190 EARLY MEDIEVAL SPAINput down the first Banu Qasl revolt in the name of Al-J:Iakam I, was
soon suspected of conspiring with the Franks and plotting rebellion.
The activities of successful bandits could also assume the dimen-
sions of a military uprising and often required as much effort to
suppress. The difficulties presented by the terrain of the peninsula
provided excellent opportunities for rural rebels or bandits to wage
what was effectively guerrilla warfare against the government and its
representatives, largely in the interests of their own enrichment. One
of the best examples may be found in the career of the Berber leader
Shaqya of the Miknassa tribe, who in 768 surprised and killed the
governor of Santaver and looted Coria. For the next four years he
successfully avoided armies sent against him, twice commanded by
'Abd al-Ral;tman I in person, by dodging into the mountains. In 771
he !learly captured one of the amir's generals and alter tricked and
killed the governor of Medellln. In 774 he was again able to ravage
Coria, thanks to the collusion of its Berber garrison, and he eluded
the avenging army of 'Abd al-Ral;tman to escape once more into the
mountains. In 772 and 776 he was able successfully to resist sieges of
his mountain stronghold. However, in 777 he was murdered by
his own men, who sent his head and their submission to the amir.
Shaqya was thus almost the prototype of the ferocious bandit -or heroic
guerrilla - of more recent centuries in Spain and Latin America.^12
The Berbers in the peninsula were particularly suited for such roles,
as many of them were mountain-dwellers in North Mrica, unlike the
Arabs who found such terrain hostile. However, they were far from
having a monopoly on such activities. A Mhidan mawali called
Mul;tammad ibn 'Abd al:Jabba held out very successfully in southern
Extremadura between 833 and 840 against the armies of 'Abd al-
Ral;tman II, until, having established himself in Christian territory,
he was killed by the forces of Alfonso II of the Asturias.l~ Similar
problems in the control of large tracts of hostile and virtually inacces-
sible land, favouring banditry and the use of guerrilla tactics, had
almost certainly faced the Visigothic kings in the sixth century and
probably did in the seventh too. The experiences of the Muslim rulers
suggest what might have been some of the problems of their pred-
ecessors: conciliar enactments and liturgy of the seventh century re-
lating to warfare and royal military undertakings can take on a reality
and be seen in a practical context when considered in the light of the
more fully documented Islamic period.
However, the Visigoths may have been spared one of the additional