Omar ben Hafsun

`Umar ibn Hafsun ibn Ja'far ibn Salim (Arabic: عمر بن حَفْصُون بن جعفر بن سالم) (c. 850 – 917), known in Spanish history as Omar ben Hafsun, was a 9th-century rebel against Ummayad power in southern Iberia.

The background of Umar ibn Hafsun has been the subject of conflicting claims. His contemporary, the poet ibn Abd Rabbih (860-940) referred to him as a Sawada, a descendant of black Africans. Writing a century later, ibn Hayyan recorded a pedigree for Umar ibn Hafsun, tracing his descent to a great-grandfather, Ja'far ibn Salim, who had converted to Islam and settled in the Ronda area of the Province of Málaga in southern Spain. The pedigree then traces back several additional generations to one Count Marcellus (or perhaps Frugelo), son of Alfonso, apparently a Christian Visigoth. This pedigree was copied by later historians, including Ibn Idhari, Ibn Khatib, and ibn Khaldun, as well as the A'lam Malaga (History of Malaga) begun by ibn 'Askar and completed by Ibn Khamis, and more recent authors such as Reinhart Dozy, in his Histoire des Mussulmans d'Espagne (History of the Muslims of Spain). However, Wasserstein recently concluded that the pre-conversion portion of this pedigree was probably invented by Umar himself. Conde in 1820 indicated that Umar ibn Hafsun was "a man of pagan origin, of obscure and unknown ancestry." Regardless, his family owned lands in Iznate, Málaga where ibn Hafsun grew up.

Ibn Hafsun was born around 850 in the mountains near Parauta, in what is now Málaga. A wild youth, he had a very violent temper and was involved in a number of disputes, even a homicide around the year 879. He joined a group of brigands, was captured by the wali (governor) of Málaga, who merely imposed a fine (having not been informed of the homicide). The governor subsequently lost his post. Ibn Hafsun fled the jurisdiction to Morocco where he worked briefly as an apprentice tailor or stonemason.

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Wikipedia