The Professional Soldiers

Between June 971 and July 975 four military expeditions were dispatched from Córdoba. Two of them were deployed in June 971 and June 972 in response to sightings of Viking boats off the Atlantic coast, which stirred up fears the invaders would attack further inland. As it turned out, there was no real threat and, in both cases, the troops returned without having seen action. A very different fate awaited the third of these four military campaigns. In the summer of 972, al-Ḥakam decided to send the greater part of his army across the Straits of Gibraltar to wage war on the North African chieftains who refused to recognise his authority, and whose allegiance was shifting towards support for the Fāṭimid caliphs in what is today northern Morocco. The caliph's decision was the start of a long, costly campaign marred by disasters. Three years later, Andalusi troops were still stationed in the region. Then, in the summer of 975, with part of the army still serving in this challenging Moroccan campaign, another military expedition had to be deployed, this time to the north of the Iberian Peninsula, where a coalition of Christian kings and counts had besieged the fortress of Gormaz, on the upper course of the Duero River.

Four campaigns in four years – one of them essentially a full-blown war – are a lot. They require a well-supplied and organised army, as well as a considerable capacity for recruitment. The Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba had such a capacity, and even improved it throughout this period. Furthermore, this army was not only mobilised on campaigns. It undertook escort missions, the fortification or defence of strategic enclaves, and it also took part in the parades held to mark the caliphate's grand celebrations. Likewise, when someone incurred the caliph's wrath and had to be arrested and imprisoned, soldiers were ordered to make the arrest. In Córdoba, along the frontier, or across the provinces ruled by the qāʼids, the army was a constant presence, albeit not always a welcome one: it provided a clear reminder of the caliphate's coercive capacity, which was exercised openly against foreign enemies, and implicitly against its own subjects.