Al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Mughīth[a] (Arabic: الأعلى بن مغيث), called variously al-Yaḥṣubī, al-Ḥaḍramī or al-Judhāmī,[1] was the ʿAbbāsid-appointed governor of al-Andalus (Spain) in opposition to the Umayyads in AD 763 (AH 146).
The Fatḥ al-Andalus, Ibn al-Athīr, al-Nuwayrī and al-Maḳḳarī claim that he was a native of Ifrīḳiya (Tunisia) sent to Spain by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 754–775).
[1] Al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Mughīth set up his government in 763 in Beja, where he had the support of the local Egyptian jund (Arab army division).
[2] The Umayyad emir[c] ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I (r. 756–788) avoided a pitched battle with his rival and even abandoned his capital, Córdoba, for the fortress of Carmona.
According to the Akhbār majmūʿa, the Palestinian jund under Ghiyāth ibn ʿAlḳama al-Lakhmī marched from Sidonia to join the siege but was intercepted by an army under Badr, a freedman of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, who negotiated its withdrawal.