Upper March

[2] Further Muslim expansion ended through the combined effects of a Berber Revolt in Iberia that commenced in 740 and, in the Middle East, the overthrow of the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 747 to 750.

[3] Alfonso I, the Christian king of neighboring Asturias, which spanned the northern coast of Iberia from Galicia to the Basque territory, raided the former Berber lands and captured the cities of León, Astorga and Braga, killing their Muslim garrisons.

[4] Meanwhile, in the north and east, the Frankish kingdom had extended their power into Aquitaine and, under Pepin the Strong had moved into Septimania in the 750s, capturing Narbonne in 759,[5] thus confining al-Andalus south of the Pyrenees.

There was also a civil war fought in al-Andalus between the families deriving from northern and southern Arabia, leading in 747 to the ascendance of the Yemeni faction following the battle of Secunda (Sequnda, near Córdoba) and the installation at Zaragoza of a Yemeni, al-Sumayl ibn Hatim al-Kilabi, as governor over the northern Arab settlers of the Ebro valley.

These moves left southern Iberia exposed and enabled the fugitive Umayyad prince, Abd al-Rahman I, to cross from North Africa and gain a foothold, eventually leading to his conquest of al-Andalus and establishment of an independent Emirate of Córdoba.

[6] The strength of Abd al-Rahman's Umayyad Emirate lay in the Guadalquivir valley and to its south and east south and, rather than trying to conquer Christian lands or make their rulers accept Umayyad primacy, he and his successors concentrated on keeping the outlying areas of the Emirate under their control by setting-up three marches or thugur, (singular thagr).

They in turn depended on the district governors, who were responsible for overseeing taxation, maintaining fortresses, defending their people, and accompanying the Córdoba emir or caliph on campaigns against the Christian states of the north.

Then in 778, Sulayman ibn Yaqdhan al Arabi of Barcelona sent envoys to Charlemagne, offering his fealty along with that of Abu Taur of Huesca and Husayn of Zaragoza in exchange for his support in their rebellion against Córdoba.

The Frankish monarch marched south and took Barcelona, but when he arrived at Zaragoza he found the marcher lords to have had a change of heart, and the city was closed to him.

At the end of the century, two governors of Huesca would again reach out to the Franks, the Muwallad Basque rebel Bahlul Ibn Marzuq in 798, and Azan in 799,[11] while in the latter year at Pamplona, Muhammad ibn Musa, apparently of Muwallad Banu Qasi family of Huesca, was assassinated in what usually is interpreted as a move by a pro-Frankish faction.

This defeat would lead to the ascendancy, originally as clients of Córdoba, of a native Basque dynasty allied by blood to the Muwallad lords of the Upper March as rulers of the nascent state of Pamplona.

Despite the Umayyad capture of Zaragoza in 844 and a son of the Emir Abd-al Rahman II being appointed as governor until 852, Musa retained his autonomy in his ancestral lands.

However, his power in the Upper March was ended when he and his Basque allies suffered a crushing defeat against the combined armies of Asturias and Pamplona in 859 or 860 at the Battle of Monte Laturce.

[24] Despite the presence of these opponents, the Banu Qasi retained most of the cities of the Upper March and, with Lubb ibn Musa as head of the family, were largely autonomous.

[25] An Umayyad army under al-Mundir the heir presumptive of Muhammad I was sent north in 874, to attack Zaragoza first, then to Tudela and the various strongholds of the Banu Qasi and finally to ravage the lands of Pamplona, cutting down trees and uprooting crops.

Though al-Tawil claimed the lands of the defeated Isma'il, the Emir would not risk such an increase in his power, and instead granted them to Muhammad ibn Lubb, who had remained loyal during his uncle's rebellion.

[31][41] With the decline removal of the Banu Qasi, the sons of Muhammad al-Tawil jockeyed for control over several of the coras of the Upper March,[42] but amidst internecine struggles, rebellions and their own failure to maintain popular support, they were progressively marginalized.

Abd al-Malik ibn Muhammad al-Tawil had succeeded his father at Huesca and installed his brother Amrus at Monzón, though the latter soon lost it to the Banu Qasi.

Amrus fled to Barbastro and Alquézar, and was later offered Lleida by its residents,[45] only for them to turn the city over to Muhammad ibn Lubb al-Qasawi in 922.

However, after Ahmed struggled to retain control against the rebel Banu Tujib, Abd al-Rahman restored Fortun to Huesca in 936/7 against the will of the city's residents.

Córdoba brought them back into submission, and the Banu Tujib head, Abu Yahya, was captured in the defeat of Caliph's army at the Battle of Simancas in 939.

The Banu Tujib allied themselves in 983 with Almanzor, de facto ruler of Córdoba, but were again deprived and their head killed in 989 when they conspired with his son.