim general to take Tangiers and occupy it; his troops also conquered the Sous, effectively taking control of all of modern Morocco. It is said that he took 200,000 captive slaves from the conquered populations, and when the booty arrived in Damascus people were astonished at the size of the booty and his popularity sky-rocketed among the Muslims ( this might explain why the Ckalif maltreated him and cut his European invasion unfinished). He also had to deal with constant harassment from the Byzantine navy and he built a navy that would go on to conquer the islands of Ibiza, Majorca, and Minorca.

In Hispania, which the Muslims called Al-Andalus, there was internal fighting among the Visigoths. Among the factions were the sons of a recently deceased king Wittiza of the Visigoths who felt that they had unfairly been stripped of power by Roderic. Julian the Roman general on besieged Ceuta port ( near Tanjiers) and who was a friend of the disposed gothic king, appealed to Musa to surrender besieged Ceuta and help him transport the army in exchange for giving him his previous coveted estates in Spain, and Musa obliged. His deputy, Tariq bin Ziyad, concluded a treaty with Julian, Count of Ceuta, whose daughter is said to have been raped by Roderic. With Julian's assistance ( ships and knowledge), Tariq's army landed at Gibraltar on April 30, 711, from whence they proceeded to conquer most of the Iberian peninsula. Their major victory came in September of the same year when the Umayyad armies defeated Roderic at the Guadalete River.

Musa joined Tariq in 712 and they led their armies into Septimania, where he annexed some land. Musa was planning an invasion of the rest of Europe when he was recalled to Damascus by the Caliph Al-Walid I. This may have had to do with his having thrown Tariq into prison; Tariq managed to smuggle a letter out informing the caliph of what had happened, and reportedly Al-Walid I was greatly displeased. Al-Walid I was know for his august ears and paid attention to minute details.

Both North African leaders were therefore summoned by the caliph to Damascus. Tariq arrived first. But then the caliph took ill. So the caliph's brother, Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik, asked Musa, who was arriving with a cavalcade of soldiers and spoils, to delay his grand entry into the city until Al-Walid I dies and Suleiman becomes Khalif. But Musa dismissed this request, triumphally entered Damascus anyway, and brought his case before the ailing Al-Walid I. After hearing from both Musa and Tariq, the caliph concluded that Musa, as emir, had wronged his subordinate general, Tariq, by taking all the credit. Al-Walid I then died a few days later and was succeeded by his brother Sulayman, who demanded that Musa deliver up all his spoils. When Musa complained, Suleiman stripped him of his rank and confiscated all the booty, including a table which had reputedly once belonged to Solomon. He ordered Musa (a very old man by then) to stand in the sun all day long as a punishment and Musa said "Oh, Khalifa, I deserve a better rewarding than this". He was seen begging at a mosque door in the last days of his life.

One of Musa's sons was Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa. Taking part in the conquest of Spain, he had married a Spanish Christian queen, and soon began instituting Spanish customs such as forcing his guests to bow to him. It was rumoured that he had secretly become a Christian, and a group of Arabs assassinated him, cut off his head and sent it to the caliph. Sulayman had Musa in his audience when the head arrived, and seeing whose it was, callously asked Musa if he recognized it. Musa maintained his dignity, saying he recognized it as belonging to someone who had always practised the faith fervently, and cursed the men who had killed him.

Musa died naturally while on the Hajj pilgrimage with Sulayman in about the year 715-716. Because of his disgrace, and the misfortunes of his sons, there was a tendency among medieval historians of the Maghreb to attribute his deeds (the conquest of Tangiers and the Sous) to Uqba ibn Nafi[2].

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Ibn Abd al-Hakam, Kitab Futuh Misr wa'l Maghrib wa'l Andalus. English translation by Torrey of portion of this 9th century work covering the period: "The Muhammedan Conquest of Egypt and North Africa in the Years 643-705 A.D., translated from the Original Arabic of Ibn 'Abd-el Hakem'", Biblical and Semitic Studies vol. 1 (1901), 279-330 (covers North Africa only, not Spain). An online copy of an older and less reliable (19th-century) translation of the portion dealing only with Spain is at: Medieval Sourcebook: The Islamic Conquest of Spain
  • al-Baladhuri, Kitab Futuh al-Buldan, translated by Phillip Hitti in The Origins of the Islamic State (1916, 1924).
  • A. Benabbès: "Les premiers raids arabes en Numidie Byzantine: questions toponymiques." In Identités et Cultures dans l'Algérie Antique, University of Rouen, 2005 (ISBN 2-87775-391-3)

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b see al-Baladhuri (ref. cited below)
  2. ^ see e.g. article by Ahmed Benabbès cited below which analyzes this tendency


Preceded by
Tariq ibn-Ziyad		 Governor of Al-Andalus
712–714		 Succeeded by
Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa