520 government organization: further reading building of public works Al-Rahman I was particularly desirous of creating a rich agricultural basis for al-Andalus, probably remembering the rings of gardens surrounding Islamic cities to the east, and he had the land of al-Andalus accurately surveyed so that he could organize the land’s agriculture efficiently and build irrigation canals where they could bring water to parched, but otherwise fertile territory His purpose seems to have been to give his cities a sound grounding in the countryside around them, enabling them to survive independently in times of war as well as providing a deep tax base He and his successors tended to depend on foreigners to man their armies, rather than drafting farmers This may have been a sign of the importance he placed on the work of farmers, or it may have indicated a distrust of farmers, many of whom were only recent converts to Islam and could switch back to Christianity or Judaism when convenient If there was suspicion, it eased a little under Abd alRahman III, who gave Jewish merchants trading privileges and protections On January 16, 929, Abd al-Rahman III (r 912–61) declared himself caliph, basing his claim on his descent from the Umayyad caliphs and effectively breaking off from the Fatimids and Abbasids In al-Andalus and much of western North Africa he was regarded as the only true caliph, the others in Baghdad and Cairo being regarded as usurpers Cities in al-Andalus were run by governors who were responsible for collecting taxes and maintaining public order The Hafsun clan had taken over much of eastern al-Andalus, and members of the caliph’s family had taken control of the cities of Seville, Ronda, and Jaén and taken their territories away from the imperial government, leaving only the province of Cordoba for al-Rahman III to inherit In only two years, he retook the cities and expelled the Hafsuns from al-Andalus He later established governors for much of North Africa Al-Rahman III reformed the imperial government, centering control of public order, tax collection, and public works in his capital of Córdoba His government administration was focused on an elite group of administrators, with himself serving as the chief administrator He was a hands-on ruler, personally visiting parts of his empire and organizing a new irrigation program for farms He treated foreign policy with vigor, developing a good diplomatic corps and establishing diplomatic relations with the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire Further, he reorganized the military administration, taking authority from regional governors and placing it in Córdoba, where he favored the military leadership of Slavs and Berbers, who served directly under him An important part of his administration was fostering the arts, literature, and sciences, bringing scholars and poets to his court His reforms seem to have eased rivalries among dif- ferent regions of al-Andalus, which some historians credit with fostering the widespread conversions to Islam during his rule The overall effect was to give his subjects a strong sense of unity See also architecture; borders and frontiers; cities; climate and geography; crime and punishment; death and burial practices; economy; education; empires and dynasties; family; foreigners and barbarians; gender structures and roles; health and disease; inventions; language; laws and legal codes; migration and population movements; military; money and coinage; pandemics and epidemics; religion and cosmology; resistance and dissent; scandals and corruption; seafaring and navigation; settlement patterns; sacred sites; social collapse and abandonment; social organization; towns and villages; trade and exchange; war and conquest; weaponry and armor further reading Graham Connah, African Civilizations: An Archaeological Perspective, 2nd ed (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) T Patrick Culbert, ed., Classic Maya Political History (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1991) Terence Daltroy, Provincial Power in the Inka Empire (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian, 1992) Patricia B Ebrey, China: A Cultural, Social, and Political History (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006) Thomas Emerson, Cahokia and the Archaeology of Power (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997) Rosemary Horrox, ed., Fifteenth-Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994) Albert Hourani, “Cities and Their Rulers,” in his History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991) John K Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy: The Evolution of the Civil Life, 1000–1350 (London: Macmillan, 1973) Steven Lekson, The Chaco Meridian: Centers of Political Power in the Ancient Southwest (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira, 1999) James E Lindsay, “The Political Character of Medieval Islamic Societies” and “Fragmentation of the Caliphate and Perso-Islamic Kingship” in his Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005) David Nicolle, “Age of the Mamluks,” in his Historical Atlas of the Islamic World (New York: Checkmark Books, 2003) Roland Oliver and Anthony Atmore, Medieval Africa, 1250–1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001) Timothy Pauketat and Thomas Emerson, eds., Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997) J M Roberts, “The Arab Empires,” in his Age of Diverging Traditions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) David Williamson, Debrett’s Kings and Queens of Europe (Topsfield, Mass.: Salem House, 1988)