Musa ibn Musa ibn Qasi

Musa ibn Musa al-Qasawi (Arabic: موسى بن موسى القسوي) also nicknamed the Great (Arabic: الكبير, Al-Kabīr) (born circa 790 – 26 September 862) was leader of the Muwallad Banu Qasi clan and ruler of a semi-autonomous principality in the upper Ebro valley in northern Iberia in the 9th century.

Musa ibn Musa was descendant of Cassius, who converted to Islam after the Muslim conquest of Iberia. His father, Musa ibn Furtun, appears in scattered accounts of the late 8th century, and was apparently assassinated in Musa's youth. His mother, whose name is unknown, was also mother by another husband of Basque tribal chieftain Íñigo Arista, Musa’s half-brother. Musa's early years are obscure, although he is presumed to have supported the Basques against the Franks in the Second Battle of Ronceveaux, a battle generally credited as giving birth to the nascent Kingdom of Pamplona. Likewise it is claimed that in 839 his son Furtun ibn Musa led a campaign that resulted in a rout of the "king of the Gallaecians", "Loderik" or "Luzriq" and he leveled the defenses of Álava.

It is in 840/41 that we first hear of Musa ibn Musa himself. In response to attacks on the lands of his half-brother, Íñigo Arista, and the expulsion of kinsman Abd al-Jabbar ibn Qasi by the brothers Abd Allah and Amir ibn Kalayb, governors respectively of Zaragoza and Tudela, Musa and Íñigo rose in rebellion against emir Abd ar-Rahman II. This led to a reprisal campaign under the leadership of the emir's son, Mutarrif, and general Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid Iskandarani. In 842, Musa was in charge of the vanguard of the emir's army marching against Cerdanya, but believing himself mistreated by the commanding general, Musa again rebelled and along with his nephew, García Íñiguez of Pamplona, defeated a Cordoban army. Musa ibn Musa and Íñigo Íñiguez again joined forces to ambush and capture one of Abd ar-Rahman's commanders in 843, al-Harit, but the consequence was a massive military response from Córdoba, led by the Emir in person, resulting in the defeat of the allies and the taking of slaves in the vicinity of Pamplona.. A second retaliatory expedition in 844 inflicted a further defeat, in which Fortún Íñiguez, the premier soldier of Pamplona, was killed and Musa and Íñigo barely escaped, while hundreds of the Pamplona nobility defected to the Cordoban side. Musa submitted and in November led his troops to Seville, helping to rout a Viking raiding party. However, he again rebelled the next year. When Muhammad, son of Abd ar-Rahman, took Tudela, Musa submitted, offered his sons as hostages and went to the emir’s court. In 846 Musa again was forced to submit, this time to the emir's son Hisham, but Abd ar-Rahman was again forced to launch punitive campaigns against Musa in 847, and in 850 when Musa and Íñigo again joined in rebellion, Musa's son Isma'il ibn Musa playing a critical role in the uprising.

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