The Imazighen (Berbers)

[Menydh]

Another Andalusi (Hispano-Muslim) chronicler, in the Xth century of the Christian era, was Ibn al-Qutiyya ("son of the Goth woman), a descendant of Sarah, the daughter of Visigothic King Witiza.

He wrote Ta'rij iftitah al-Andalus (History of the Conquest of al-Andalus).

Differently to the chroniclers of Damascus, al-Qutiyya insists in diminishing the value of the military conquest, giving more importance to the treaties between his Visigothic ancestors with Musa and later governors.

It must be remembered that it was his family, the sons of Witiza (in modern Spanish "sons of Witiza" is synonymous with the highest treachery), who brought in the Muslims to help them defeat the elected King Rodrigo.

[ArabianKnight]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

I would have to go through numbers of history books and write down the references of the chroniclers used by the historians.
Edit: never mind, I've found some references. Please, read on.

Until some decades ago, only the must'arabim (Mossarab, the indigenous peoples who had retained their Christian faith under the Islamic rule in Spain) chronicles were used as the main source to research that period of history. But some of these were little accurate. Often they were written much later than the events, and they collected oral accounts. Of one of those chronicles there even exists two versions with some noticeable differences. However, history as we know it was written using mainly those sources, until recently when the Arabic chronicles became more widely available.

As far as I know, Musa was a Syrian whose father was a convert to Islam. He was appointed as Walid of Ifriqiya (Governor of Northern Africa [Tunis]), with the mission of finishing the Ummayad conquest of the Berber tribes of NW Africa.

If you have access to Arabic sources, the name that you want to search is Musa bin Nusair.

One of the primary Arabic chronicles is Kitab Futuh Misr wa'l Maghrib wa'l Andalus (The History of the Conquest of Egypt, North Africa and Spain), written by Abd al-Raḥman ben Abd Allah ben Abd al-Ḥakam.

A later source is Al-Bayān al-mughrib fī akhbār al-Andalus wa l-Maghrib, written by Abu al-Abbas Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Idhari al-Marrakushi.

There are many other Arabic documents, but I don't know if all have been now translated into French or into Spanish.

As I said, 3 or 4 years after the conquest of Spain he was recalled by the Caliph to return to Damascus, to present the bills for his spoils. The army of Syrians and Yemenis was his personal army, which he took back to Damascus. He left his son, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, who married the Visitoghic widow of King Rodrigo, Ailo, and finished the conquest of Spain, as the Walid of al-Andalus.

Musa fell in disgrace before the Caliph. He was stripped of all his power in Damascus (after a letter written by Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Berber general who he had thrown into prison, dennouncing him to the Caliph). His son was suspected to have embraced Christianity under the influence of his new wife, and he was assassinated (though this was a rumour, and it is possible that he was assassinated for other reasons, by command of the Caliph). Musa died a few years after his return to Damascus.


By the way, if you have access to the Arabic chronicles, I would be interested in reading what they say about the Balaat ash-Shuhada (Battle of Tours), fought in 732 AD.

Its correct that the Yemeni and Syrian armies did not leave gentic imprints on North Africans, Yemenis who are Arabid, and this phenotype is never found in North Africa apart from Egypt, and so are Armeniod Syrians. The Berbers often were to be in second ranks to the Arabs. Most of the later conquests of Northern Africa was done by Islamized Arabized Berbers. Many of the Berbers tried to gain respect aliance of the Arabs, thus they sacked other North African regions. This proves that the Arabs had left no gentic makeup on North Africans.