Banu Qasi


The Banu Qasi, Banu Kasi, Beni Casi, Banu Musa, or al-Qasawi were a Muladí dynasty that in the 9th century ruled the Upper March, a frontier territory of the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba, located on the upper Ebro Valley. At their height in the 850s, family head Musa ibn Musa al-Qasawi was so powerful and autonomous that he would be called 'The Third Monarch of Hispania'. In the first half of the 10th century, an intra-family succession squabble, rebellions and rivalries with competing families, in the face of vigorous monarchs to the north and south, led to the sequential loss of all of their land.

Dynastic beginnings

The family is said to descend from the Hispano-Roman
nobleman named Cassius. Muslim chronicles and the Chronicle of Alfonso III suggest he was a Visigoth. According to the 10th century Muwallad historian, Ibn al-Qūṭiyya, Count Cassius converted to Islam in 714 as the mawlā of the Umayyads, shortly after their conquest of Hispania. After his conversion, he is said to have traveled to Damascus to personally swear allegiance to the Umayyad Caliph, Al-Walid I.
Under the Banu Qasi, the region of Upper Ebro formed a semi-autonomous principality. The tiny emirate was faced by enemies in several directions. Although never realized, the threat of Frankish attempts to regain control over the western Pyrenees was a real one. In actuality, even more menacing was the gradual eastwards expansion of the Asturian Kingdom; while in the south lay the Caliphate of Córdoba, ever anxious to impose its authority over the frontier regions.
As a local Muslim dynasty in the Ebro valley, the Banu Qasi were nominally clients of the emirate, but they thrived on regional rivalries and alliances with other Muwallad dynasties of the Upper March, the Vascon tribal chieftains of Pamplona and Aragon, as well as with the Catalan counts of Pallars-Ribagorza to the north and Barcelona to the east, the Kingdom of Asturias to the west and the Umayyads to the south over the next two centuries. They frequently intermarried with other regional nobility, both Muslim and Christian. Musa ibn Musa and the Pamplona king Íñigo Arista were maternal half-brothers, while Musa also married Arista's daughter, and his own daughter and nieces were married to other Pyrenean princes. The cultural ambivalence of the Banu Qasi is also demonstrated by their mixed use of names: for example, Arabic, Latinate, and Basque.
The Umayyads of Cordova sanctioned the rule of the Banu Qasi and repeatedly granted them autonomy by appointing them as governors, only to replace them as they expressed too much independence, or launch punitive military expeditions into the region. Such acts on the part of the Umayyads demonstrated their failure to ever fully resolve the problem of effective, central control of outlying regions.

First rise to prominence

The speculated homeland of Count Cassius was a narrow strip across the Ebro from Tudela. The Arab historian Ibn Hazm listed the sons of Count Cassius as Furtun, Abu Tawr, Abu Salama, Yunus and Yahya. Of these, it has been suggested that the second may be the Abu Tawr, Wali of Huesca, who invited Charlemagne to Zaragoza in 778. Likewise, the Banu Salama, removed from power in Huesca and Barbitanya at the end of the 8th century, may have derived from Abu Salama. Subsequent leaders of the family descend from the eldest son, Furtun. His son, Musa ibn Furtun ibn Qasi, first garnered notice in 788, when on behalf of emir Hisham I of Córdoba he put down the rebellion of the Banu Husain in Zaragoza. The fate of Musa ibn Furtun is debated. An account of the 788 rebellion tells of Musa's murder shortly thereafter at the hands of a Banu Husain follower, yet a "Furtun ibn Musa" is said to have been killed in his own 802 Zaragoza uprising, and it has been suggested that this name may be an error for Musa ibn Furtun. However, Ibn Hayyan also reports a Furtun 'the Lame' al-Qasawi forming a coalition with Pamplona, Álava, Castile, Amaya and Cerdanya to fight against Amrus ibn Yusuf at this time, suggesting that this is instead a son of Musa ibn Furtun overlooked by Ibn Hazm, whose genealogy provides most of what we know about the clan.
In the next generation, Mutarrif ibn Musa, was likely a son of Musa ibn Furtun, although historian Ibn Hayyan only mentions his name and does not say that he was a member of the Banu Qasi clan. According to Ibn Hayyan, "in the people of Pamplona deceived Mutarrif ibn Musa and killed him". "This is perhaps one of the most quoted paragraphs by historians who on the basis of this brief news, have woven a complex web of relationships involving the Banu Qasi, the Arista and the Carolingians". Évariste Lévi-Provençal was the first to say that "Pamplona, the capital of Vasconia, had not been governed by the Muslims since 798 and that its inhabitants had killed the representative of the Umayyad authorities, Mutarrif ben Musa Ben Qasi, and had chosen one of their own, named Velasco." This Velasco would be the same "enemy of God, Balashk al-Yalashqi, Lord of Pamplona", a pro-Carolingian against whom the Muslims launched a military campaign in 816. Spanish historian Claudio Sánchez Albornoz did not agree with this interpretation and believed that it had been the people of Pamplona, without any outside intervention, who took matters in their own hands. Nowhere does Ibn Hayyan mention that Mutarrif ibn Musa was the governor of Pamplona or that Velasco was pro-Carolingian.
It was Musa's son Musa ibn Musa al-Qasawi whose rule brought the family to the peak of its power.

Musa ibn Musa

Besides the Arab sources, Musa ibn Musa is mentioned in three Latin texts: the Chronica Adefonsi tertii regis; the Albendensis; and the Códice de Roda. The latter mentions his family relations as the half-brother and son-in-law of King Íñigo Arista and the properties he held. The Albeldensis describes the Battle of Monte Laturce, also referred to as the second Battle of Albelda, whereas the Chronicle of Alfonso III provides a more detailed account of his life and feats.
While Musa had been orphaned at an early age, his military activity may have begun in the 820s, and the Banu Qasi most probably participated in the second battle of the pass of Roncevaux along with their relatives of Pamplona, an event leading to the establishment of the kingdom of Pamplona. Historians agree that in the 840s, after the expulsion from his lands of a kinsman, 'Abd al-Jabbar al-Qasawi, Musa launched a series of revolts in conjunction with his maternal half-brother, Íñigo Arista of Pamplona. Abd ar-Rahman II defeated them, and took Musa's son Lubb hostage. Musa repeatedly submitted, only to rise again. After repeated rebellions he controlled a region along the Ebro from Borja to Logroño, including Tudela, Tarazona, Arnedo and Calahorra. The 851/2 deaths of Íñigo Arista and Abd ar-Rahman II, as well as a victory over Christian forces at Albelda, gave Musa unprecedented status. The new emir, Muhammad I of Córdoba named Musa the Wali of Zaragoza and governor of the Upper March. Over the next decade Musa expanded the family's lands to include Zaragoza, Najera, Viguera and Calatayud, while also governing Tudela, Huesca and Toledo, and according to the Chronica Adefonsi tertii regis, Musa had his followers call him "the third king of Spaniae".
Throughout this period, as reported by Ibn Hazm, Musa was also involved in a struggle within his family. Musa's brother Yunus ibn Musa is said to have remained loyal to Córdoba, and joined with the sons of their uncle Zahir ibn Furtun to fight Musa over a period of about 30 years. Ibn Hazm reports that Yunus had descendants, but provides no further details.
In 859, Ordoño I of Asturias and García Íñiguez of Pamplona joined forces to deal Musa a crushing defeat at Albelda, which passed into Christian legend as the Battle of Clavijo. Emir Muhammad then stripped Musa of his titles and restored direct Cordoban control over the region. Musa died in 862 of wounds received in a petty squabble with a son-in-law, and the family disappeared from the political scene for a decade.

Sons of Musa

Following the 862 death of Musa, nothing is known of the family until 871. It is presumed that the members of the family associated with the Cordoban court and military campaigns, but no record of their presence there survives. According to the Chronica Adefonsi tertii regis, upon learning of his father's defeat at Albelda, his son Lubb ibn Musa ibn Musa with all his men, submitted themselves to the rule of the Asturian king Ordoño and became his lifelong subjects. By the time the Banu Qasi reappear, they had lost control of most of their lands, being left with just a small area surrounding Arnedo. In 870, a rebellion in Huesca initiated a chain of events that would bring the Banu Qasi back to dominance. In that year, Amrus ibn Umar of the Banu Amrus assassinated the amil Musa ibn Galind, thought to have been son of the Córdoba-resident brother of Pamplona king García Íñiguez. The Amir, Muhammad, sent an army to the north, but Amrus allied himself with García, and the Cordoban general, Abd al-Gafir ibn Abd al-Aziz, was killed before the gates of Zaragoza. The Banu Qasi sons of Musa, apparently under the leadership of eldest son Lubb ibn Musa, then allied themselves with García, and reestablished control over their father's possessions. First, the residents of Huesca called on Mutarrif ibn Musa al-Qasawi for leadership. In January 872, Isma'il ibn Musa entered Zaragoza, and was there joined by Lubb, the two of them together taking Monzon. Isma'il also allied himself with the Banu Jalaf of Barbitanya, marrying Sayyida, daughter of Abd Allah ibn Jalaf. Furtun ibn Musa occupied Tudela, whose governor the Banu Qasi imprisoned at Arnedo, then killed following an escape. Lubb also occupied and refortified Viguera.
The immediate response of emir Muhammad was to try to limit the expansion of the Banu Qasi by installing a rival dynasty, the Arab Banu Tujib, in Calatayud, the one part of their father's possessions not reclaimed. In the next year, 873, Muhammad launched a campaign against the various northern rebels. He first bought off the rebels of Toledo with governorships, and this encouraged Amrus to offer his loyalty, for which he was rewarded with Huesca where he captured Mutarrif and his family, including wife Belasquita, the daughter of García Íñiguez of Pamplona. In spite of a desperate attack by the combined troops of his brothers, Mutarrif and three sons, Muhammad, Musa and Lubb, were taken to Córdoba and crucified. The next year, Furtun died in Tudela, while Lubb was killed in an accident in Viguera in 875. This left control of the family in the hands of two men, the remaining brother Isma'il ibn Musa in Monzon, and Lubb's son, Muhammad ibn Lubb al-Qasawi, who is first known as a defender of Zaragoza against the emirate troops.