But the break-out of the Great Berber Revolt in the Maghreb forced the al-Fihris to cease their invasion of Sicily and ship their army quickly back to North Africa to help quell the uprising.
His father was killed in the field of battle, while Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib narrowly escaped and fled across the straits to Spain with the remnant of the Arab army.
In late 744, in the turmoil following the death of the Umayyad caliph, Hisham, Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib assembled a small force in Tunis and declared himself emir of Ifriqiya.
Although urged to quash the usurper, the Ifriqiyan governor Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi decided it was best to avoid bloodshed and consented to return to Damascus in February 745, rather than put up a fight.
[citation needed] Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib had come to power essentially as the figurehead of the local Arab high military caste, a group much despised and feared by the common population.
The Ibadites, inspired by the success of their brethren in Hadramut and Oman, revolted under the leadership of their imam al-Harith, and seized control of much of Tripolitana (between Gabès and Sirte).
[citation needed] In Spain, Handhala's deputy Abu al-Khattar ibn Dirar al-Kalbi had been toppled in 745 and civil war broke out anew between the Syrian junds and the Andalusian Arabs.
[citation needed] In 752, perhaps feeling confident in the possession of his lands for the first time, Ibn Habib transported an Ifriqiyan army to Sicily, perhaps hoping to resume the invasion his father had interrupted back in 740.
[citation needed] But not long after their arrival, Ibn Habib changed his mind, probably fearing the prominent Umayyad exiles might serve as a focal point for discontented Arab nobles and challenge his own usurped power.
Ibn Habib expressed sufficient hostility to prompt the fugitive Umayyad prince to flee into the hinterlands of Kabylie and hide among the Nafza Berbers (his mother's family).
In 755, Abd al-Rahman left his African hideout and crossed the straits to Spain and went on to depose Yusuf al-Fihri and found the Umayyad emirate of Córdoba in 756.
Later that year, urged on by his wife, Ilyas assassinated his brother Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib in his personal quarters, plunging a dagger into his back while he played with his children.
[citation needed] In 757, the Warfajuma Berbers and their Sufrite allies swept up from southern Tunisia and captured Kairouan, killing Habib and putting an end to the Fihrid dynasty.