The Berber Revolt or the Kharijite Revolt of 740–743 AD (122–125 AH in the Islamic calendar) took place during the reign of the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and marked the first successful secession from the Arab Caliphate (then ruled from Damascus). Inspired by Kharijite puritan preachers, the Berber revolt against their Umayyad Arab rulers began in Tangier in 740 and was led initially by Maysara al-Matghari. The revolt soon spread throughout the rest of the Maghreb and across the Strait of Gibraltar to Al-Andalus.
Although the Berbers managed to end Umayyad rule in the western Maghreb following the Battle of Badgoura and Battle of the Nobles, the Umayyads scrambled and managed to prevent the core of Ifriqiya (Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and western Libya) and al-Andalus (Spain and Portugal) from falling into rebel hands, notably securing victory in the decisive Battle of al-Asnam. However, the rest of the Maghreb was never brought back to caliphal authority. After failing to capture the Umayyad provincial capital of Kairouan, the Berber rebel armies dissolved, and the western Maghreb fragmented into a series of small statelets, ruled by tribal chieftains and Kharijite imams.
The Berber revolt was probably the largest military setback in the reign of Caliph Hisham. From it emerged some of the first Muslim states outside the Caliphate.
Background The underlying causes of the revolt were the policies of the Umayyad governors in Kairouan, Ifriqiya, who had authority over the Maghreb (all of North Africa west of Egypt) and Al-Andalus.
Since the Muslim conquest of North Africa, Arab commanders had treated non-Arab (notably Berber) auxiliaries inconsistently, and often rather shabbily. When they arrived in North Africa, the Umayyads faced a Christian-majority population in Africa Proconsularis (which became Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia), and Christians,Castonguay, A.L. "A Matter of Faith: Religion in North Africa at the end of Late Antiquity (Part 1)," https://sites.nd.edu/manuscript-studies/2015/11/13/a-matter-of-faith-religion-in-north-africa-at-the-end-of-late-antiquity-part-1/.Leone, Anna. “Bishops and Territory: The Case of Late Roman and Byzantine North Africa,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 65/66 (2011-2012): 5-27. pagans, and Jewish minorities in the Maghreb al-Aqsa (modern-day Morocco). Some Berbers of the Maghreb quickly converted and participated in the region's growth of Islam, but Arab authorities continued to treat them as second-class people.
Although Berbers had undertaken much of the fighting in the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, they were given a lesser share of the spoils and frequently assigned to the harsher duties (e.g. Berbers were thrown into the vanguard while Arab forces were kept in the back; they were assigned garrison duty on the more troubled frontiers). Although the Ifriqiyan Arab governor Musa ibn Nusayr had cultivated his Berber lieutenants (most famously, Tariq ibn Ziyad), his successors, notably Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, had treated their Berber forces particularly poorly.Dhannun Taha (1989: 198)
Most grievously, Arab governors continued to levy extraordinary dhimmi taxation (the jizya and kharaj) and slave-tributes on non-Arab populations that had converted to Islam, in direct contravention of Islamic law. This had become particularly routine during the caliphates of Al-Walid I and Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik.
In 718, the Umayyad caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz finally forbade the levying of extraordinary taxation and slave tributes from non-Arab Muslims, defusing much of the tension. But expensive military reverses in the 720s and 730s had forced caliphal authorities to look for innovative ways to replenish their treasuries. During the caliphate of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik from 724, the prohibitions were sidestepped with reinterpretations (e.g. tying the kharaj land tax to the land rather than the owner, so that lands that were at any point subject to the kharaj remained under kharaj even if currently owned by a Muslim).
As a result, resentful Berbers grew receptive to radical Kharijite activists from the east (notably of Sufrite and later Ibadite persuasion) which had begun arriving in the Maghreb in the 720s. The Kharijites preached a puritan form of Islam, promising a new political order, where all Muslims would be equal, irrespective of ethnicity or tribal status, and Islamic law would be strictly adhered to. The appeal of the Kharijite message to Berber ears allowed their activists to gradually penetrate Berber regiments and population centers. Sporadic mutinies by Berber garrisons (e.g. under Munuza in Cerdanya, Spain, in 729–731) were put down with difficulty. One Ifriqiyan governor, Yazid ibn Abi Muslim, who openly resumed the jizya and humiliated his Berber guard by branding their hands, was assassinated in 721.
In 734, Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab was appointed Umayyad governor in Kairouan, with supervisory authority over all the Maghreb and Al-Andalus. Coming in after a period of mismanagement, Ubayd Allah soon set about expanding the fiscal resources of the government by leaning heavily on the non-Arab populations, resuming the extraordinary taxation and slave-tribute without apologies. His deputies Oqba ibn al-Hajjaj al-Saluli in Córdoba (Al-Andalus) and Omar ibn el-Moradi in Tangier (Maghreb) were given similar instructions. The failure of expensive expeditions into Gaul during the period 732–737, repulsed by the Franks under Charles Martel, only increased the tax burden. The parallel failure of the caliphal armies in the east brought no fiscal relief from Damascus.
Revolt Revolt in the Maghreb
The zeal of the Umayyad tax-collectors finally broke Berber patience. It is reported that following Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab's instructions to extract more revenues from the Berbers, Omar ibn al-Moradi, his deputy governor in Tangiers, decided to declare the Berbers in his jurisdiction a "conquered people" and consequently set about seizing Berber property and enslaving persons, as per the rules of conquest, the "caliphal fifth" was still owed to the Umayyad state (alternative accounts report he simply doubled their tribute).
This was the last straw. Inspired by the Sufrite preachers, the North African Berber tribes of western Morocco – initially, the Ghomara, Berghwata and Miknasa – decided to break openly into revolt against their Arab overlords. As their leader, they chose Maysara al-Matghari, alleged by some Arab chroniclers to be a lowly water-carrier (but more probably a high Matghara Berber chieftain).
The only question was timing. The opportunity arose sometime in early 740 (122 AH), when the powerful Ifriqiyan general Habib ibn Abi Ubayda al-Fihri, who had recently been imposing his authority on the Sous valley of southern Morocco, received instructions from the Kairouan governor Ubayd Allah to lead a large expedition across the sea against Byzantine Sicily. Gathering his forces, Habib ibn Abi Obeida marched the bulk of the Ifriqiyan army out of Morocco.
As soon as the mighty Habib was safely gone, Maysara assembled his coalition of Berber armies, heads shaven in the Sufri Kharijite fashion and with Qura'nic inscriptures tied to their lances and spears, and brought them bearing down on Tangier. The city soon fell into rebel hands and the hated governor Omar al-Moradi was killed. It was at this point that Maysara is said to have taken up the title and pretences of amir al-mu'minin ("Commander of the Faithful", or "Caliph"). Leaving a Berber garrison in Tangier under the command of Christian convert, Abd al-Allah al-Hodeij al-Ifriqi, Maysara's army proceeded to sweep down western Morocco, swelling its ranks with new adherents, overwhelming Umayyad garrisons clear from the Strait of Gibraltar down to the Sous. One of the local governors killed by the Berbers was Ismail ibn Ubayd Allah, the very son of the Kairouan emir.Ibn Khaldun, p.216-17
The Berber revolt surprised the Umayyad governor in Kairouan, Ubayd Allah ibn al-Habhab, who had very few troops at his disposal. He immediately dispatched messengers to his general Habib ibn Abi Obeida al-Fihri in Sicily instructing him to break off the expedition and urgently ship the Ifriqiyan army back to Africa. In the meantime, Ubayd Allah assembled a cavalry-heavy column, composed of the aristocratic Arab elite of Kairouan. He placed the nobles under the command of Khalid ibn Abi Habib al-Fihri, and dispatched it to Tangiers, to keep the Berber rebels contained, while awaiting Habib's return from Sicily. A smaller reserve army was placed under Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Mughira al-Abdari and instructed to hold Tlemcen, in case the Berber rebel army should break through the column and try to drive towards Kairouan.
Maysara's Berber forces encountered the vanguard Ifrqiyan column of Khalid ibn Abi Habib somewhere in the outskirts of Tangiers Following Ibn Khaldun (p.217), commentators usually mark that encounter at the Chelif river (in Algeria). However, it is unlikely that the Berber rebels would have reached that far east so soon. It is likely Ibn Khaldun or his transcribers confused that location with a similar-sounding one, closer to Tangiers. Julien (1961: p.30) suggests it was in the upper reaches of the Sebou river. After a brief skirmish with the Arab column, Maysara abruptly ordered the Berber armies to fall back to Tangier. The Arab cavalry commander Khalid ibn Abi Habiba did not give pursuit, but just held his line south of Tangier, blockading the Berber-held city, while awaiting the reinforcements from Habib's Sicilian expedition.
In this breathing space, the Berber rebels got reorganized and undertook an internal coup. The Berber tribal leaders swiftly deposed (and executed) Maysara and elected the Zenata Berber chieftain, Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati as the new Berber "caliph". The reasons for Maysara's fall remain obscure. Possibly the sudden cowardice shown before the Arab cavalry column proved him military unfit, possibly because the puritan Sufrite preachers found a flaw in the piety of his character, or maybe simply because the Zenata tribal chieftains, being closer to the Ifriqiyan frontline, felt they should be the ones leading the rebellion.
The new Berber leader Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati opted to immediately attack the idling Ifriqiyan column before they could be reinforced. The Berber rebels under Khalid ibn Hamid overwhelmed and annihilated the Arab cavalry of Khalid ibn Abi Habiba in an encounter known as the Battle of the Nobles, on account of the veritable massacre of the cream of the Ifriqiyan Arab nobility. This is tentatively dated around c. October–November, 740.
The immediate Arab reaction to the disaster shows just how unexpected this reversal was. Upon the first news of the defeat of the nobles, the reserve army of Ibn al-Mughira in Tlemcen fell into a panic. Seeing Sufrite preachers everywhere in the city, the Umayyad commander ordered his nervous Arab troops to conduct a series of round-ups in Tlemcen, several of which ended in indiscriminate massacres. This provoked a massive popular uprising in the hitherto-quiet city. The city's largely Berber population quickly drove out the Umayyad troops. The frontline of the Berber revolt now leaped to the middle Maghreb (Algeria).Blankinship (1994, p.208)
The Sicilian expeditionary army of Habib ibn Abi Obeida arrived too late to prevent the massacre of the nobles. Realizing they were in no position to take on the Berber army by themselves, they retreated to Tlemcen, to gather the reserves, only to find that city too was now in disarray. There, Habib encountered Musa ibn Abi Khalid, an Umayyad captain who had bravely stayed behind in the vicinity of Tlemcen gathering what loyal forces he could find. The state of panic and confusion was such that Habib ibn Abi Obeida decided to blame the guiltless captain for the entire mess and cut off one of his hands and one of his legs in punishment.