#qurtuba

Proposed twinning of Heraklion and Córdoba.

The Cordoban rebels of the 9th century who were expelled by the emir and founded a kingdom in Crete

• A group of citizens promotes the twinning* of Córdoba and Heraklion, in an act in which direct descendants of the Rabadis take part, the Andalusians who arrived at the edge of the Mediterranean 1,200 years ago to stand up to another empire, the Byzantine Empire.

Córdoba and Heraklion (the capital of Crete) have an unknown history in common, that of the Rabadks: a rebellious people, who one day stood up to the emir of Al Andalus for the high taxes they paid and who ended up expelled and founding a kingdom which lasted a century and a half in the confines of the Mediterranean. Now, a group of citizens from Cordoba and Crete have come together to claim this history, this common past, and promote twinning between two cities that share the past of a group of citizens who did not give up. Its history has remained hidden after Crete was conquered by the Byzantine Empire and controlled by the Orthodox Church ever since.

This Tuesday, the Living Library of Al Andalus (in the historic Plaza del Bailío in Córdoba) hosted a round table attended by descendants of those Cordobans who 1,200 years ago were forced to go into exile, who disembarked after many vicissitudes. on the island of Crete and who ended up founding a kingdom that also stood up to another empire, in this case the Byzantine one, for more than a century. Their story was told in Spain by two writers. One was Manuel Harazem from Córdoba, now deceased, in 2017. His book was titled La Odisea de los Rabadíes (The Odyssey of the Rabadis), with the subtitle of what he considered to be The First Hispanic Exile. Harazem had spent years of his life studying the rabadís, the inhabitants of a suburb of Córdoba where new homes were never built again. The writer Carmen Panadero has dedicated a trilogy to the vicissitudes of the Rabadis, a story that began in the year 818, when their revolt began in what is now the Miraflores park in Córdoba. Several meters from the surface where tourists walk, in the great meander that the Guadalquivir draws a few meters from the Mosque of Córdoba, the foundations of the houses of the Rabadis are still preserved, which were razed by order of the emir of Qurtuba. Until not long ago, those foundations were visible. A building by Rem Koolhas, the South Palace, was to be built above it. But they have just been buried by tons of earth so that tourists can park.

In the 9th century, the residents of this immense Cordoban suburb rebelled over taxes. The emir Al Hakem I wanted to set an example and executed a good part of them, either by sword or by crucifixion. Those who survived were sent into exile. Some to the current Morocco, where they came to co-found Fez (that is why Córdoba is already twinned with this city, which has a neighborhood called the Andalusians), and others to Toledo (that is already twinned with Heraklion, because they're linked by Doménikos Theotokópoulos "El Greco", since he was born in Heraklion and he later settled and died in Toledo), from where they also had to be exiled again. From there they ended up in Greece and Alexandria, where they faced the Byzantines. But the Caliphate of Baghdad surrounded them again, they were expelled from Alexandria and had to go to sea again, until they landed in Crete. And no one moved them from there in 140 years. They entrenched themselves and founded a kingdom.

THE EMIR OF THE ACORNS

In 2017, Harazem recalled that when the Rabadis settled in Crete, they founded a city “which they named Arrabal in honor of the Arrabal of Saqunda, consolidating a dynasty of emirs, the first of whom, born in Bitrawsh, nowadays known as Pedroche (a town from the province of Córdoba, 93 km away from the city), carried the nickname of al-Balluti (from Fahs al-Ballut**, the plain of acorns, the Arabic name of the current valley of Los Pedroches), and the last the nickname of al-Qurtubi, that is, the Cordoban. But al-Qurtubi had already been born in Crete. Although he chose to keep the Cordoban nickname, so as not to forget the origin of an eventful dynasty.

The books by Carmen Panadero and Harazem had an impact on the society of today's Córdoba. So much so that some citizens, such as Panadero herself, Miguel Santiago or José Esquinas (former president of the FAO and resident in Córdoba) rushed to commemorate a sad anniversary in the first few days: the 1,200 years since this group of Cordobans rebelled against the taxes of Al Hakem I and were pushed to death or exile. In Carmen Panadero's third book, Los andaluces fundadores del emirato de Creta (The Andalusian Founders of the Emirate of Crete), the protagonist is the grandfather of Nikolas Metaxas. Nikolas has been in Córdoba all week. On Monday he was in Pedroche, leaving a floral offering at the bust of al-Ballutí. And this Tuesday he was the protagonist of the conference at the Al Andalus Library, where he told his story, that of his grandfather and also that of his ancestors. Nikolas's grandfather undertook a trip to Córdoba in the seventies of the 20th century in search of his origins. He was the first person to question his origins, which are taboo in Crete. He traveled through Córdoba, visited the Saqunda neighborhood, devastated since 818. And he also crossed the Strait, like his ancestors, to Fez, to the Andalusian neighborhood, to see the city that his ancestors co-founded.

Two of the heirs of the Cordobans in Crete, before the bust of the first emir, which stands in Pedroche.

A SILENCED HISTORY

The heir to that legacy is today Nikolas, who has arrived in Córdoba with the intention of little by little dispelling that taboo. In Crete, those of Andalusian origin are called Creto Arabs. And they are not well considered. The weight of the Orthodox Church and the Islamic past of their ancestors conditions them. And the history drawn by the victors points them out as rebels without a cause who entered Crete “with fire and blood.”

Crete today has less than 180,000 inhabitants. It is estimated that in the Saqunda riot, in Qurtuba, some 20,000 Cordobans were expelled. At least half reached Crete, where they lived in peace for 140 years. Until Byzantium conquered the island and they were forced to change their religion.

To this day, much is unknown about his legacy. But a group of descendants has already managed to tell the story of the Andalusians in the Heraklion museum. At the University of Athens, papers have begun to be published that contradict the official history, that the Andalusians were nothing short of barbarians. And they point out the opposite: that they were artisans, who dominated finance and agriculture, and that as soon as they arrived they began to trade and issue their own currency, revolutionizing the economy of the largest of the Greek islands.

Now, the objective of the heirs of the also called Rabadis is to ensure that their history is known and that Córdoba can be twinned with Heraklion to claim a common past. As with the history of Islamic Córdoba, these Andalusians maintain that their ancestors behaved in Crete as in Al Andalus, tolerated all religions, promoted trade, agriculture and knowledge. “And that is something we need in these times,” concludes Miguel Santiago, one of the Cordoban inhabitants of the Córdoba of the 21st century.

Excavation of the Saqunda suburb

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