The Moslem invasion of France was carried on with varying success for several years. In 732 occurred the so-called battle of Tours, in fact fought near Poitiers, when Charles Martel and a Frankish army defeated the Moslems. It was not this battle which caused the retreat of the invaders from France, but rather a civil war in Spain eight years later, necessitating a return to the peninsula. The Berbers of Africa had risen in revolt against their Arabic rulers, and had defeated both them and a Syrian force sent to the latter’s assistance. Thereupon the Spanish Berbers rose as well. For a time they were successful, but the emir was able finally to subdue them, being aided by the Syrian army in Africa, which he had induced to come to Spain. Then followed a terrible war between the Syrians and the emir, because the promises to the former had not been fulfilled. The struggle ended with a grant of some of the state lands in southern Spain to the Syrians, who were to receive the government’s third of the produce, but not the title to the lands. Shortly afterward there was another civil war, this time between the Shiite and Sunnite Arabs, caused by the harsh treatment of the former by a Sunnite governor. The war lasted eleven years, being then given a new turn by the intervention of a man who was to play an important part in the history of the period.
[Sidenote: Coming of Abd-er-Rahman to Spain.]
Other parts of the Moslem world had been afflicted by the same sort of internal strife as that which was occurring in Spain. In particular there was a dynastic struggle, which resulted in the dethronement of the caliphs of the Ommayad family and in the rise to power of the Abbasside caliphs. The Ommayads were ordered to be put to death, but one of them, a youth named Abd-er-Rahman, contrived to escape. He took refuge successively in Egypt and northwestern Africa, and in 755 came to Spain with the object of establishing himself there. This he was able to do, though not without a struggle, setting himself up as emir with his capital in Cordova, and proclaiming his independence of the caliph.
The entire reign of Abd-er-Rahman I (755-788) was one of war. He had to fight the Yemenite (Sunnite) Arabs, the Berbers, and many chiefs of various tribes, as well as the governors sent out by the Abbassides, before his authority was recognized. His ideal was that of an absolute monarchy which should bring to an end the aristocratic independence and anarchy in Spain, but in order to accomplish this he had to combat Arabic tradition and pride, Berber democracy, and inter-tribal hatred. Abd-er-Rahman was at least able to subject his opponents if not to change them. It was during his reign that the Frankish king Charlemagne invaded Spain and got as far as Saragossa. Obliged by events in France to recross the Pyrenees he was attacked by the Basques in the pass of Roncesvalles, and his rear-guard was completely destroyed. It was this event which gave rise to the celebrated French epic poem, the _Chanson de Roland_ (Song of Roland), in which the Frankish hero Roland is supposed to combat the forces of Islam. No Mohammedan forces in fact engaged in the battle, for the Basques were Christians; they were then, as later, opposed to any foreign army which should invade their lands.